1411 Pastors and Crosses Are Frightening
“Every man must choose his world. If we who follow Christ … deliberately choose the Kingdom of God as our sphere of interest, I see no reason why anyone should object. If we lose by it, the loss is our own, if we gain, we rob no one by so doing.” So wrote A.W. Tozer in his 1948 classic “In Pursuit of God”.
Houston, Texas and Grand Haven, Michigan appear to be working through different issues but at the core, the real issue is the same.
In Houston, Texas the city council pushed through a non-discrimination ordinance this past May. The passage of the ordinance was controversial even after an open rest room provision was removed and exemptions for private clubs and for nonprofits were sustained. In response, a group of pastors spearheaded a ballot initiative effort which netted 55,000 signatures, more than three times the 17,000 required. After Houston’s city clerk legally validated the petition, city attorney David Feldman intervened to disqualify 38,000 of them. When the pastors filed a law suit, the situation reached critical mass. The city subpoenaed the five opposition pastors’ “speeches”, text messages, computer files, emails, photographs and “communications” with congregants. On October 29th, under intense national pressure, Mayor Annise Parker announced the withdrawal of the subpoena.
Gospel preachers have a unique status in America. Spiritual awakenings were the precursors to America’s war for independence and her struggle to abolish slavery. Servants of the Church have been in the thick of every war, social conflict and disaster throughout our history. They have been our spiritual, moral and social backbone.
But for people like Parker and Feldman, the real issue remains a Christianity that would dare defy them.
Grand Haven, Michigan has a different problem. Christians and non-Christians have lived together in that community over the last 50 years while the 48-foot-tall Dewey Hill cross has been raised and lowered each year for various private and community events. Not anymore. Mitch Kahle moved to town with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State following close behind. He brought with him over twenty years of experience in stirring up church/state and gay rights litigation.
Over the years, it has become the norm to justify the visibility of crosses and other religious symbols located in public spaces based on their historical and/or cultural value. It has been effective at the expense of the whole truth. The cross is neither a mere artifact nor some kind of talisman with the power to oppress unwilling subjects. It is indeed a part of America’s history and heritage but more as well. It represents deliverance for one’s soul out of death into life, the release from oppression into freedom and the instrument of deliverance from curse into blessing.
For Kahle and Americans United, the real issue is a Christianity that would dare defy them..
This present lunacy began 25 years ago when the Supreme Court invented a new addendum to the First Amendment by a one-vote margin. For the first time, in defiance of history and the simple mechanics of language, the Court declared that two clauses within the same sentence, the establishment of religion clause and the free exercise of religion clause, should somehow be treated as completely separate entities and thereby be placed in opposition to one another. After having created that distinction, the Court materialized the “endorsement test” out of thin air and thereby enabled the war on public religion and on Christianity in particular.
In the world of secularists and liberal religionists, conservative pastors and public crosses merely have to exist to be oppressive. All they have to do is be visible, either literally or figuratively, within public discourse. This is a strange disposition given the realities just mentioned as well as present realities such as the thousands of crosses in Arlington National Cemetery, biblical references saturated throughout the nation’s capital and a national heritage built on the bended knees of our founders and forefathers.
Symbols have meaning and value. Apparently, pastors and crosses are frightening, even to Supreme Court justices.