Thursday, December 10, 2009

Can I Get an Amen?


From World Net Daily comes this absolutely BRILLIANT and extremely powerful piece by Pastor Kenneth L. Hutcherson. I've shied away from posting articles in their entirety, but this is most certainly worth the read. It ties in to the posts over the past few days.

Christians Are the New Negro
by Kenneth L. Hutcherson

I did not become a Christian so I would have to fight for my constitutional freedoms all over again.

Growing up in Alabama being black, knowing how that felt and the way I was treated in an all-white world of power and control, I had to fight for equal rights under the Constitution. How ironic now as a Christian to have those same thoughts and feelings again and to have to try and wrestle control of my constitutional rights from the secular community.

Many reading this may not understand where I came up with this concept of calling Christians "the new Negro."

The reason is because there are undeniable similarities. Jim Crow laws were passed to keep me from having my constitutional rights and my rights under the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even though the Constitution gave me those freedoms, man was smart enough to be able to keep me from living those freedoms by saying I was "separate but equal."

Today, my constitutional right of freedom of religion is being eroded again by laws such as the Hate Crimes Bill and repeated attacks by the politically correct crowd. Threats that came along as a result of an African American wanting to get out from under Jim Crow laws were formidable and scary and designed to keep African Americans quiet. The same thing is happening to Christians today.

Another way secular society is trying to control Christians is by the fallacy of the separation of church and state. That establishment clause was intended to protect the church from the state, not to keep the church from participating in the state. Christians' ignorance of the meaning of the establishment clause has allowed us to be controlled just like the African Americans were in the 1950s and '60s.

Many may question why I'm writing this article because they can't see the fight in our society and world concerning the overt attack on Judeo-Christian values.

If you don't believe one could be attacked for their stand on Judeo-Christian beliefs alone, take the case of Miss California, Carrie Prejean. Look at her refusal to compromise her Christian values. She has been vilified, demonized and lost her title simply because of her constitutional right to freedom of religion. What is so encouraging is that she will not compromise; she will not give up her values and would rather please God than take what the world has to offer her.

Sarah Palin is another example.

The politically correct crowd has a very difficult time dealing with Sarah because of who she is. Mrs. Palin is a pro-life, pro-gun, pro-traditional marriage, pro-hunting, white, conservative, Christian male who happened to have been born a woman! The politically correct crowd knows exactly what to do with a white male with those attributes, but a woman?

She is the perfect picture of the politically correct woman – strong, beautiful, able to both buy and fry the bacon, take care of the family, run an entire state and still take care of her baby. But because of who she is, and because she does not subscribe to politically correct thinking, she has been attacked for no other reason than her Judeo-Christian values, just as African Americans were attacked for no other reason than their skin color.

If you still don't think Christians are being attacked for our beliefs, consider Pastor Ake Green in Sweden and Pastor Stephen Boisson in Canada and many other men of God around the world who have been jailed and had their non-profit status threatened because they dare to call homosexuality a sin. The sad commentary is many Christians have backed off our God-given responsibility to tell the truth because secular society has deemed the truth "political." Marriage is a church issue, pornography is a church issue, homosexuality is a church issue, and divorce is a church issue. The problem is, as soon as the secular elites named them political, the evangelical church – especially the white evangelical church – retreated and held up the cowardly white flag.

If you don't think Christians have become the new Negro, just look at Christmas! We are no longer able to celebrate Christmas in schools. Even though as taxpayers, our tax dollars help pay for our broken educational system, we are forced to celebrate winter break and the fabulous "holiday tree!"

How about the wonderful greeting, "Happy Holidays!"? Department stores are afraid to put up signs with the word "Christmas" on them. Don't mistakenly think this is anything new. Secular society began taking Christ out of Christmas when they started calling it "Xmas" – and we let it happen.

In my wonderful state of Washington just last year, Gov. Christine Gregoire and the state legislators allowed an Atheist Manifesto to be put up right next to the Nativity scene of our Lord Jesus Christ! I have to say straightforward: the state of Washington is the armpit of the United States, and our lovely legislators are supplying the odiferous scent to the armpit.

Because 2008 was such a disaster, this year there will be no Christmas or religious displays in the Capitol rotunda, period. Oh, except they will put up a huge holiday tree.

Can anybody tell me where common sense is? Everyone in the world knows it's a Christmas tree. This nonsense is all in the name of tolerance toward whom? It's certainly not toward those of us who hold strong Judeo-Christian values. As Christians, it's an attack on what we hold dear. But just like the Negroes, Christians should understand they are not equal under the Constitution's right to freedom of religion.

The only difference between Christians and African Americans is that Christians put up with this intolerance while standing behind the false disguise of humility and love. We are obsessed with showing the world our love when our primary job is to tell them the truth. The Bible does not say, "Sensitivity shall set you free." It says, "The truth shall set you free." Are we not the truth-tellers?

When are we as believers, like the African Americans that came before us, going to say, enough is enough? No more "separate but equal!" Our battle cry is "We are the salt of the earth, onward Christian soldiers and to God be the glory! For in unity we will stand and we will not be stopped!

10 comments:

Amusing Bunni said...

Amen!
Did you like all the nice video's over my way?
I have another cute bunny too.

blackandgoldfan said...

Bunni: I'll have to check out the new bunny!!! Thanks!!!

Timeshare Jake said...

Wow! Now there's some truth from someone who has lived through two eras personal persecution.

blackandgoldfan said...

BB: And he is so eloquent! I absolutely LOVED this piece!

Fredd said...

Another Amen, Dr. 'Hutch' Hutcherson. In my dumber days, I used Xmas as simply an abbreviation for Christmas, and thought nothing of it. The first time my father-in-law, God rest his soul, saw this on one of my Christmas tree light boxes in our attic, he set me straight about taking Christ out of Christmas.

I make sure I spell it out all the time, now.

blackandgoldfan said...

Fredd: Me, too. But therein lies the whole point. We, as sinners, have had our redemption paid for and the past matters not. Is there any better gift? ;)

Fredd said...

Too bad about your Steelers tanking this year, I just got through watching them lose to the Browns in bitterly cold weather.

I had the good fortune of getting Super Bowl tickets to their tilt in Detroit versus the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL played on Feb 5th, 2006 with kickoff at 6PM (I looked at my ticket stub now framed and hung on my office wall to verify this). I knew a guy from my childhood who works for a big northwest company who has sky boxes at the Seattle staduim, and all these seats get Super Bowl tickets. None of the suits at this company wanted to bear the cold and blight of Detroit, so he got the tickets three days before kick off, and I happened to live within driving distance of Ford Field, and voila: Super Bowl tickets for Fredd! I paid face value for a single ticket ($600), the wife angled us some gratis hotel arrangements, and my buddy and I attend the Super Bowl cheaper than anyone else in the stadium.

It'll never happen again to me.

Being from Oregon, I have no real dog in any NLF fight as a life long fan, but since I live in Chicago now, I hang with the Bears (such as they are). And they beat the Steelers this year, too.

Still, it's sad to see the Super Bowl curse raise its head again on your Steelers to a lowly Cleveland Brown team of 2-11.

blackandgoldfan said...

Fredd: Still in mourning here and wondering WTF happened.

At least you got to attend a well-played Super Bowl. And to see the Bus (Bettis) in his final game...PRICELESS!

Malcolm said...

Calling Christians the "New Negro" is downright insulting. The Christians of today haven't come close to facing the persecution that blacks did in the past and in some cases, still do today. Also, it's easy for a Christian to hide their beliefs. I'm not saying they should, just that they could if they chose to do so. Blacks do not have the luxury of hiding their skin color.

As for Carrie Prejean, some of the attacks she received were out of line. However, much of the criticism directed toward her was because many felt she was being hypocritical (claiming to be "Biblically correct" while also showing skin in a beauty pageant and making a video of herself "flying solo" and sending it to her then-boyfriend).

In regards to Sarah Palin, I don't think her Judeo-Christian values are the reason she's been criticized. If Sarah was an atheist or an agnostic, she'd still get criticized (at least by me and many others I know).

Malcolm said...

If Christians are slammed for condemning homosexuality, I don't feel it's because they are Christian. They are slammed for being bigots who just happen to be Christian. If they were non-religious, they'd likely face the same level of scorn for their anti-gay views.

I don't consider religion and anti-gay beliefs as being synonymous. A blog buddy of mine is Catholic and she happens to be pro-gay. Actress Kristin Chenoweth is Christian, but she isn't anti-gay either. If you'd like to read what Kristin has said about being a Christian, please visit the following link and scroll down to the Personal Quotes section of her bio:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0155693/bio

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comments. By the way, I contacted you a few weeks ago in regards to writing a guest post at Diversity Ink on your feelings about Kwanzaa. Because we at Diversity Ink are interested in getting different points of view, I'd love it if you'd take the opportunity to share your opinions with our readers.