Cultural Stewardship: Ohio's Patriot Pastors ...

[RedEarth]

The Stewardship of our Citizenship

God has blessed America with a tremendous heritage of faith. This light of conviction has guided our nation to her finest moments. Courageous ministers from a variety of denominations should become instruments of God in shaping our country's destiny. The people from her shores would export hope and freedom to much of the globe. The passion from America's pulpits helped ignite a new chapter in human history. In the years that followed:

Our nation's founding documents are woven with principles from God's Word.
In seasons of crisis and in her hour of greatest need, Americans went to their churches and their knees seeking the protection, provision and sustaining grace of Almighty God.
For America's first 175 years, millions of children would learn to read using the Bible.
Americans sent missionaries to declare God's grace and mercy on every continent.
Family faith became the building block of the greatest nation in the history of the world.
God would raise up America with the resources of technology, wealth, and leadership to share a living Savior with a dying world.

During the past 50 years this mission has come under spiritual warfare of epic proportions. From our country's classrooms to our court houses, from Christmas carols to graduation celebrations, from the pledge of allegiance to our state motto...the forces of darkness have opposed every public expression of allegiance to God. The arteries of our culture have been infected with the toxin of dogmatic secularism which have sought to deny America's Godly heritage and undermine her God-given potential.

Will America's children be able to say the pledge of allegiance as "one nation under God?"
Is the Biblical definition of marriage going to be exchanged for deviant political correctness?
Will public schools become more antagonistic towards people of faith?
Can anything be done to stop the harvesting of body parts of unborn children through partial birth abortion?
Will tax-funded universities continue their secular jihad against professors of faith?
Will Bible-believing ministers be prosecuted under "hate crimes" for teaching the Scriptural truth that homosexual behavior is against God's design?
Should public schools practice academic freedom in teaching evidences for both evolution and intelligent design?
Will decent family doctors be driven from serving the communities they love by the selfishness of frivolous law suites and epidemic greed?
How long will Ohio's families be burdened by excessive taxes and government waste?

The Stewardship of our Citizenship is crucial to this hour. The hinges of history are moving on our watch and many refuse to just spectate. Thank God for ministers across denominational lines that are taking serious Jesus' call to be "salt and light". The Sacred Trust of Freedom has been purchased with a purpose. It's not enough to make pious observations and diagnose the culture. "Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness". It's time for Patriot Pastors to Pray > Serve > Engage the culture. The Ohio Restoration Project seeks the heart of God and the fellowship of His People in enlisting Patriot Pastors "For such a time as this".

In his service,

Pastor Russell Johnson


http://ohiorestorationproject.com/

here is what Bill Moyers had to say about this group......

Let's take a brief detour to Ohio and I'll show you what I am talking about. In recent weeks a movement called the Ohio Restoration Project has been launched to identify and train thousands of "Patriot Pastors" to get out the conservative religious vote next year. According to press reports, the leader of the movement- the senior pastor of a large church in suburban Columbus-casts the 2006 elections as an apocalyptic clash between "the forces of righteousness and the hordes of hell." The fear and loathing in his message is palpable: He denounces public schools that won't teach creationism, require teachers to read the Bible in class, or allow children to pray. He rails against the "secular jihadists" who have "hijacked" America and prevent school kids from learning that Hitler was "an avid evolutionist." He links abortion to children who murder their parents. He blasts the "pagan left" for trying to redefine marriage. He declares that "homosexual rights" will bring "a flood of demonic oppression." On his church website you read that "Reclaiming the teaching of our Christian heritage among America's youth is paramount to a sense of national destiny that God has invested into this nation."

One of the prominent allies of the Ohio Restoration Project is a popular televangelist in Columbus who heads a $40 million-a-year ministry that is accessible worldwide via l, 400 TV stations and cable affiliates. Although he describes himself as neither Republican nor Democrat but a "Christocrat"-a gladiator for God marching against "the very hordes of hell in our society"-he nonetheless has been spotted with so many Republican politicians in Washington and elsewhere that he has been publicly described as a"spiritual advisor" to the party. The journalist Marley Greiner has been following his ministry for the organization, FreePress. She writes that because he considers the separation of church and state to be "a lie perpetrated on Americans-especially believers in Jesus Christ"-he identifies himself as a "wall builder" and "wall buster." As a wall builder he will "restore Godly presence in government and culture; as a wall buster he will tear down the church-state wall." He sees the Christian church as a sleeping giant that has the ability and the anointing from God to transform America. The giant is stirring. At a rally in July he proclaimed to a packed house: "Let the Revolution begin!" And the congregation roared back: "Let the Revolution begin!"

(The Revolution's first goal, by the way, is to elect as governor next year the current Republican secretary of state who oversaw the election process in 2004 year when a surge in Christian voters narrowly carried George Bush to victory. As General Boykin suggested of President Bush's anointment, this fellow has acknowledged that "God wanted him as secretary of state during 2004" because it was such a critical election. Now he is criss-crossing Ohio meeting with Patriot Pastors and their congregations proclaiming that "America is at its best when God is at its center.") .

The Ohio Restoration Project is spreading. In one month alone last year in the president's home state of Texas, a single Baptist preacher added 2000 "Patriot Pastors" to the rolls. On his website he now encourages pastors to "speak out on the great moral issues of our day.to restore and reclaim America for Christ."

[tocqueville]

1. Ohio's pastors love children... very much

Evangelical Churches Resist Ohio Abuse-Reporting Bill

First Amendment Center
February 20, 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Several fundamentalist churches oppose a bill that would require the clergy to report child abuse, saying the legislation is an unnecessary intrusion into the separation of church and state.

The bill, supported by mainstream churches including Roman Catholics and Methodists, easily passed the Senate last year but is stalled in a House committee because of the ministers' concerns.

Pastors of independent Baptist churches and evangelical congregations around Ohio say the requirement raises privacy concerns about pastors' approach to counseling and even church teachings on corporal punishment.

"If corporal discipline is considered abuse and the pastor preaches that the Bible teaches corporal discipline, what should the pastor do if the parishioners follow his preaching?" said Daniel Whisner, pastor of the Church at Chapel Hill in Mount Vernon. "Should he then turn them into the state for abuse?"

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=12728