Forty-four United States senators voted not to make infanticide illegal, and every single one of them was a Democrat. I am speaking politically because a political party has sold out, and when forty-four senators would not vote to say that infanticide is wrong and illegal and immoral, they’ve left me, and they have, in my opinion, left Almighty God. -Dr. Ed Young
On Sunday, September 20, Dr. H. Edwin Young, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston, preached a compelling Pro-Life sermon. In addition to exposing Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion business, as taxpayer-funded killers, Dr. Young noted that a mother’s womb is the most dangerous place on the planet, dispelling all notions of a middle ground on abortion. Dr. Young celebrated Pro-Life efforts while upbraiding the Democrat party, making no apology for his political speech.
In a recent interview with Church Militant, Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chairman Trey Trainor confirmed that churches and their clergy are not barred from speaking on politics, and more importantly, Chairman Trainor explained that doing so would not jeopardize the tax-exempt status of churches or religious organizations. Trainor, who was appointed to the FEC earlier this year by President Trump, is a Constitutional lawyer, specializing in election law, and has served as counsel with Texas Right to Life.
Trainor spoke with Michael Voris of Church Militant about the way church leaders and clergy have been misguided, perhaps willfully, about mixing religion and politics. Trainor explained that the little-publicized 2017 executive order signed by President Trump effectively blocked the 1954 Johnson Amendment that banned faith communities from certain political activity; the order also prevents the IRS from pursuing churches engaged in political speech. When signing the executive order, Trump said, “This financial threat against the faith community is over.”
Rather than welcome the latitude to speak on faith and morals in the political arena, church functionaries and establishment pawns are decrying the powerful interview. Despite the green-light to speak on the moral imperatives at stake in the November 2020 elections, Trainor and Voris, as well as untold numbers of Pro-Life voters across the U.S., remain mystified that most Catholic bishops pull the “separation of religion and politics” card out of one pocket while government money flows into the other. Voris says, “In short, the U.S. Catholic bishops have, in exchange for money, sold out their obligation to preach the truth.”
One cannot be a Christian in one sphere and unaffiliated in another; Christians, including clergy, must not separate religion and politics. Faithful citizenship requires both faith and civic duty to influence the culture with biblical principles and values through talk and walk…into the voting booth. That which is in hearts and minds manifests outward in word and deed, for better or worse, or, in other words, for the sacred or the profane. In a God-rejecting and God-denying culture, proponents of death, relativism, and socialism will fill that deafening silence left by reticent Christian clergy.
Even though no church has ever lost tax exempt status for political speech, the Johnson Amendment historically chilled some Pro-Life churches and faith leaders from taking a stance on political matters. Yet abortion advocates such as Reverends Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Jeremiah Wright, and Fr. James Martin, S.J., have missed few opportunities to promote their leftist Democrat ideology at churches while Christian clergy who pastor actual flocks cower from what they perceive as controversial issues.
In recent weeks, Fr. James Altman, a Catholic priest in Wisconsin, suffered rebuke for speaking this truth: faithful Catholics cannot be Democrats. Fr. Altman expounded that anyone who claims to be a Catholic Christian cannot be aligned with an outright anti-Life political party. In the Church Militant interview, Chairman Trainor referenced Fr. Altman’s remarks as exactly the type of speech that is permitted and should be encouraged in churches, particularly in light of the fact that most Democrat candidates are pro-abortion, including Joe Biden who is a professing Catholic. Texas’ Bishop Joseph Strickland stood with Altman, lamenting that he [Strickland] took so long to express such lucidity.
Director of Priests for Life, Fr. Frank Pavone, told Breitbart in regard to abortion: “Personally, I am an Independent, [b]ut it is a moral obligation for me and for all of us in the Church, clergy and laity alike, to point out the moral corruption of the Democrat platform.”
No candidate or political party perfectly reflects or embodies the will of God, but Christians must examine and re-examine platforms, parties, and politicians and their policies to ensure that biblical values are promulgated and protected. Church leaders and clergy have a duty to reprove assaults on truth and Life and to shepherd their flocks on matters of faith and morals. Elections encompass myriad issues of faith and morals, and the most pressing are the Pro-Life issues. Dr. Ed Young and Frs. Pavone and Altman are all standing in the gap, exposing the Democrat party’s position on abortion, adroitly mixing religion and politics constitutionally from the pulpit.
Pro-Life Americans are faced with a well-funded political machine seeking to establish the most anti-Life regime in America’s history with Biden and Harris at the top of their ticket. Now is the time to mix religion and politics in the pulpits and the rooftops (Matthew 10:27).