Freedom of Religion versus Freedom of Worship

Which do you believe in? Did you know there was a difference?

The Obama administration has been seeking for some time now to redefine religious freedom down to mere freedom of worship. This distinction is between having the freedom to worship as you please with worship meaning specifically religious ceremonies held in designated buildings consecrated for that purpose led by professional clergy. But anything outside that context is fair game for the government to regulate to death as the ruling class sees fit.

So the following kinds of organizations and institutions may no longer defined as religious: hospitals, Christian schools, summer camps, pregnancy help centers, campus groups such as IVP, inner city ministries, Bible colleges, liberal arts colleges, seminaries, universities, think tanks, counseling centers, community centers, publishing companies, prison ministries, community-based youth groups etc. Christians do a lot of ministry outside the local church itself and have always had the freedom to hire Christians only, have distinctively Christian policies and allow Christian morality to shape practices. All this is threatened as the net of secularism tightens.

Freedom of worship narrowly defined is what the Soviet Union had in its constitution. But it was defined so narrowly that even parents taking their own children to Sunday School was forbidden.

How wide or narrow the definition of religious freedom is allowed to be is a measure of how free a country is. Religious freedom should be defined in the widest way possible. The narrowing of religious freedom to mere freedom to worship is heavy-handed and totalitarian. It must be resisted by the Church at the earliest stages because, like cancer, the further it progresses the harder it is to stop and the more traumatic it is for the body politic to reverse.

The Obama administration is at war with the Christian Church because it wants to replace Christianity with the Church of Secularism as the civil religion of the American people.

This is an attempt to roll back the clock and pretend that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ never happened. It is an attempt to return to pre-Christian paganism. But it is doomed to fail because the cosmos has been shaken and altered by the Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ who rule at the right hand of the Father. The kingdoms of this world are destined to become the kingdoms of our God and His Christ.

Let the Secularists rage, the Jihadists roar and the United Nations plot the advance of the culture of death. They have already been defeated - all of them.

"The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Annointed saying, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us." He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds then in derision. (Psalm 2:2-4)