Puppets in the Pulpits

By Dave Buhlman

A key factor in stirring up the people and winning the Revolutionary War was that pastors were screaming from the pulpits with lists of offenses and usurpations by King George of England and his boot-licking Parliament. These were men - good Protestant men - who feared nothing on Earth, but shuddered before and deeply believed-in Power of Heaven. So passe today.

These days pastors and priests present pabulum from the pulpit, some vague form of loving and giving, much like the hippies of the 1960s. The Gospel is read and a brief sermon given, but nothing is mentioned about the 800 million pound gorilla in the country, the federal government. The main reason for this is that the vast majority of the churches are incorporated entities under the control of the IRS through Section 501 (c) (3) which covers charitable institutions such as churches. If they run afoul of the IRS limits on free speech that attach to their tax exempt status, the IRS threatens them with removing that status and laying a tax on them like they do everything else, except what the elite tell them not to bother with. "The power to tax is the power to destroy" stated a famous US Supreme Court case (McCullough v. Maryland, 1819). But now the power Congress has given the IRS to grant tax-exempt status is the power to control, which is destroying the Church's mission to be militant on earth against the powers of darkness.

They are all for illegal immigration, a traitorous notion, and one which deeply hurts the financial well being of those now in their pews, especially lower middle class earners. The federal government passes the Patriot Act, and other decrees inimical to our constitutional rights, and the churches welcome many of the perpetrators to speak to the larger flocks. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania remarked that the president and Congress, in suspending the sacred right of habeas corpus, knocked out a right that dates back to the Magna Carta of 1285, over seven centuries ago. Ah well, hard come, easy go with Bush and the boys in DC. Pastors and priests are well educated people who know history, who know where such power grabs lead, who know what the silence of the churches helped wrought in Germany in the 1930s. Yet still, not a whimper.

When the history of this dangerous era is written, the blame for allowing a police state to take hold will lie about 70 percent with the churches, with the rest of the honor going to the "journalists."

Then there's most upper-regular folks, checking their 401 (k) statements, counting their electronic money in 14,000 increments, forgetting about the 8 trillion that was sucked out of the market only six years ago, and partying like it's 1929.