Editor, Times-Union: Thank you, Monica Boyer, for the courage you demonstrated in writing your letter “What happened to all the evangelicals?” I, too, strongly encourage the evangelical church in America to get involved in this battle and I, too, speak to myself because I have not been vocal enough. We have largely been silent in American and we cannot afford to be silent anymore. Thank you to the Catholic Church for speaking out this past week and setting an example for the rest of us.
Evangelicals, we can no longer sit comfortably in our pews teaching the biblical doctrines that we hold dear assuming that life will continue to go on as it always has. The evil mandate coming from the Obama administration this week may have just been about forcing religious groups to provide contraceptives which includes abortifacients, but will be the next mandate be? Telling us what parts of scripture we can or cannot teach? Telling us we can no longer, from our pulpits, refer to homosexuality as a sin? Telling us who we can hire or not hire in our churches?
More quickly than most thought it would happen our religious freedoms are being stripped away from us and we must speak up. This is not only for our country today and for future generations to come, but most importantly for our God who himself gave all mankind a free will and wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. I believe that if we as evangelicals truly love our fellow man and want all men to be saved just as our God does we will speak out on this issue. Evangelicals, do you truly love your fellow man? Do I truly love my fellow man?
This is not about despising or hating our government for what they are doing to us. This is about loving God enough and loving our fellow man enough that we are willing to risk everything in order to speak the truth. God’s truth is a message of love and can and needs to be spoken in love, but if we are silent so will the truth be silent.
I am praying for the Holy Spirit to wake up the church - particularly the evangelical church in America. C’mon, folks, we have the answer to life – Jesus Christ and his shed blood. What are we afraid of? What am I afraid of? “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
These are the words of a German pastor - Martin Niemoeller - during the terror of the Nazis in Germany: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”
