Friday, March 26, 2021
To: Friends & Supporters
From: Gary Bauer
Friends, the challenges we face are enormous. To defend our values, we are partnering with various allies, including Lindsey Communications, The Lindsey Foundation, Faith Wins and the Pacific Justice Institute to empower the resurgence of the Church vote. Below is their latest alert. Please share the resources included here with your church leaders and fellow worshippers. – Gary
The Church Finds Its Voice
A Coalition of Lindsey Communications, The Lindsey Foundation,
Faith Wins and the Pacific Justice Institute
to Empower the Resurgence of the Church Vote!
Comm #18: Undistracted
Good morning and Happy Easter to all of our wonderful pastors and ministry leaders. Joan here, wishing us all an Easter celebration of exceptional joy and faith. Risen again is a phrase we can also apply to our Church in America.
The Church is finding its voice! Please don’t listen to the media, really, don’t when they try to make it seem as if you’re an outdated voice, because that’s not true. We need you. . . we’ve always needed you, and not only that, we need you to lead. As did those before you who were the pillars of American life.
You all know that I study our country’s history and that it fills me with awe. Our first act as new settlers here was to pray to God, thanking Him and dedicating the new country to be a witness to the entire world. That is our awesome original pledge, and we were brilliantly fulfilling it until. . .
Until we stopped inviting Him into our national life. Hey, I grew up in L.A. in the fifties and our country was united; undistracted. We prayed in school, and read books threaded through with Biblical teaching. Most everyone we knew went to church. Morals were a required thing of elected officials.
So, I remember our great country, how respected we were in the world and how thrilled we were to be part of a country that was free. America was the country that asked God to help us do it right. But, take out faith from public life, and voila, it goes wrong. I was a kid when the Supreme Court took Him out of the schoolroom, and I witnessed our country struggle from then on.
So now, we’re a bit off course from our good start. Many of our country’s founders were steeped in the Word. John Witherspoon, a signer of our Declaration, had read the entire Bible by age 4, plus memorized much of the New Testament. Also founder John Trumbull had read the Bible through by age 4.
Families made sure to know scripture and to teach their children. Having been kept from personally reading the Bible for centuries, early Americans determined that every single citizen would own a Bible, read it, and be free to live it.
The Bible was the primary school textbook for a long, long time. Its study was undistracted. And guess which college had this as its expectation:
“Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3), and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the holy foundation of all sound knowledge and learning…”
The answer is. . .Harvard!!
(Benjamin Pierce, A History of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA: Brown, Shattuck, and Co., 1833, appendix, P.5. Found in the article The Heart of Higher Learning from The Founders Bible, copyright 2012 by Shiloh Road Publishers, LLC.)
And so folks grew wise. America invited God into our national life. Scripture saturated the thinking of early Americans, and look what they did! They produced a government that produced a country that has been the wonder of the world. Remove the church, and we have become the target of the world.
How to get back? Here’s how; the Church teaches scripture, and the saints read scripture, and we lead our country to a good place of wisdom. Revival. And you are the leaders of it.
Problem: our media. As a media person myself, I find it really sad how American media (mostly) dismisses our Church. And. . .they are not always careful about factual reporting. So, maybe we don’t get our information from those guys.
Instead, maybe we spend more time reading the Bible (getting wise), and only use sources that actually deal in factual news and information. Truth, and truth. Good plan.
Last time we wrote to you we included some suggested media sources for pretty good factual coverage. This time we’ll do it again, with thanks to Mr. Brent Bozell and Mr. Brent Baker of the esteemed Media Research Center (for more information, visit www.mrc.org) who have graciously given us the following advice:
All the outlets you listed in your prior comm are good sources and as Brent Bozell pointed out, no outlet is perfect as “click-based” society leads to some hyped content based less on news than teasing people into reading a post.
Here are ten sites which I believe provide a quality product which pastors can trust. Reading a few posts on any two or three of these sites every day will offer readers a good understanding of the most important news of the day, without any “fake news” or content which denigrates conservative values or people of faith:
- Washington Examiner: Probably the most robust alternative, conservative-leaning news site with broad coverage and many fresh posts every day, with categories such as “Defense & National Security,” “Healthcare,” “Business” and “Energy.” Plenty of political news (“Beltway Confidential,” “Washington Secrets” and Byron York’s “Daily Memo” providing an excellent political news rundown from a conservative perspective), podcasts and a slate of opinion columnists.
- Daily Caller: Co-founded by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the site reflects his sensibilities with an emphasis on liberal intolerance and posts about topics suppressed by the leftist media, as well as looks at how traditional media outlets are distorting the news. But it also provides fair and accurate coverage of all the major news of the day.
- The Washington Times: In addition to providing a conservative opinion perspective and highlighting right-leaning interests in their news section, they also do investigative reporting on subjects that the liberal media aren’t interested in (Biden administration, cultural issues, free markets). Downside: They have a paywall which requires a paid subscription after viewing just a few stories a month.
- RealClearPolitics. As the name suggests, of the sources in this list, the one most focused on politics. The site features dependable statistics and significant original reporting, but its strength is its daily list of a well-balanced selection of political articles from the left, the right and in between.
- The Daily Wire: Created by Ben Shapiro, the podcaster/talk radio host very popular with younger conservatives, the site’s posts are oriented toward content that resonates with people in their 20s and 30s.
- CNSNews, with “the right news, right now,” aims “to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story and debunk popular, albeit incorrect, myths about cultural and policy issues.” The site specializes in the angles to events ignored by the major media outlets, with a special focus on life issues and the federal debt.
- FoxNews, Newsmax and One America News Network (OAN). Whether by watching their TV channels or by reading their web sites, they all provide news you won’t see on the other news channels, free of the all too-widespread antipathy toward conservatives and religious believers. Newsmax has the advantage of being the easiest for “cord cutters” to watch, with a free online feed (https://www.newsmaxtv.com/) and is free to watch on Roku, Amazon Fire stick and other streaming services with free channels.
- El American: A new, bilingual site with news of interest to Hispanic Americans, emerging as a trustworthy news source that reports on matters often omitted by Univision or Telemundo.
https://elamerican.com/
America has an astounding history, built by those who used scripture as their primary teacher. Like them, we do best when the Bible is the book we read the very most. Adding in truthful sources of news and information is freedom from the distraction of inaccuracy. Undistracted is powerful.
We’re praying for you, backing you up, and being glad in your voice. It has risen once again, and is getting stronger all the time.
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An update and thoughts from Coalition member, Chad Connelly…
We live in strange times indeed. Every generation surely faces unsettled and uncertain times and obviously, some generations of Americans faced real trouble, strife and even war. Maybe these days pale in comparison to the challenges those previous generations faced.
At the same time, cancel culture, media disinformation and dishonesty, and clutter and confusion by established institutions we used to trust have made these days difficult in their own right.
Pastors, faith leaders, Sunday school teachers, Deacons and surely parents are all coming face to face with a time when there is so much noise and confusion out there that it’s just tough cutting through that clutter to get to TRUTH. That’s where we have to reside— in TRUTH and in HIS Word.
It seems our lives are dictated by the “swipe” on some social media platform and too much of our thinking comes from what some anonymous source claims.
There is also no doubt that part of the distortion — and certainly there are folks who are anti-Biblical and anti-God and I believe, anti-American— comes from those who are participating in this intentionally, who want to rewrite our true American history.
It doesn’t take much honest reading of original sources to see that you cannot tell the story of American success without telling about God’s providential role in the formation of what has become the most prosperous and most free nation in world history.
If only we could go back to true journalism in the mass media instead of corporate media distortion and now open and widespread censorship of things conservative and Christian!
I honestly think the mainstream media is so sold out to leftist ideals that I am not sure they can recover in the short term with any credibility. That leaves it to us to find trustworthy sources of news and information, but it also means we have to be MORE discerning and wise about what and who we listen to and get our news from.
For starters— and I am confident that all of you are doing this— STAY in THE WORD and dedicate daily time to prayer and Bible reading. That is always first on the list. Along with that, how are we doing in reminding our children and grandchildren of that importance??
I know I work hard to stay focused on reminding my loved ones that true wisdom only comes from God. I can hear one of my life mentors, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones saying to me, “Don’t forget Romans 10:17, 'So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.’” We learn and develop faith by staying in The Word of God.
After our Bible reading, we are all people who others look to for advice and counsel, so we have to be very smart about our sourcing. We MUST be well-versed and well-read people and we have to know what sources to read and to recommend.
Obviously there are hundreds, but for me, every Christian in America ought to be reading David Barton’s books and articles on www.wallbuilders.com. As my mentor, friend, and co-Coalition member, Joan Lindsey says, "David is simply a national gem.” There is more original source information in his brain than any person’s I’ve ever met!
David has been a hero and mentor to me from afar and I’ve known him now for almost 30 years. If you ever get the chance, you should go to his library in Texas and spend a day — he and his team have amassed more original source information from our Founder’s than any place other than the Smithsonian! In the meantime, read his books and pass them along!
David and I and other national leaders in the faith community will be partnering in 2021 to come to your state and your cities to do more intensive pastor trainings. WE HAVE to get more of our pastors to engage this culture!
We’re losing our rights and freedoms to a dishonest press, a committed group of elected officials who are socialistic at their core and to an angry, misinformed mob of people who hate the very idea of America and do all they can to distort truth and create mayhem.
As with all things, the answer is Jesus. I don’t care what the question is, but the answer is Jesus. Right after that, it’s being informed, passing on good and trustworthy information, and engaging this culture with TRUTH.
God Bless you and we hope to see you soon!
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“Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” -John 17:17
Kielle here, and so glad to be back writing to you all again. I want to echo Joan’s powerful words at the beginning of this Comm. The citizens of our nation are searching for truth. . . realness, facts, and truths free from distractions used to control and manipulate.
Dear pastors, your voice, saturated in biblical truth, is the one we can trust with confidence and what we so urgently need; shining the light on that real truth so that we can find it within the myriad of distorted news that permeates our culture today.
Thank you for courageously accepting your calling to do so. We need to hear this resounding truth more than ever!
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And our co-Coalition member and President of the Pacific Justice Institute, Brad Dacus, offers these resources to help keep you undistracted! If you’d like to remind yourself of your legal rights, read their thoughts about government overreach, and read how PJI is available to help you, please see the following:
https://www.pacificjustice.org/resources/for-churches/
PJI Speaks On the Role of Government Overreach
Many believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said, “The best government is that which governs least.” This statement could not be further from current reality as our government pursues expansion in so many areas of daily life.
It seems hard to point to anything in this post-covid society that the government isn’t trying to somehow control or change! The pace at which it is doing so is staggering, and the shift away from Judeo-Christian values has never been more rapid.
The Constitution has been our “line in the sand” — our protection from governmental overreach. But, sadly the First Amendment has seen numerous violations over the last year in the name of public health. We’ve watched as the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion have been suppressed and limited by both the private and public sector.
And, perhaps not coincidentally, in the wake of these constitutional infringements, the next governmental focus seems to be on limiting the rights provided by the Second Amendment which reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The majority of our nationally elected officials praise and encourage illegal immigration while simultaneously demeaning the rights of this country’s citizens and the principles on which this country was founded. Government has become so self-invested that it no longer seeks to protect and defend the rights and God-given privileges that we all hold dear.
God established and ordained government for the specific purpose of preserving a nation’s values and defending the rule of law. So, what can we do? We must hold those within office accountable to fulfilling their God-given role and when they stray from biblical principles and traditional values, we must boldly proclaim the truth and defend our freedoms.
When the government no longer knows its place, the burden rests in the hands of those willing to legally fight for what is right. When our elected officials embrace a false idea of justice, we need warriors in our courts to stand for true justice—found in the constitution and preserved when the same moral standard is applied to any situation. We must fight to ensure that the values of our founding documents are commonly followed, regardless of the political climate.
And this is what organizations like Pacific Justice Institute are diligently laboring to do. We are a people of faith seeking to defend the rule of law as a final xxxxxx for freedom. We are fighting to preserve the constitution and provide a voice in the judicial system for those whose freedoms are being threatened. May we stand together and let our voices be heard.
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We stand with you and are praying for you!
-Joan, Brad, Chad and Kielle - Your Church Finds Its Voice Leadership
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