Good morning,

If liberty is to die here, I have come to believe that death will have been preceded by whimpers of ecclesiastical acquiescence. So I conclude the week reflecting on what that means, and what must change.

First, here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, December 3, 2021
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Abbott: Waiting On Courts For Vax Action

• Despite growing pressure from lawmakers, the Republican Party of Texas, and Texans facing job losses, Gov. Greg Abbott says he is waiting for the courts to solve the “vaccine mandate” issue. Jeramy Kitchen has the details. 
     
• Besides the Texas GOP itself, there are 26 lawmakers from both legislative chambers who have publicly called on the governor to bring the House and Senate into a special session to address the issue. Under the Texas Constitution, a special legislative session can only be called by a specific order from the sitting governor.
     
• Earlier this week, a federal judge blocked the Biden administration’s nationwide vaccine mandate for healthcare workers with a preliminary injunction.
     
• Other states have already convened their legislatures to consider and pass varying legislation to address vaccine mandates, including Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Tennessee, and Utah.

Appeals Court Allows Ban On Mask Mandates

• Griffin White reports on the continuing sparring match in the courts regarding Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order that bans state entities from implementing mask requirements. Several weeks ago Judge Lee Yeakel, a Bush appointee of the Western District Court of Texas, struck down Abbott’s order.
     
• Now, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has overruled Yeakel’s ruling – going so far as to call it “erroneous” – and thereby putting the governor’s executive order back in operation.
      
• Numerous school districts – including Dallas ISD – have already announced they will continue to ignore the governor’s order.
      
• Legislation that would have banned mask mandates failed to pass during the regular session, and was never placed by Abbott on the agenda for the special sessions earlier this year. 

Texas’ Social Media Law Blocked

• A new Texas law to protect individual free speech on social media has been halted by a federal court, reports Sydnie Henry. The law sought to hold social media companies accountable to the citizens they were deplatforming for personal political views, following the notable revocation of high-profile conservatives from social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
      
• Just one day before the law was set to go into effect, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman granted a preliminary injunction to halt the Texas law. An Obama appointee, Pitman has a history of halting Texas laws, having also blocked the Texas Heartbeat Act in October and allowing the University of Texas to continue their race-based admissions practices, also known as affirmative action, in July.
   

• This latest decision is expected to be appealed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

• On this morning’s edition of The Headline, Brandon Waltens will be joined by Jeramy Kitchen and Tony McDonald. They will cover these rulings as well as the Supreme Court’s landmark arguments on abortion. Catch the show live at 11 a.m., or get the video archive and podcast later in the day.

Legislative Corruption

• In the latest installment of Liberty Cafe, Bill Peacock examines how the power of leadership can lead to a corruption that places the interests of the leaders above the liberty of their constituents. Check it out on our website, or subscribe wherver you listen to podcasts.

GOP Plans ‘22 Election Integrity Push

• While many Texans remain frustrated by unanswered questions about the 2020 election, Erin Anderson reports on the plans being made by Texas Republicans to avoid future problems.
   
• “At the national level, election integrity is Priority 1, 2, and 3,” said Melissa Conway, the Republican National Committee’s election integrity director for Texas.

An Oppressive, Abusive School Board

• Amid a troubling series of events in their local school district, Jacob Asmussen writes that voters in the north Austin suburb of Round Rock are continuing to expose corruption in their school district—and demanding action.
       
• The Round Rock Independent School District has been rocked by a series of scandals – including allegations the new superintendent pressured his mistress to have an abortion, threatening her physically if she didn’t acquiesce, and then – allegedly – assaulting her when she contacted RRISD board members about his fitness to lead the district. Meanwhile, the school board kept taxpayers out of a meeting regarding tax rates, and the district has been unresponsive to parents on policies ranging from masks to gender identity. 
       
• “[School officials] have oppressed and threatened parents. They have violated the law in order to hide their actions and cover up credible allegations of actual crimes to protect their own political positions,” said one district parent, Jeremy Story, at a rally outside RRISD’s headquarters.
     
• Only two school board members of the seven have spoken out about the district’s problems – and for that the rest of the board has worked to censure them.
      
• “For some odd reason, this scourge, this cancer is not just in Virginia, it’s not just in California or some other place— it’s right here, just up the road from the capital of the Lone Star State,” said Lt. Col. Allen West, a Republican candidate for governor. “And I would have never thought that we would be in Texas concerned about authoritarianism, totalitarianism and tyranny from elected officials, against parents.”

Friday Reflection: Cowards in the Pulpit

Shepherds were tough, hardy men. They guarded their flocks patiently, passionately, and – when necessary – brutally. Among the last things a ravenous wolf or thief would feel when threatening a flock of sheep, would be the crushing blow of the shepherd’s staff or a rock striking their head. The protection of the flock was of paramount importance.

The soft shepherds leading many Christian churches today amount to little more than an ironic joke. For the faint applause of the godless elite, they abandon their flocks to the spiritual and physical dangers of the fallen world. 

It was bad enough when pastors stopped calling out sin. Pulpits have long fallen silent on calling out the “fashionable” sins of the cultural elite – and when they do it is with an apologetic tone. They are in such fear of losing donations, or even the exalted “tax deductible” status of their churches, that they mute themselves and censor God.

Far too many pastors have resorted to the safety of sermons treating Scripture like a second-rate self-help book. The left has been pulling out the threads of the nation’s moral fabric with the tacit approval of our clergy.

Meanwhile, criticism of leftist government policies are verboten, and critiques of government are silenced unless they can be framed in a way that denigrates political conservatives. 

All of which has made a safe space for physical cowards. These are the pastors who intentionally conflate thuggish criminality with systemic persecution. They draw false lines between the criminal who breaks into your home to steal your TV and threaten your family, with the enemies of faith like Nero, Hitler, and Stalin. That criminal doesn’t care about your faith; he’s just a plain old evil-doer.

One such pastor is Protestant author John Piper. Not long ago he wrote a commentary for the Washington Post in which he equated violent crimes with acts of persecution. Piper specifically encourages Christians to practice a foolish pacifism in the face of crime that would have befuddled church leaders even a century ago.

The intellectual and moral dishonesty is breathtaking.

While “just call 911” might be a nice sentiment for overpaid media personalities safely ensconced in a gated community, when uttered by pastors it is a death sentence – or worse – for most of the flocks they fleece. When seconds matter, police crime scene investigators are a lifetime away.

Treating base criminal acts as if they are the persecution of the church makes a mockery of the sacrifices made by martyrs through the centuries. It is absolutely sin when a hardened criminal breaks into a home and murders a family, but it isn’t persecution. Letting criminals roam unchecked isn’t a sign of godliness, but of cowardice.

The life of liberty in America began with exhortations from the pulpit. In the American Revolution, pastors stood literally on the front lines – often armed with a musket in one hand and a Bible in the other. If liberty is to die here, that death will have been preceded by whimpers of ecclesiastical acquiescence.

The shepherds of our churches must protect their flocks, or go back to hiding under the beds. This is a time that requires physical boldness, not spiritualized cowardice. We need strong pastors. We need shepherds in the pulpits willing to kill the wolves, literally.

Now, more than ever, America needs a muscular church unafraid of earthly powers and principalities, and willing to confront them – physically and spiritually.