Surveying their handiwork after the Continental Congress of 1787 had just given our new nation the greatest form of government known to man, our founding fathers were concerned about one thing, JUDICIAL TYRANNY. They instinctively knew that a lifetime tenure for federal and Supreme Court judges was necessary for the stability of the fledgling Republic but they also knew that this could be the Achilles heel to continued liberty. It was the former Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes who said, “The Constitution is whatever the judges say it is.” If this is true then we have a dictatorship of nine persons. It also means that the courts have replaced the legislative branch of government. We would also have the totalitarianism that Samuel Rutherford warned about in his masterpiece Lex Rex declaring that The Law Is King rather than Lex Rex meaning that The King Is Law.

Therefore by legislating rather than simply acting as a referee to make sure that all players play by the rules the Courts are in violation of Article VI which says at Section [2], “This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof…shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby…” By ignoring this most important Article the judges have exalted themselves above the fundamental law of the land.

And the evidence will show that this is exactly what has happened in case after case especially since the Civil War. And then in the mid thirties the judges really got into high gear when President Franklin D. Roosevelt packed the Supreme Court with his cronies to carry out New Deal socialistic edicts that the Democratic Congress passed. Since then, abortion on demand, eliminating prayer and bible reading in public schools, and the loosening of pornography laws are just other examples of the work of these activist judges. But one of the most well kept secrets is the way the courts have totally decimated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The language is clear and simple, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” But when you have a President who says that it is just a matter of what “is” is then we shouldn’t be surprised that nine so called adults on the Supreme Court do not know what NO is.

Unknown to most people the Supreme Court has destroyed the religious liberty clauses of the First Amendment in two ways. First by allowing individuals to bring their private religious freedom concerns to the court via the First Amendment and secondly by establishing a doctrine that produces absurd results which effectively destroys the freedom to worship God according to the dictates of ones conscience.

The First Amendment was never meant to protect individual rights. The Ninth Amendment is for that purpose. The First Amendment was for the protection of the church from the encroachment of government. Our Founders wanted to keep the pulpit free to thunder out against the sins of society without fear of reprisal. As evidence of this fact their first concern was the protection of the Good News which is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and then the news in protecting the freedom of the press. The debates from the Annals of Congress 1789 makes this exceedingly clear, the First Amendment was to protect the church from government not government from being influenced by the church.

However in total revulsion for the time honored doctrine of stare decisis the courts have literally trampled on our religious liberties. This doctrine is a Latin term meaning by paraphrase, what is shall always be. It is the doctrine that previous court decisions should establish precedents for future cases of similar situations. In other words the court is to consider the original intent of the founders embodied in the court decisions shortly after the founding of our nation as to what the Constitution actually means. But our activist courts have totally ignored their responsibility in this regards. They have taken the Al Gore position of a living, breathing constitution to change the Christian foundation of our nation through the courts rather than allowing the Constitution to be amended as it provides through the legislative process. Because of our treaties with the United Nations we are in reality operating under International or treaty law which explicitly rejects this time honored judicial formula that our nation was built on.

International treaty law is a far cry from the chains of the Constitution that are to bind government as Thomas Jefferson informed us in the beginning. The obvious purpose of the Courts today is to bring our nations laws into sync with this International system which, though they may not be aware of it, will result in the establishment of the kingdom of the Anti-Christ. So liberal judges only follow the doctrine of stare decisis to perpetuate International Marxist laws once they have been put into place by either Congress, the Courts, or the regulatory agencies. These judges regularly legislate from the bench to protect the “system” and to meet One World Order demands. A strict constructionist position on the Constitution would keep America out of the one world political, economic, and religions system of the Anti-Christ. Stare decisis is constant or biblical law which represents the English model of law. International Law is evolutionary or pagan which represents the Roman model. It is obvious that we are now in the Anti-Christian era in our law system in our beloved country.

A perfect example of how the federal courts have destroyed the free church is the new doctrine which allows most any law to stand First Amendment muster. This doctrine was developed by the Supreme Court out of Employment Div., Ore. Dept. of Human Res. v Smith (1990). This was the case where an Oregon man wanted to collect his Unemployment benefits even though his employer stated that he dismissed him for cause which was for smoking peyote. The man claimed that his First Amendment rights were violated because he needed the peyote for his religious worship. The Supreme court abandoned what is called the Sherbert v. Verner (1963) cases which held that the government had to have an overriding state interest to deny First Amendment guarantees. This of course was a compromise position before Smith. The Court said that they did not want to be put in a position to determine the validity of ones faith so therefore they developed this new doctrine. Which is: If a law is neutral on its face, secular in purpose, and generally applicable, and does not target religion, then it stands First Amendment arguments. This was the same standard that the Courts used to disallow the Indianapolis Baptist Temple’s Lordship argument. They said that the tax laws are neutral, secular, and generally applicable. And in that the law did not target religion then IBT must pay the tax and the church cannot demand the protection of the First Amendment. As the Church Lady says, “Isn’t that convenient?”

Any Sunday school child knows that to the believer their is no such thing as neutrality in law or a law that is totally secular. Every law has a religious or theological basis. To say otherwise is to practice the religious of Secular Humanism and to declare that their venues that God is not to enter.

After we declared that the Indianapolis Baptist Temple, a New Testament Church, was not subject to the IRS Code, Judge John Coffey, presiding Judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeal, demanded Federal Law to support our case. The cases that our Attorney Al Cunningham sited was Holy Trinity (1892) and Murdock (1943). Murdock deals with the issue of prior restraint and Holy Trinity dealt with the fact that Congress did not mean the general regulatory laws to apply to a church and if they were applied it would produce absurd results.

A perfect example of this is the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah (1993). This was a case where the Santeria religion sacrificed chickens in downtown Hialeah, Florida because if they did not do so their god would die and they could not practice their religion. This weird cult sued the city of Hialeah because the city had cited them for violating sanitary laws. The basis of the Santaeria suit was that the law violated their faith. Eventually the Supreme Court upheld their right to practice animal sacrifice because the Court said that the City of Hialeah targeted the Santerias religion. Obviously allowing this heathen non-Christian religion to practice their faith and refusing to allow the Indianapolis Baptist Temple to practice their faith of Lordship has produced an absurd result. The indirect restricting of religion is just as devastating as direct prohibitions on religious faith.

What the Courts are doing is quite frightening. They have rejected the Christian religion and embraced the religion of Secular Humanism. They are declaring that the church and people of God may practice their faith in spirit or between their ears but the secular area belongs to the State. This includes all physical space including property, real and personal. In other words we can believe our faith but we cannot practice it. This is totally contrary to the admonition of James when he said, “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” (James 2:17) It is also religious freedom ala Russian and Chinese style.

Because of these serious breaches to our religious liberties Congress and the state legislatures must correct this tyranny by exercising their fiduciary responsibility and pass corrective legislation. The following resolution will be presented to Congress and the various state legislatures within the next few weeks. It says:

 

RESOLUTION
OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OF
CONGRESSIONAL INTENT
RE: APPLICATION OF TAX AND OTHER GENERAL REGULATORY LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE CHURCH

 

WHEREAS: The religious liberty clauses of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution provides:

 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,”

 

and

 

WHEREAS: Of national concern, questions have arisen respecting the application of the general tax laws and other general regulatory laws of the United States government to the Churches of this nation, and

WHEREAS: The House of Representatives of the United States hereby desires to clarify the intent of the Congress of the United States respecting the application of those laws of the United States government to the Churches of this nation, and

WHEREAS: It is in the best interest of this nation to do so,

BE IT RESOLVED: The House of Representatives of the United States of America hereby declares its intent that the general tax laws and other general regulatory laws of the government of the United States of America shall not apply to the Churches of this nation, except for those organizations that have been organized and structured by their members as not-for-profit legal entities for religious purposes that are qualified for statutory tax exemptions under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code.

 

[References: Rector, Etc., of Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892); Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983)]

 

______________________

 

There will be a National Religious Liberty Day on March 6 to promote these two resolutions. We are asking for representatives in 200 cities to head up a program for their area. Please contact the Trumpet by mail or e mail to get instructions. Aubrey Vaughn Pastor of Grace Baptist Church Houston, Texas and Cal Zastrow of the State of Michigan are the Co-chairmen of this effort. Both of these men spent many days at the Indianapolis Baptist Temple in our Redress Of Grievance against seizure by federal marshals.

To be a City Chairman or for a packet of material please contact the Indianapolis Baptist Temple at:

Phone: 317-783-6753