Here’s one example of “foreign” policy in which we can be glad that Donald Trump did what was right. Right?
“Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre was closed by Israeli authorities earlier this month after Iranian missile fragments hit Jerusalem, with restrictions also being placed on who can enter the walled old city – home to all of the most sacred religious sites.
This has resulted in outrage among Christians, however, Israeli officials have said that Al Aqsa Mosque was also closed, and limitations were placed numbers of people visiting the Western Wall – and claimed that all of this was being done as a safety precaution.”
Apparently, after The Man leaned on TPTB over the controversy, Israel rescinded the order and allowed people to once again enter the church. In Israel’s defense, however, it must be noted that the closure was done for “safety’s sake” so that no one would be killed or wounded while worshipping God at the site, one of the most “holy” in all of Christendom. Israel, after all, pays special attention to ensuring that its citizens, visitors, and neighbors maintain good health and are free to come and go as they please.
Notice the heavy application of sarcasm in the last sentence.
“But closure of the Holy Sepulchre for Lent and Easter is basically unprecedented in recent history, and Church leaders say it violates the church’s historic autonomy under an arrangement called the ‘status quo’.”
Wait! What? Unprecedented in recent history? Well, this may be true of that particular building, but it was only a few years ago, 2020, to be exact, when churches in America were “strongly urged” to close their doors at Easter because there was a new, highly contagious, extremely lethal virus making the rounds and, if we didn’t isolate behind our face masks and bedroom doors, millions upon millions of people would have died. Thank God that Donald Trump intervened in that situation as well, protecting America’s citizens, visitors, and neighbors from almost certain harm and horrible death.
More sarcasm, a double helping. I’m on a roll here, people, bear with me.
I had started writing about the Covid Aberration in mid-March, but really got fired up when the “order” came down and countless churches, run by spineless men who didn’t know which King king they worshipped, but picked the one close to hand, especially since their 501(c)(3) tax status might have been questioned. I actually published a Letter to the Editor in a local paper, blasting the decision by churches to follow the “advice” of the State, but it didn’t seem to make much of an impact. However, for me, that was the final straw and I waded into the battle over Covid with full force and strength, and occasionally still do publish work which is not complimentary to the “defenders of the faith”.
Anyway, it seems ironic to me that Trump, who sat in the Oval Office at Easter time in 2020, who presided over the worst, most insulting scam and psy-op in recent years, and who may have actually given the order to close the churches (certainly he approved of the matter, since he has declared that as President, he can do whatever he wants, which means he could have overruled the order, but didn’t), put pressure on Israel to draw back from its heavy-handed tactics against worshippers at this time. After all, this is a “holy” time and no one should be restricted from a full recognition of their right to exercise their beliefs in the way they want to. Especially in Jerusalem, the most holy city in all the world.
Right? Of course, right!
All of this has brought back memory of that earlier time, six years ago, and the remembrance of the craven, obsequious, fearful actions of church leaders everywhere still has the power to enrage me, so I went digging in my archives and dredged up the original article to reprint. Nothing in it has been changed except for one very small editorial comment. I still stand behind my words. You can read the original here.
Corona, Churches, and Easter
April 12th, 2020 is Easter Sunday. It is considered the most important date in history by the Christian religion. It is universally celebrated as the day on which Jesus Christ rose up out of the grave in which he had been placed after his death the Friday before by crucifixion. He had been declared dead, was entombed, and came back to life immortal. This is the message that has been proclaimed for 2000 years.
Today, in America, that message will be muted considerably because churches have been ordered by the State to close their doors because of the Corona virus panic, er, I mean, pandemic.
If the State can tell churches to shut down over a ‘bug’, then this can happen for any reason at all. In fact, history shows that the more totalitarian a State becomes, the more prone it is to shut church doors. America is not immune.
In defiance of this order, churches everywhere ought to throw open their doors, welcome everyone in, and get on with the joyful worship of the One Who was dead, but now lives. Pastors and church boards ought to ‘gird up their loins’ and tell the State where to get off. After all, as the Apostle Peter said so eloquently when called up before the Jewish Court, “We ought to obey God, rather than men.”
Will this happen? Not likely. Today, in America, worship of the State has trumped worship of the King. God help us!
Note: The above was submitted as a Letter to the Editor [paywalled] to the Ravalli Republic, in Hamilton, MT on April 4, 2020 and printed April 5.
I fully expect to receive blowback because of this, but it makes me angry that the US government, our government, can simply issue a ‘guideline’ (thinly veiled threat is more like it) to churches and other places of worship, which is then taken as law by those same assemblies. It is not my intention to disparage or minimize the danger posed by Coronavirus, but I will not be quiet when a governing official (whoever that might be—elected or bureaucratic) orders a church to close its doors. No government should be able to dictate which church can practice its faith, when it can be open, when it must close, how many people can attend, who can attend, how much distance there must be between attendees, etc., ad infinitum.
Most churches today are more concerned with maintaining their 501(c)(3) tax exempt status than with proclaiming the truth. Threaten the run-of-the-mill pastor of today with ‘sanctions’ for disobedience of State rules and he will probably cave, thus watering down the message of the Good News. More than likely, he will trot out the argument that, according to Romans 13, we are supposed to obey the civil authority in everything we do, without ever considering that Christians in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia were under the same mandate and subject to the same standard.
Where will we draw the line against the encroachment of the State? If the various churches refuse to stand up to its edicts and dictates, what chance do any of us have?
We must not be quiet or we will be silenced.
Poor Roger's Almanac 