20100530_UNDERSTANDING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM - MEMORIAL DAY 2010

20100530_Understanding Religious Freedom –
Memorial Day 2010
Call to Worship: In Honor of Memorial Day, a Poem, Bivouac of the Dead, by
Theodore O’Hara:

      The muffled drum’s sad roll hs beat
      The soldier’s last tattoo;
      No more on Life’s parade shall meet
      That brave and fallen few.
      On fame’s eternal camping ground
      The bivouac of the dead.

Message

      Memorial Day is a day to honor America’s heroes of war, our
soldiers who have died in defense of liberty. After the Civil War,
in several communities around the country, people gathered to
commemorate and honor those fallen warriers of freedom.
(According to Wikipedia, and Professor David Blight of Yale), it is
believed that the first such memorial in the country occurred in
Charleston, SC at what was then known as Washington Race
Course, and is now known as Hampton Park. That gathering was
on May 1, 1865, and was organized by formerly enslaved black
people on the Washington Race Course, which had been used as a
temporary prison camp for captured Union soldiers, and a grave
site for those who had died there. At this first celebration, the
Charleston newspaper reported that about ten thousand people,
mostly black residents of Charleston, attended, including about

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2800 children. It was reported that the celebration included
sermons, singing, and a picnic on the grounds. The day was not
called Memorial Day, but was called Decoration Day. So, I have
no qualms in preaching today about Memorial Day.

     Memorial Day grew out of such early, post-Civil War
remembrances and celebrations, not only in Charleston, but also in
Sharpsburg, MD (near Antietam Battlefield); Boalsburg, PA;
Carbondale, IL; Columbus, MI; several communities in Vermont;
and a couple of dozen other cities and communities around the
country. These observances coalesced around days also honoring
the Confederate dead and the several Confederate Memorial Days.

     The name Memorial Day was first used in Waterloo, NY, for
a celebration and memorial observance on May 5, 1866. The first
official (really “unofficial”) “Memorial Day Order” was given
under date of May 5, 1868, at the request of General John Murray,
a prominent citizen of Waterloo, of his friend General John A.
Logan. General Logan was commander-in-chief of a veterans’
organization called the Grand Army of the Republic. His order
requested a national observance, although he had no governmental
or military authority at that point. The order reads as follows:

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“General Orders No. 11, Grand Army of the Republic
Headquarters.
       “I. The 30th day of May, 1868 is designated for the purpose
of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of
comrades who died in defense of their country during the late
rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village,
and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of
ceremony is prescribed, but posts and commanders will in their
own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect
as circumstances permit.
       “We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for
the purpose among other things, ‘of preserving and strengthenin
those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the
soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late
rebellion.’ What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing
tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a
barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives
were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths
the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their
graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and
taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a
fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton
foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths
invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond
mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of
time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we
have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided
republic.
       “If our eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts
cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light
and warmth of life remain to us.
       “Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their
sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them
with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above the dear
old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence

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renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left
among us a sacred charge upon a nation’s gratitude, the soldier’s
and sailor’s widow and orphans.
      “II. It is the purpose of the Commander-In-Chief to
inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up
from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the
memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public
press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of
commanders in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous
compliance therewith.”
      “III. . . . .
      “By order of
      “John A. Logan
      “Commander-in-chief (etc.)”

     The date of May 30 was chosen because it was not the
anniversary of any Civil War battle. Under the sponsorship of the
Grand Army of the Republic, the tombs and graves of fallen Union
soldiers were decorated in solemn remembrance.

     There was, initially, some resistance to this celebration of
Union soldiers in the South, with a notable exception being in
Columbus, Mississippi, which on April 25, 1866, at its Decoration
Day service, commemorated both Union and Confederate
casualties buried in its cemetery.

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Although the now, so-called Memorial Day Order was given
by General Logan on May 5, 1868, the day “Decoration Day” did
not give way to the name “Memorial Day” until 1882, and it did
not become more common until after WWII, and did not obtain
official status until 1967, by enactment into Federal Law. By a
further change in Federal Law in 1968 (with effect in 1971), the
date was changed to the last Monday in May of each year to
accommodate three-day weekends. Within a few years thereafter,
all 50 states adopted compliant measures for the celebration of
Memorial Day on the last Monday in May.

     So, here we are on Memorial Day weekend, 2010, and you
ask why am I “preaching”, so to speak, about the Civil War origins
of what we now call Memorial Day. I don’t know what they
preached, as in Charleston, at those early 1860’s Decoration Day
celebrations. But from its origins of celebrating the role of the
military in liberating the enslaved, we can see that such liberation
was vital in securing freedom of movement about the country,
freedom of peaceable assembly, freedom of thought and speech,
freedom of self-defense, freedom of person and security of
personal property, freedom from unreasonable searches and
seizures, freedom to choose how to live life. In other words, we
see, in that liberation from slavery, the same freedoms that our

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founding forefathers sought and fought to find in the wilderness of
America, and its streets, waterways and farmlands, in the War for
Independence.

     Beginning with those who came over on the Mayflower,
dissenters seeking religious freedom, from the constraints of
Catholicism in Europe and the Church of England, and elsewhere,
beginning with the creation of the Mayflower Compact, and going
into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the
United States, and its annexed Bill of Rights, those principles of
government which secure religious freedom have been the same
principles that underlay freedom from slavery: freedom of
movement about the country, freedom of peaceable assembly,
freedom of thought and speech, freedom of self-defense, freedom
of person and security of personal property, freedom from
unreasonable searches and seizures, freedom to choose how to live
life. So, what is so valuable to know and to remember as we
celebrate each Memorial Day, is not just freedom for slaves,
secured in the 1860’s, but also freedom for Christians, and other
believers of other faiths, secured by the founding principles of our
great country, America -- the United States of America.
     But what we all need to see and understand is a hard, cold
reality of life: Our freedoms in America, our religious freedoms,

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still exist because the American military is dedicated to the
security of those freedoms and the maintenance of those freedoms,
through force and death as needed. For that, today, and everyday
of our lives, we must be grateful to them and to our God who
inspired the creation of such a country as this, and inspired, and
inspires, such men and women to defend, protect and secure these
freedoms: our freedom to travel here today; our freedom to
assemble here today to worship Jesus Christ, Jehovah God, and the
Holy Spirit; our freedom to study the Word of God, the Holy
Bible; and to speak freely about who the Trinity is, about what
God’s Word commands, and about the reality of His Truth. Yes,
without the principles of American government on which we were
founded, and without the commitment, by the American military,
and the dedication of each American household to align itself and
to prepare itself and to participate when and if needed with the
American military in such endeavors, to secure these freedoms,
then darkness will cover our land and its people, and the light of
Christ will dim away, even in our country.

     In my life time, we have ended the war with Hitler and His
Axis powers of Japan and Italy; we have ended the Korean
Conflict (but if Kim Jong Il has his way that Conflict may be
renewed); we have ended the Vietnam War; we have engaged in

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Grenada, in Panama, and in countless other places in the world.
The Cold War has been ended, once, and the Wall in Berlin is
down. Now, our focus is necessarily, but not or our making, on the
middle east – the two wars in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, etc.

     But, in this context of Memorial Day, what I want to talk to
you about today, what I want you to pray about, is a war for the
soul of America, indeed a war for the soul of the World. The
aggressor in that War is named Islam. You can mince words about
peaceful Islam or militant Islam, but I am not going to do that, and
I decline to do that. I am going to give all Islamists the benefit of
believing, myself, that they believe what is in their Qu’ran: the
simple belief that it is their human, Allah-ordained duty to kill all
humans who do not convert from whatever their beliefs are to a
stated and practicing belief in Islam and his prophet Mohammed.
In other words, I simply do not believe that Islamists/Muslims are
dishonest enough to pick and choose which parts of the Qu’ran to
believe and which to disbelieve or ignore (Indeed, if they do, their
more zealous faith-companions have a “duty” according to the
Qu’ran to kill them.) I take them at their word that they are honest
people, fully committed to the Word of Allah given them by his
prophet Mohammed. Thus, I believe that they believe that it is
their duty to kill you, my wife, my children, me, and every other

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person in the world who refuses to convert to Islam and stay thus
converted.

      Now, this is a problem for me, and for every honest
Christian, and for every American. The problem may be explained
this way: American freedoms work, indeed the essential freedoms
which God, the Creator, has endowed in all men, as rights, as
inalienable rights, work only if we are allowed to practice those
rights, and live in those rights.

      As Christians, we proselytize, we evangelize, indeed we are
commanded to do so (Matthew 28: 19-20), to go all over the
world, to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ – the Gospel that no
man cometh unto the Father, Father God, but by and through Jesus
and his Blood spilled in atonement for man’s sin; the Gospel that
there is no forgiveness of sins, no resurrection into eternal life with
God except by Grace and repentance.

      But Jesus explained (Parable of the Sower, and other
parables in Matthew 13) that some plant the seeds, some water the
seeds, and some seeds are successfully germinated and bear fruit,
but not all seeds do. In I Corinthians 3: 6-9, Paul taught, and
explained: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

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So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but
God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who
waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward
according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you
are God’s field, you are God’s building.” Between the rocky
places, the tares and weeds, the lack of watering, etc., not everyone
comes to the saving knowledge of the truth which is Jesus Christ,
so not everyone we evangelize actually converts to Christianity.

     That is not God’s desire, (I Tim 2: 1-6) for He desires all
men to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but God
gave us free will, free choice and that right is deeply embodied in
American law and our Constitution and Bill of Rights – that right
of free will, of free choice, is a right to a freedom from slavery of
body and mind and Spirit. The Civil War is credited with freeing
the American slaves in their bodies from the control of their
owners, and bestowing upon the former slaves all the American
rights and freedoms given each person, as inalienable rights, by
God Himself.

     What confronts us now, in Islam, is the threat of death if we
do not convert to Islam, not merely the threat of slavery of our
bodies. It is a far greater threat than mere slavery of our bodies.

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Murder is worse than slavery. The events of Sept. 11, 2001 should
bear heavily into mind for each of us this Memorial Day 2010, and
forever. Especially as we note the planned, and approved
development of a mosque next to the World Trade Center site in
Manhattan, scheduled to open on Sept. 11, 2011, the Tenth
Anniversary of the attacks on America with hijacked airplanes.

     In Mark 6: 10-12, as Jesus was instructing His Twelve, as He
sent them out two by two to evangelize, He did not admonish them
to kill those who did not convert to The Way of Jesus. Instead he
said this: “In whatever place you enter a house, stay there until
you depart from that place (village or town). And whoever will not
receive you nor hear you, when you depart from there, shake off
the dust under your feet as a testimony against them. Assuredly, I
say to you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in
the day of judgment than for that city.”

     In Europe, Islam is taking over. I will post on the church
website a copy of a speech by a European government official,
recently given in New York, explaining how by sheer population
growth, even without physical war, those of Islamic beliefs will
soon control the democratic process in most European countries.
Even England already recognizes the right of Muslims to govern

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by Shira Law, not English Law. Put another way, in part, English
law, the antecedent of American Law, does not exist anymore.
That is the fulcrum of the threat to American Law, as the Muslims
gain population control, and voting majorities, they will change the
law and the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and we as Americans
will lose our rights to be Christians, to live as free people in a free
land.

        My father used to tell me when I was a sometimes
bragadocious young teenager, saying what I was going to do to
someone whose actions I disapproved of, “Son, your rights stop
where someone’s nose begins.” Islam really helps me understand
this principle of basic human – and American – rights: that my
rights have limitations, and so do everyone else’s rights.

        The integrity and existence of religious freedom depends on
the ability, not just the right, of a person to deny evangelism from
another religion without suffering death as a consequence. What
Islam poses is the threat that if one does not convert to Islam, the
followers of Mohammed and Allah have not just a right, in their
view, but a divinely-ordained duty to kill the one who has so
disrespected their faith as not to convert to it. That is it in a
nutshell. As the British, even the world, learned from the walkup

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to WWII, there are some forces with which appeasement will
never work. Yes, you might, as a nation, negotiate with the snake,
and delay the problem and as we say, “kick the can down the road,
to deal with later, perhaps”. But even as Islam allows a delay, it is
building populations with much higher birth rates than in so-called
modern countries utilizing not just birth control but abortion, it is
building military forces, it is building nuclear and other weapons
of mass destruction to use against those who resist conversion to
Islam, individually and nationally.

     Our God says for us, as evangelists, merely to shake the dust
from our feet as a testimony against those who reject Jesus. From
Ephesians 6, the Armor of God, what do we understand to be our
feet? It is the gospel of peace, the gospel of the good news of
Jesus Christ! The Islamic god says that the followers of Islam
must kill us if we reject Allah and Mohammed. Our God says for
us to stamp the dust from our feet covered in shoes of peace, not
war, because our God says “vengeance is Mine” (Romans 12:19).
Yet, their God puts a duty of vengeance upon their followers.
     We cannot allow in America any religion to have free
exercise, even to exist , which does not honor the right of others
freely to exercise their own religion. The right to religious
freedom ends wherever it denies the right of religious freedom to

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exist in others. In other words, religious freedoms are limited by
the “noses” of others, as my father would have said. Islam cannot
be heard, as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as a religion of peace, to be
welcome in America. Islam must be recognized for what it is, the
enemy of God, of Jesus, of the Holy Spirit, of all Christians
everywhere, and indeed the enemy of America. To be an
American, you have to live by American law, to play by the rules
so to speak, and in its heart Islam is only scamming us by
appeasement and an appeal to support their religious freedom in
America, because Islam, in its religious suppression, does not
support our religious freedom and therefore, Islam does not qualify
to participate in the freedoms of America. You, individually, must
grasp this concept, believe it and share it, if you are ever going to
understand religious freedom and its significance in your life.

     Thus, I see that we are in a season of national and
international crisis. This Memorial Day 2010 puts it into focus, so
sharply. In the Civil War, at least after the Emancipation
Proclamation (which only applied in the so-called rebelling states,
but did not apply in the Northern slave states) in 1863, two and a
half years after the States Rights War actually started in April
1861, the War came to be said to be a war for the liberation of
enslaved men’s bodies so they could exercise, as American

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citizens, all American Freedoms. We can talk about the history in
another context, but the reality is that during and after the Civil
War, slavery did disappear from America, and that is a good thing,
though at the price of over 500,000 lives of young men, who, if
they had reproduced would give us an even larger population
buffer against Islam, today and in the future.

     Today, the crisis is both the threat of overt attack by a
belligerent Iran, and its supporters, because American and Israel
are seen by them as affronts to Islam, but also the insidious threat
of allowing Islam to exist, populate, spread and flourish, over time,
in America as Islam, and I say so intentionally, is hell-bent, now,
on doing in Europe.

     The followers of Islam, at least at their leadership levels, are
not stupid and they are out to get us.

     Today, as we commemorate Memorial Day, I ask you to
honor not just who fought to liberate American blacks from
physical slavery, and then in other wars and conflicts to defend and
protect the rights of freedom around the world, but now those who
are fighting to protect religious freedom here and abroad. God
bless them all, and those to come in wearing the uniform of our

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military, and those, with the military, defending from their own
and their neighbors’ doorsteps, windows and backyards, and God
bless you+

     Amen.

     Ministry of the Holy Spirit:
             Hebrews 2: 1-18
             Matthew 24: 10 -14
             Psalm 103: 1 – 14
             Genesis 12: 1-7; Matthew 24: 44 - 51

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