The Prophesied Falling Away
How did the American church get into its current state of apostasy? Well, it started out with good intentions. President Eisenhower enacted a tax-exempt status for churches to be treated as charities with no strings attached. However, ten years later, the Supreme Court banned Christian prayer and Bible study from public schools. Can you imagine the uproar over this astonishing act, many referred to as a satanic win?
Surprisingly, most school districts in the Union complied with the rulings, although there were several school districts in the South and Midwest that continued having prayer and Bible study in their schools, even into the early 1990s. Five years after those rulings, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the American president, enacted his “Johnson amendment,” that in order for churches to keep their tax-exempt status, they must refrain from entering political discourse from the pulpit. In other words, if churches wished to keep their 501(c)3 status, they must do and say what the government orders them to do and stay behind the pulpit. Now, although the amendment was unenforceable, most mainline ecumenical churches complied and actually welcomed such governmental intrusion. This brought about the rise of private Christian schools, Bible churches, community churches, fundamental Baptist churches; as they tried to resist the Johnson amendment. It worked for awhile, but, social activist groups, such as those belonging to the Social Gospel, liberation theological and ecumenical movements, infiltrated Christian schools, churches and seminaries throughout the country and diluted any attempt at resisting government intrusion.
Then came Jimmy Carter and his Department of Education, that was designed to rein in any dissenting school districts that were not complying with the Supreme Court rulings banning Christian prayer and Bible study in public schools. But just before the Department of Education was instituted, Ronald Reagan became president. Yet, instead of abolishing the Department of Education, like he promised, he had to compromise because of the Democrat-controlled Congress. Fortunately, instead of forcing dissenting school districts to comply with the earlier Supreme Court rulings, the Reagan Department of Education simply made them aware of the rulings, yet did not threaten to withhold federal funding from them.
That changed with the Clinton Department of Education that simply finished what Carter had intended to do and that was to cut federal funding from dissenting school districts in the South and Midwest. How sad it is to think that by the end of Clinton’s first term, all public-school districts had complied with the earlier Supreme Court rulings banning Christian prayer and Bible study from public schools. Although Campus Crusade for Christ and other such organizations, attempted to bear witness of the Christian faith to students in public schools and colleges, their efforts did little to change the political situation. Later legislation weakened the Christian backbone even more so.
Now, I hope you understand why it is so important for Christians to continue to abandon the 501(c)3 American churches, as they have been infiltrated by leftist politicos and staffed with profiteers and money changers.
From a personal standpoint, I am in high hopes that President Donald J. Trump, with his Republican controlled Congress, will nominate Supreme Court justices, who are born-again Christians, in order to prevent a further falling away!
Article written by Coach Dave Daubenmire (Website)
