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TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

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Glenn's Show Prep

Pulpit Freedom Sunday

September 27, 2012
Wilson

Writer

On Thursday's radio show, Glenn invited Pastor Jim Garlow onto the show to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday.The event is designed to raise awareness about the fact that pastors are not allowed to speak up about political issues from the pulpit without losing their tax-exempt status. Garlow and other pastors want to fight back against the idea that politics have no place in discussions within the church. You can catch the whole interview in the clip above from radio. Read more on these issues at TheBlaze.

 

Read a Rush transcript of the interview below:

GLENN:  Pastor Jim Garlowe is a church in San Diego.  This is a church that has stood in California and has stood against all odds and the attacks on this church are just staggering.  They have tried to put this church out of business, and  they're not going to step down. He is here because he is seeing over and sheparding a program.  How many years have you been doing this?  

 

           VOICE:  This is only my second year. 

 

GLENN:  What the government is telling you that you can't get involved in politics that is an out‑and‑out unconstitutional lie.  They want it to be challenged in court because they know it's unconstitutional. 

 

VOICE:  Years ago Lyndon Baines Johnson returned from Texas angry at two businessmen.  They opposed him through 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.  He was going through the Senate was an overhaul of the tax code.  He asserted a few words called the Johnson Amendment.  They didn't have churches in mind.  They had just had these two guys he was mad at. Even the Internal Revenue Service doesn't know.  So the result over all of these years pastors have backed away from fear, and people in the pew have bought into the cultural myth of separation of church and state.  So pastors aren't speaking out on issues. They bought into a cultural myth thinking as pastors we wouldn't speak politically if we got the tax exemption.  The tax exemption comes from our founding fathers.  Knowing if the government can tax and they can control and the government can destroy.  Based upon that separation, there have been no taxation of churches.  There should be no government intrusion into the pulpit and so an entire movement has developed. 

 

GLENN:  This is really important because of everything that we're facing now with the President, this week coming out and laying the groundwork for no blasphemy laws for Islam or any religion. Uh‑huh.  The way we are moving and the press and freedom of speech is overrated, and the rest of the world doesn't agree with it.  And America needs to grow up, and starts moving the way of the rest of the world.  It is if we control the speech of pulpits.  The pulpits are the most important thing.  Jim I know when we first met it was right before Restoring Honor in Washington D.C..  you were one of the few that stood up, and you were bold at the time, and I hadn't seen a lot of the bold preachers or priests or rabbis.  They were being quiet.  Now a lot of them are standing up, and they're not being quiet.  Because they know it's over if they don't. 

 

VOICE:  It is over.  It's changed dramatically even the last few years.  I'm amazed what has happened in the area of religious liberty.  Those that are discerning know you can have religious liberty and have radicalists coming at the same time in the nation.   That line is sliding very rapidly. 

 

GLENN:  I know.  That's what a church is for to tell you what the parameters are.  I don't need somebody to tell how to vote.  To tell me the standard God's standard that he holds.  And then I can Judge myself.  But you can't even talk about the standard.  We're moving to a place where you can't talk about that standard because it's political or racist or sexist. 

 

VOICE:  The Internal Revenue Service would say that we can.  Now that the people in the pew oftentimes have this wrong understanding pastor if you're going to speak that way I'll find myself another church.  Consequently alliance of religious liberty, and hand selected 33 pastors in 2008 to intentionally challenge the Johnson Amendment.  The Johnson Amendment says we cannot oppose or endorse a candidate directly or indirectly.  So pastors are afraid of it.  They don't want to lose their tax exemption.  They recorded their sermons, and sent them to the court.  There's a Damocles sword threatening pastors if you do this.  They sent in their sermon nothing happened.  In 2009 84 pastors exercised their constitutional rights but violated the Johnson Amendment which we believe is unconstitutional.  And they sent their sermons. Nothing happened.  The next year 2010 100 pastors did it.  Last year 539 pastors did it, this year around 1,100 have signed up.  We anticipate it will be around 1,500 or more masters. 

 

GLENN:  If you're a pastor.  You go to a parish and you want your priest to be involved in this what do. 

 

VOICE:  They go to pulpitfreedom.org.  And October 7th is pulpit freedom Sunday.  Most of us are doing it in solidarity October 7th.  They can sign up at pulpitfreedom.org. This applies to a liberal left wing church.  It was replies to everybody.  We say there should be no governmental intrusion.  They monitor our speech to see what we're saying.  We encourage people to go to pulpitfreedom.org. 

 

           GLENN:  If they do this, and the Internal Revenue Service decides to go after them. 

 

VOICE:  There are 2200 attorneys prepared to defend us pro bono. It used to be the church would roll over and play dead.  If a church lawyers up, the Internal Revenue Service strings it along for a couple of years and then say we're going to close your case, and just don't do it.  The alliance defending freedom is this group of attorneys saying this is unconstitutional based on the First Amendment.  We're absolutely making it nationwide very open posting our names and sending in our sermons saying sue us, so we get this to court, and get this defined and taken care of. 

 

GLENN:  You don't have to worry as a church you won't have to worry about being strung along.  The attorneys will do it. 

 

VOICE:  There are attorneys all across America. 

 

GLENN:  Are you going to be saying to vote for one person. 

 

VOICE:  I will walk through the biblical principles, and where the candidates stand on the issues. 

 

GLENN:  There's nothing wrong with that. 

 

VOICE:  Any follower of Jesus Christ would not want to vote for a candidate that is defying biblical principles. 

 

GLENN:  I don't have a problem.  I do have a problem vote Mitt Romney or Barack Obama.  Not a legal problem.  I don't want my pastor saying that. 

 

VOICE:  If somebody doesn't wan tto hear it that they can go to another church.  We don't want the ‑‑ the issue is who decides what a pastor says? Is it going to be the state ultimately or that pastor and the church.  We're contending ‑‑ we're not even saying a pastor has to endorse or condemn a candidate. 

 

GLENN:  The problem is that our churches have stopped saying if you believe the Bible, I mean ‑‑ my daughter she went with a friend to a Catholic Church that's run by a priest who is ex communicated by the Catholics.  And I said did he start his own church.  That's not a Catholic Church.  That's not a Catholic Church.  I don't have a problem with you disagreeing.  You want to do stuff.  When you go to church I don't understand the people that don't buy into it.  Why are you there? What are getting out of it if you can't get somebody standing up there here's the principle, and here's how we apply it, and live your life according to these rules.  Otherwise what are you doing? How many people do you think go to church who're just are going there because I don't know ‑‑ I don't even know. 

 

VOICE:  We're told only 9% of the people in the pew of a church know how to apply the scripture to life.  And in other words have a biblical world view.  9 out of 10 do not.  Are any of our communities more righteous or less righteous.  We had this privilege in America for 166 years until it was taken away in 1954, and it was working very good at that time. 

 

GLENN:  Look at our world.  Some things have gotten better, but a lot of things have gotten worse. 

 

VOICE:  Think what would happen if 350,000 churches would have been saying to the electorate we should be choosing the people to represent us in Washington D.C. thou shalt not steal from future generations.  That's a moral biblical issue.  Our nation is in economic suicide because of a failure to follow scriptural principles.

 

GLENN:  Go to pulpitfreedom.org. It has to be reversed.  It has to be put to rest.  Pulpit freedom.org. Sunday October 7th.  Make sure that your church is participation.  Quickly how is your wife. 

 

VOICE:  She's doing well.  We're moving on this cancer journey.  It's come back seven times in five years.  It's been a long walk here.  We're moving forward.  She's having some good days recently. That's why I'm able to be here. 

 

GLENN:  You want a good pastor or good church it's the Garlowes in San Diego. 

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.