Planted firmly in the triad is Reclaiming America for Christ held on July 28 and 29 at First Baptist Church of Moore. The event featured speakers who did not avoid controversy, addressing issues such as scientific findings that counter a literal interpretation of the Bible and the practice of preaching politics from the pulpit.
Prominent figures who attended and spoke at the event include Attorney General Scott Pruitt, state Rep. Sally Kern (pictured below), U.S. Rep. James Lankford (via video), Edmond Pastor Paul Blair and Oklahoma City Pastor Tom Vineyard.
The agenda included sessions on “Dinosaurs and the Bible,” “The Homosexual Agenda and Attacks on Christian Liberty,” “America’s Christian Heritage” and “The Real Mount Sinai.”
Between lectures, those in attendance packed the exhibit area outside the sanctuary that included science textbooks written with a young-Earth creationism perspective, literature and presentations on the public education system, and groups such as The John Birch Society, Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee and Ron Paul for President.
The purpose of the event, said Blair, executive director of Reclaiming America for Christ and senior pastor at Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, is to reacquaint Oklahomans with the fact that Christians founded the U.S. on biblical principles. Standing beside a triceratops replica skeleton, Blair led the Pledge of Allegiance narrated by John Wayne via video recording.
The goal, Blair said, is to see America return to that Christian heritage and philosophical view of governance.
“We can either abandon this culture in which God has placed us, or we can confront it and transform it, and that is what we chose to do,” Blair said.
Public office and creationism
Pruitt was the first public official to speak during the initial day of the event. Pruitt said in order to maintain the ideals America was founded on, there should be no separation between one’s public life and their personal and religious life.
“That’s wrong, that’s not America,” Pruitt said. “I will say to you as your attorney general, I am committed to ensuring that our protections in the First Amendment to freely exercise our beliefs, to freely express what we believe in the public squares is going to be protected.”
Pruitt likened the campaign of antiabortion groups to British Parliament member William Wilberforce’s fight against slavery in the 1700s, and said the ultimate goal is to have a fetus receive the protections of the 14th Amendment.
“His obstacles are no different than the obstacles we face to get an unborn child declared as a person protected under the 14th Amendment, which we should be fighting for every single day. We should be fighting for the 14th Amendment says no person should be deprived of life without process of law,” Pruitt told the audience, which responded with applause. “… That challenge is identical to the challenge he faced, but he kept going because he was a risk-taker and he stood for truth and it made a difference.”
During the event, G. Thomas Sharp, founder and chairman of the Creation Truth Foundation and founder of the Institute of Biblical Worldview Studies, spoke on issues such as climate change, dinosaurs and geological formations, specifically on the rapid formation of strata during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
When examining these phenomena, Sharp said, scientists filter the information through biases, and two of those can be looking at things from an evolutionary perspective or from a biblical standpoint Sharp took a young-Earth creationism perspective on the issues, specifically that the Earth is around 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs walked with humans, facing (along will all other species on the Earth) a near-extinction event in the form of the great flood mentioned in Genesis.
Broad scientific consensus holds that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, life began around 3.8 to 2.5 billion years ago and that modern humans emerged approximately 250,000 years ago.
However, Sharp stated that the biblical view of creation has “significant observational support and demands a hearing,” and that most of the dinosaurs became extinct during the biblical flood, although some baby dinosaurs may have been brought aboard Noah’s ark and went extinct later.
The date at which scientists say dinosaurs went extinct poses a problem, Sharp said, because it calls into question the Bible’s interpretation of events, especially for young children who are fascinated with the prehistoric beasts.
The Rev. Dan Fisher, senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Yukon, spoke on the “Black Robed Regiment,” the term given to pastors who, during America’s colonial period, encouraged their respective congregations to partake in the American Revolution.
Although the group was not a formal organization during the Revolution, it has become one in recent years and has been promoted by talk radio personality Glenn Beck and controversial conservative historian David Barton.
Fisher, who wore a Continental Army uniform during his speech, said matters of public policy and politics were commonly addressed from the pulpit before, during and after the formation of the country. In 1954 the tax code was revised to revoke churches’ tax-exempt status if the church endorsed candidates or participated in partisan activity.
“Pastors today are convinced that they’re going to lose their nonprofit status, and they’re going to get in trouble with the (Internal Revenue Service) if they preach what they believe about what the Bible says about politics,” Fisher said. “Friends, that’s a fat lie because Paul Blair and I have been doing it for three years straight just daring the IRS to come here.”
Fisher said the moral decline in America is directly related to pastors and Christians not speaking out, and that silence about it is the same as giving consent:
“Even if they take away our nonprofit status, I would rather in a million years give away my nonprofit status than my freedom of speech. It is time for us to count the cost.”
Blair, one of the final speakers on the last night of the event, spoke over “America’s Christian Heritage.”
Almost all of the founders were Christian, Blair said, and even Ben Franklin, a self-proclaimed deist, and Thomas Jefferson, who created the Jefferson Bible that removed all supernatural aspects from the Gospels of the New Testament, held the Scriptures in reverence.
Blair closed by beseeching the attendees to strive for another Great Awakening through prayer, evangelism, education and activism for what they believe.
“God is not dependent upon America so he can stay in business, but America is dependent upon God if we’re going to stay in business,” he said. “It’s time for Christians to wake up, to get up, to stand up and man up and let’s reclaim America for Jesus Christ.”
Photos by Mark Hancock
Didn't this church get hit by a tornado on May 3, 1999? Didn't they get the message that God is pissed at them then?
I still have a picture of their cross distroyed the night of the tornado. I guess they didn't thnk that God was talking to them.
Oh yes, these people are bat guano crazy.
Didn't this church get hit by a tornado on May 3, 1999? Didn't they get the message that God is pissed at them then?
I still have a picture of their cross distroyed the night of the tornado. I guess they didn't thnk that God was talking to them.
Oh yes, these people are bat guano crazy.
The tone and construction of this article sounds suspiciously like an endorsement by the OK Gazette of its theme. This puff piece had ample opportunities to address serious 1st amendment concerns of public officers endorsing a specific young-earth creationist dogma. You also neglected an opportunity to give more information on why clergy are not allowed to use the pulpit for partisan activity. When admitting that a fringe political group is dismissing scientific consensus, you might make a quick phone call for a quote from a scientist in a related field, or even look into *if* the non-scientific view has the purported "significant observational support." I'm disappointed in the lack of journalism on this piece to say the least.
What do John Wayne, John Birch, dinosaurs, the Pledge of Allegiance, James Lankford, Sally Kern and Scott Pruitt have in common you ask? I guess they all believe there were dinosaurs on the arc with Noah and the boys. Good thing the dinosaurs didn't eat Noah and the boys for lunch.
I really thought we had put this "young earth" stuff to bed. Fundamentalist. They just crack me up!
I keep hearing about this Gay Agenda, but I never really get the details, what exactly do these people think is on the “Gay Agenda?”
While I may be heterosexually married, I have a good deal of concern for those minority American’s who regularly have their rights violated by people who think their own rights are being violated by these minorities. So Gay people want to get married? Who cares? If two consenting adults want to have a life long union like that of me and my spouse, why should I have the right to prevent that? It doesn’t affect me, it doesn’t concern me, and it’s not my business. This should be the attitude of those who profess to be Christian. Jesus did not preach hatred, or oppression, so why are these people doing the opposite of his teachings?
I mean seriously, if you can ratchet back the progress of allowing gays to marry, what’s next, the right for interracial couples to wed? That would nullify my marriage as well as that of my wife’s parents whom have been together well over 35 years! Despite the scare tactics of these people, gay marriage cannot become a gateway for bestiality or pedophilia because both of those acts do not involve consent. Moreover, a quick Google search reveals that there are a handful of states that don’t outlaw bestiality anyway, so if you’re so opposed to it, why aren’t you lobbying to change the laws in the degenerate state governments which allow it?
The truth is these “Christians” don’t give a damn about animal abuse; they only care about oppressing anyone who doesn’t view the world through the same rose colored glasses. And it churns my stomach to think that they are so conveniently ignorant of the separation of church and state. While I must concede that some of out founding fathers were Christians, their wisdom and understanding about the evils of religion are clearly defined in the first Amendment. That Amendment guarantees that these people can freely spread their beliefs like so much candy at a Halloween party, they are not permitted to let it influence the law. To give any religion a bearing in that regard would signal the demise of our nation. Whether they like it or not, the Gay community is not a religion, and therefore has a voice in government.
I suppose it really shouldn’t surprise me that those who believe that man roamed the earth along with dinosaurs can’t wrap their head around the idea of homosexuality being a born trait. It’s actually quite insulting to think that everyone is born with the exact same motivations, desires and compulsions. That we are all in fact boiler-plate versions at birth, and that our experiences post-womb are what determine whether we become gay. Then it begs, the question, what happened in the post-womb lives of these Christian people’s children that some of them turned out to be Gay regardless of this conditioning? Were they molested by a parent, uncle, or priest? I mean, if in fact all it takes to be made Gay is one Gay encounter, why then are there victims of molestation and homosexual rape that go on living their Heterosexual lives? These questions have no simple answer, but it seems condescending to believe that a child or adolescent will see two same sex people kissing and automatically desire to partake in that activity. There are those who are clearly so repulsed by that behavior that they know for certain they are heterosexual. Conversely, there are those who are homosexual who are equally repulsed at the idea of kissing someone of opposite sex romantically. It’s not rocket science, if it doesn’t interest you, you simply will not pursue it.
Perhaps these people are choosing to ignore the fact that following the “be fruitful and multiply” ideal is going to become statistically unachievable. In 1900, the world population was approximately 1.5Billion, today, a little over a hundred years later that number is nearing 7 Billion. We cannot continue to keep creating offspring at the rate we are going; our resources will not be plentiful enough to handle this population expansion much longer. The issue is exaggerated by the ability for science and medicine to extend our lives. So I feel compelled to introduce the notion that homosexuals may be a reaction from the divine to prevent our societies from the nightmare of overpopulation. This of course rolls us right into Abortion.
I am continually amazed at the religious rights push to undo all established abortion laws, but complete disregard for the care and well being of children and adults who are currently suffering worldwide as a result of being born in an unstable environment. There has also been credible speculation that the Roe V. Wade ruling resulted in significant improvements in crime statistics 20 years after the fact (see Freakanomics). While statistics can be interpreted in many ways, one cannot deny the likelihood that a child raised in a broken home (non-nuclear family) is significantly more likely to turn to crime than one that is stable (a stable home being one which is devoid of significant marital stresses such as financial strife). Poor women might have financial struggles with a child from the very moment of birth, especially since they are less likely to have health insurance to cover their labor expenses. From that point on the child is a financial and emotional drain on the family and society. In some instances, this drain can even result in the dissolution of what might have been a nuclear family.
I do not think any person considers an Abortion an easy decision, but I do believe that many abortions have saved our society from being taxed in immeasurable ways. If it is your mandate to stop someone from having an abortion, you should be willing to take the financial responsibility to raise that child to adulthood. You will never find an anti-abortion supporter willing to do this unless they are barren and seeking child. Again, I would refer to population statistics with regard to Abortion, the world simply cannot continue to procreate at current rates. If anything, we as a society should be doing everything in our power to promote safe sex and contraception, lest we grow comfortable with the idea of giving free money and services to people who could otherwise be earning money if not for having a child to care for.
The nature of this meeting gets a tad disturbing then you consider the fact that Rev. Dan Fisher of Trinity Baptist Church blatantly admits to violating tax law with regard to his Church’s tax exempt status and preaching political agenda. While it’s never made any sense (to me) that a Church should receive this status from the state (because that’s hardly enforcing separation of church and state), it’s troubling that they admit to this fraud in the presence of Attorney General Scott Pruitt. It is crime that is being bragged about, and the one person who should lead the charge in prosecuting criminals stands by and does nothing. If I were a business owner who cheated on his taxes, one of the last people I would ever mention it in front of would be the Attorney General. But apparently Scott Pruitt’s personal agenda’s are getting in the way of his private agenda’s. If anything, I’d say he is worthy of an ethics review.
Maybe that’s an extension Scott Pruitt’s belief that there should be no “separation between one’s public, personal and religious life.” But since Scott has these glaring issues of ethics with regard to his personal and religious beliefs, it really makes me wonder about what he actually shares from his personal and public life. If there is one thing history has shown us, it’s that political and religious types who profess openness about who they are often caught harboring dark secrets which contrary to the values they portray to the public. If someone were to have his personal computer forensically evaluated, would it come up clean of anything that would reflect poorly on him? I doubt it. I won’t go so far as to say he absolutely has these skeletons in his closet, but let me ask his friends a question. If Scott got his kicks by being tied up, ball gagged, and whipped by a transsexual dominatrix, would you still love him? Of course not, that’s why like so many people in this world, he shows you the face you want to see. But honestly, if that were his thing, I wouldn’t care. What shocks me is that children of Christ would, many of whom have your own skeletons hiding in closets.