CAL Director Urges All Pastors to Take-up The Issue and Lead Their Congregations in Prayer
By Hunter Hines
Christian Action League
March 3, 2021
“It both excites and encourages my heart whenever I see a pastor boldly speak to the issues of our day. There are too many cravenly silent pulpits when a ‘Thus saith the Lord’ from God’s prophets is desperately needed,” said Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League.
Creech made the statement in response to a bold address about “The Equality Act,” which Pastor Chad Harvey gave to his church, Cross Assembly in Raleigh, before preaching his sermon last Sunday morning. Harvey is the church’s teaching pastor and has led the thriving ministry since 2002. Creech said that he heard the address online.
“I appreciated his passion,” said Creech. “What is badly needed is for every faithful pastor in North Carolina to do as this pastor did and lead their congregations in prayer about it.”
Harvey drew his congregations’ attention to HR 5, which passed the U.S. House the week before, and urged the following:
“I gotta share something with you; some of y’all have asked me about this. Not very many issues bring Jews, Muslims, Catholics, and Evangelicals together, but something happened last week that has done that. The House of Representatives passed what was called the ‘Equality Act.’ Noam Chomsky said that to start a revolution, first, have a title no one can disagree with. We want equality, but this is not equality. This is religious persecution.
“‘The Equality Act’ designates, and let me tell you this, the head of the Assemblies of God, Doug Clay, who never does stuff like this, he rang the alarm bells this past week and said we need to share this with our congregations that they can be praying. ‘The Equality Act’ designates schools, churches, and medical institutions as ‘public accommodations’ according to Franklin Graham. The churches will be forced to accept the government’s beliefs and mandates about sexual orientation and gender identity. Christian schools will lose their accreditation if they don’t accept sodomy and transgender. Ladies’ sports teams will be forced to allow men to compete on their teams.
“For example, let’s say you have an openly, flamboyant homosexual teacher that says I want to go speak at or teach at North Raleigh Christian Academy. They won’t be able to say no because that’s discrimination. Orthodox Jewish synagogues, for millennia, have divided, and you know this, that in an orthodox synagogue men will sit here, and women sit there, ok and you can’t do that anymore if this thing passes. Well, I just don’t think that men and women ought to have separate seating. Maybe you shouldn’t, but that’s their choice, that’s not your choice to make.
“Dr. Michael Brown put this scenario up, he said you run a women’s shelter for abused women, you have limited facilities, and there’s no way that your clients, who have already been traumatized by men, this is a clinic or a house for abused women. There’s no reason they should be forced to share showers and bathrooms and bedrooms with biological males. But under ‘The Equality Act’ they will be forced to do that if a man says I identify as a woman.
“Cross Assembly, if I’m reading this correctly, cause y’all think there’s a religious exemption, no there’s not. There’s no religious exemption on what was passed by the house. According to this, Cross Assembly would be forced to perform same-sex weddings. Now you do know that that would never happen here, right? We’ll just, ah, just be like knocking over an anthill, we’ll shut this place down, have 500 home groups and just keep expanding. If I understand correctly, a transgender drag queen could not be denied membership at our church if this passes.
“All you Romans 13 people who lectured me about forcing everybody to wear masks back last year because the governor said so. Where are you now? You think I ought to do this because the government now tells us we have to do that?
“The Catholic League calls the Equality Act; now this is the Catholic League, the Catholic League calls ‘The Equality Act’ ‘the most comprehensive assault on Christianity ever written into law.’
“Now, I’m not angry at liberals. Liberals are gonna do what liberals are going to do. Here’s who I’m angry at. I’m angry at Christians who act surprised by this. I told you all back in October this was going to happen. Hey, don’t blame Joe Biden. Biden told you last year what he was going to do and when he was going to do it. He’s now passed this in the first 100 days, and now we are surprised by this? I’m angry at our Christian leaders. They let us down. They should have been ringing the alarm bell last year. They were more intent on being ‘woke’ than being biblical, and now we are in a mess! We are in a mess! So, pastor, what do we do? We’ll pray. We gotta pray…
“So we need to pray right now. Can we do that?
“Father, we come before your throne of grace with confidence with the blood of your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, this is one of those things where I am going to have to ask the Spirit to pray through me cause I don’t know how to pray for this thing. We got ourselves into this mess, and now we are asking you to get us out of it… I pray that regardless of what powers that be, decide to do, this church will be bold and strong and we will not compromise on Biblical truth. Give us that spirit of Joshua. Give us that spirit of Caleb, who says we can stand against the giants for the glory of the Lord.”
Creech added that Harvey was right, saying, “The pastor is correct. There is nothing more powerful or more effective that we can do than pray. But we should also contact the offices of North Carolina’s two U.S. Senators. We should urge them to vote ‘No’ on this terrible legislation and fight against it. This will up-end religious liberty and be the demise of many churches and Christian ministries. We should put feet on our prayers. The Bible says, ‘Faith without works is dead,'” he said.
TAKE CHRISTIAN ACTION:
1. Ask your pastor to speak to “The Equality Act” and urge him to lead the church in prayer about it.
2. Contact both of North Carolina’s U.S. Senators without delay and urge them to vote “No” on this horrible legislation.
Sen. Richard Burr:
Email: https://www.burr.senate.gov/contact/email
Phone his office in Washington, D.C.
202.224.3154
Sen. Thom Tillis:
Email: https://www.tillis.senate.gov/email-me
Phone his office in Washington, D.C.
202.224.6342
Warning: We cannot assume that because both of these Senators are avowed conservatives, they will vote the right way. They still need to hear from you.