-Rick Warren: President Obama ‘Infringed’ on Religious Freedom
by Dr. D ~ December 1st, 2012
(Pastor Rick Warren: Wikipedia)
From the Christian Post:
Evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren recently stated that President Barack Obama has "infringed" upon religious freedom in America.
The pastor of California-based Saddleback Church made these remarks to the Huffington Post, saying that Obama is "absolutely" unfriendly to religion and his administration’s policies have "intentionally infringed upon religious liberties."
In an interview with Marc Lamont Hill of Huff Post Live on Wednesday, Warren took issue with the contraception mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year.
"I believe … you should have a right to be able to practice your belief without the government forcing you to do something different," said Warren. "If they made a law where you got to sell contraception if you’re Catholic, well then how about a law to Jewish Rabbis that says you have to sell pork in every deli?"
Response: From my perspective, religious freedom was one of the most important issues of the last election but it was substantially ignored. The Catholic bishops tried to raise the issue but the main stream media allowed it to be redefined as a so-called ‘war on women.’
Pastor Warren had made similar statements about the Obama administration and religious liberty during the election season and even held a conference here in Lake Forest CA on the issue yet no one in the press would really touch it. Also, GOP candidate Romney ignored it since his backers deemed him as vulnerable when addressing religious issues because of his Mormon faith.
My greatest concern over the next four years is that President Obama and his administration will change the way that the first amendment is perceived and interpreted when it comes to religious liberty. He supports the idea of ‘freedom of worship’ as a substitute for the traditional understanding of religious freedom. He seems to want to limit religious liberty to the four walls of a church or an official worship building thus limiting the religious freedoms of individuals, allied ministries, and religious businesses.
Fortunately, we still have a Supreme Court that will probably continue to stand up for religious freedom- at least with the current justices. However, over the next four years, President Obama will have the opportunity to appoint 100’s of federal judges, including some Circuit appeals court justices, and probably even several more to the Supreme Court itself.
It is time for Christians to wake up and join together as never before to insure that our religious freedoms will not be curtailed or compromised and forever changed by an administration who consider their progressive agenda to be far more important than any ‘negative rights’ or traditional freedoms and values.
Here’s a link to an article I wrote in August defining this issue in greater detail:
-Attacks on Religious Freedom in U.S. at ‘All-Time High’ *Top
January 21st, 2013 at 8:24 am
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