Fearful Churches are Failing…21 May 2023

    Fearful Churches Are Failing to Teach Americans Moral
Character, Pastor Says
By Beth Brelje
    April 1, 2023Updated: April 11, 2023
    A recent poll showing a decline in traditional American
values confirms what conservatives have been saying: The
character of America changing.
    The percentage of those polled who said patriotism is impor-
tant dropped to 38 percent today from 70 percent 25 years ago.
While 59 percent said having children was important 25
years ago, now just 30 percent do. And the importance of
religion dropped to 39 percent now from 62 percent calling it
important 25 years ago.
    The poll, released in March 2023, was conducted by the Nation-
al Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and funded
by The Wall Street Journal.
    Those who are older understand what this country was and
how we’re devolving, said Rev. C.L. Bryant, a senior fellow at
FreedomWorks, a group that advocates for freedom and small govern-
ment.
    Churches are failing this country, he said in a speech at
the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, an annual gathering of
conservatives.
    He said Americans are slowly being enslaved and
that he aimed to encourage people to build a fire in their
hearts and restore the light of patriotism to the nation.
    “Americans, whether you know it or not, there are coun-
tries around this world who’ve always looked to us for leadership.
    For strength. For encouragement. But even now, on the
faces of Americans, the light of this world, they are beginning
to see fear. They are beginning to see us in a state where they
understand that we are being hoodwinked. We are being bamboozled.
And our children are being swindled out of their American heri-
tage,” Bryant said. “In too many cases, it is because the churches
in this country are failing the congregants. This faith-based
nation, like we have been even in our founding, is failing in what
our founders saw it could be for people of moral character.”
    For the first time in our nation’s history, he said, more than
65 percent of children from the ages of 7 to 17 have never been to
a church, synagogue, or mosque.
    Political Correctness
He chastised pastors for not preaching truth to their churches.
    “Pastors … because of political correctness, there are cer-
tain things that you are beginning to leave out of your sermons
on Sundays. And you’re leaving your congregants unclothed and
certainly exposed to the attack of political wolves in this
country,” said Bryant, a Christian.
    He spoke of Jesus being crucified over the politics of his
day.
    “[Jesus] took them head-on. He came and overturned tables.
He came with a righteous anger over how they were manipulated
and how they were duping God’s people. He came to set them
free,” Bryant said. “It cost Him His life. It cost Him a cruci-
fixion. And the American pastor today understands the story of
Christ, but they don’t understand the mission of setting the
captives free.”
    Many pastors and congregants are afraid of a sort of cruci-
fixion today, he said.
    Our nation is dying, he said, and it can die if we don’t
understand the nature of what the mission is.
    “With Easter Sunday coming, the day that we celebrate the
resurrection of our Lord, it is time for us to understand,
pastors and congregants … that without the crucifixion, without
them coming after you with sharp objects, without them trying
to tear you down, and the struggle—without the crucifixion,
there is no resurrection,” Bryant said. And my friends, the
resurrection of America is certainly necessary now. Because
there has been a purposeful destruction of our moral character.”
    Slaves Seek Comfort
Bryant spoke of the trap of accepting handouts from the govern-
ment. The slave doesn’t necessarily seek freedom, he said, but
rather, comfort.
    “The slave will trade his freedom for more food in his bowl
and for a roof that doesn’t leak over his head. The slave will
trade his freedom for a paycheck that comes without work,” he
said.
    “Americans, you are slowly being enslaved. It is time now
for you to wake up and understand that the tools of our des-
truction are truly working on our young people, because they
love free stuff, and they love your stuff. They want your
stuff, because they may never accumulate things, in the way it
is going, on their own. So that presents a certain peril for
all of us who have worked hard and experienced the American way
of prosperity and success. There is a generation coming behind
us and slowly being suffocated by the principles of big govern-
ment.”
    Bryant encouraged the crowd to not let anyone take from
them what they fought wars for.
    “My friends, it is time for you to stand up and push back,”
he said. “I want you to take account of what our fathers have
bought and paid for with blood. Take account of that. If we let
anyone—Democrat, Republican, whoever they are—take from us what
our fathers bought and paid for.
    Not without a fight.”
    And with that, the crowd stood in applause.**
    God willing and we survive the corruption.
   Conservatively,
   John