If that is true, then perhaps the end times are upon us.
Right Wing Watch today summarized an article from Charisma News by Dan Cummins in which Cummins asserts that Speaker Paul Ryan is a fan of David Barton. Cummins believes the end times are coming and America is under judgment.
It upsets me when I hear all the doom-and-gloom “prophetic words” about how Congress is nothing but a bunch of crooks. Most of these spiritual giant slayers have never stepped a foot into the Capitol or visited their congressman. They have no clue of what God is doing in their government or that God has big future plans for it. Their opinions are shaped more from media spin and propaganda than a biblical worldview of God’s end-times agenda for governance.
Do I believe America is in a period of judgement? (sic) Yes! Most definitely. God has given us over to our selfish desires. Yet the biblical pattern for national revival is almost always preceded by a time of judgment. “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
Psalm 72:16 and Micah 4:1-3, clearly state that in “the last days” God will take a remnant of believers (wheat) and plant them in the tops of world governments (tops of the mountains) and build “the house of the Lord,” beginning in the top levels of the world’s governments. The resulting consequences of God’s moving in world governments would then shake the earth with revival. “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the house of the Lord.”
I can confirm that this is beginning to happen in Washington, D.C., London, Ukraine, Poland, Moscow and several nations in Africa.
I’d sure like to know how it is happening in all those other countries. However, Cummins lets us in on the secret in Washington, DC.
Did you know there are more “passionate followers of Jesus Christ” (I prefer this to the overused sometime meaningless term, “Christian”) in the 114th Congress than at any time since President Calvin Coolidge? There are. We are working with close to 200 sincere followers of the Lord in the House and Senate.
Did you know, on occasions, as many as 90 pastors will be praying together in the Capitol Rotunda while the House of Representatives is debating controversial freedom of religion amendments on the House floor? Did you know that, on most Wednesday evenings, prayer for America is happening in the Rotunda? It is!
Have you heard? Beginning on Sunday, Sept. 4, three Christian worship services will begin in the Ways and Means Room in the Capitol building for all federal employees and Capitol Police. It’s been 150 years since regular Sunday church services were held in the U.S. Capitol. This is big news!
How did this all begin to happen? America has been praying, that’s how! And God is right now in the process of answering those prayers by raising up godly men and women in Congress, the most important branch of government.
Let me share our personal first-hand experiences of being a small part of what God is doing in Congress. I know there are other great ministries on the Hill reaching out to Congress in very influential ways, and we thank God for their work. But I can only share with you about what JoAnn and I are doing.
Though we may never agree totally with everyone’s politics, let me tell you why I’m thankful that Paul Ryan is speaker of the House and that he won his primary race. Speaker Ryan, a Roman Catholic, is a passionate disciple and follower of Jesus Christ. He is surrounding himself with godly spiritual pastors.
He said, “The only hope for America is a spiritual awakening. … We must have spiritual solutions to our problems, or we’re in for troubled times as a nation” (spoken to JoAnn and me alone in a private, 30-minute conversation). He asked that I help him invite pastors to the Capitol for spiritual advice. So far, we have had more than 200 pastors visit the Capitol, and we plan for many more for this fall.
Ryan makes meeting pastors a top priority in his busy schedule. JoAnn and I have an open working relationship with his staff. They told us that in six weeks’ time, they had to turn down more than 500 invitations to various important events (I saw the print out sheets), “but he’s doing the pastors briefings because he’s passionate about it,” a top staffer told us.
Speaker Ryan is an avid fan of historian David Barton. “I listen to him all the time, even in my car while driving,” he said. Because of Barton’s teachings, Speaker Ryan is very knowledgeable of the 1954 Johnson Amendment (putting political speech restrictions on pastors from their pulpits) and its devastating effects on our culture.
He understands “first causative principle”—that the 1954 Johnson Amendment eventually was responsible for prayer and Bible reading being taken out of schools in 1963, the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 and redefining of marriage in 2016—all because pastors were silenced from speaking out politically. That’s why Speaker Ryan wants the Johnson Amendment repealed legislatively. He knows pastors being set free to preach again to the nation regarding these moral and political issues is a must to turn the nation around.
For Cummins, revival means Christianity in the government.
I will defer to any actual historian who wants to weigh in, but I am very skeptical of the link between the Johnson Amendment and the Supreme Court decisions on prayer and Bible reading, and so on. For one thing, pastors aren’t silenced from speaking out politically. How ironic that this guy thinks he is being silenced when he is writing an article for Charisma News in which he says church services are being held in government buildings. Loud silence.
No surprise when Barton is involved, but there is a lot of misinformation about the Johnson Amendment. Even in their churches, pastors can say whatever they want but they can’t use church money or resources to campaign. Woe unto any church that takes tithes and offerings and uses them to support a candidate for political office, whether GOP or Dem.
Historians, especially Christian historians, your country needs you to step up and loudly rebuke this error. The Speaker needs to hear from you.