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TechnoratiOne evening while Reverend Jonas Clark of Lexington was dining with John Hancock and Samuel Adams, Paul Revere warned the British were about to attack. Asked whether the men of Lexington would fight, Clark didn't waffle or hesitate with cowardly excuses about mixing politics with religion. Instead he replied he had personally trained them for that very hour and if need be, he said they would die "under the shadow of the house of God." The very next day it was Clark's parishioners who gave the first blood of the revolution. [8]
Other great men of God who had a profound effect on Western culture, in general, could be mentioned also. Ministers like John Wesley, who preached concerning the most controversial issues of his day: "indentured servitude, slavery, rampant drunkenness, the poor health of the peasant class, prison abuse and lack of education for the exploited poor." [9] William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army preached to raise the age of sexual consent for women in England to 16 and succeeded in getting it done. [10] In America, clergy like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and Charles Finney had an unprecedented influence on the nation's social and political landscape.
Although New Jersey's Senate President Richard Cody has banned Fields from ever offering another invocation before that body again, one can be sure the good Reverend has found favor with God and will be named among His hall of famers. It's the other preachers – that vast host of them in this nation – who are sitting Lot-like in the gates of Sodom and will not raise their voices for righteousness in America's hour of crisis who should be ashamed. Deserters and hirelings they are!
The hope of the nation depends on clergy like Rev. Vincent Fields. And may God show us mercy and send us a multitude like him.
Rev. Mark H. Creech (calact@aol.com) is the executive director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina, Inc.
[1] http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/dec/06121403.html
[2] Ibid
[3] http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/12/202006d.asp
[4] Luke 13:32; Matthew 12:34
[5] Matthew 22:21
[6] Christianity and the American Commonwealth, Bishop Charles B. Galloway, D.D., LL.D., Lecture delivered in the Chapel at Emory College, Oxford, Ga., March 1898, American Vision 2005, pg. 100
[7] Ibid
[8] www.famousamericans.net/jonasclark
[9] Why You Can't Stay Silent: A Biblical Mandate to Shape our Culture, Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family 2001, pg. 29
[10] Ibid
________________________________________
Rev. Mark H. Creech (calact@aol.com) is the executive director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina, Inc.
