On a Fox News program, Sunday, October 26, Eric Metaxas called for a revolt.  Metaxas is the author of the best seller,“Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.” He said he read about the Houston city government subpoenaing the sermons of five Houston pastors and couldn’t believe it.

“This has to be a joke,” he told Fox News. “This cannot be happening in America.”  But when he got deeper into the subject, he said he knew “a bold red line” had been crossed. “If there was ever a time to throw the tea into the harbor, this is it!”   

Our religious liberty is under assault.  If we lose our freedom to preach the Word of God freely, soon we will lose all our liberties.

Over reaction?  Metaxas cited the Nazi government’s attempt to silence and destroy the “confessing church” in Germany.  Gestapo agents infiltrated the congregations of believing pastors or stood in the back, monitoring what was said.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer eventually was arrested, condemned to a concentration camp, and hanged in the closing days of World War II.  Because he stood unbending for the integrity of the Gospel.  And that was the one thing Hitler’s Third Reich could not permit.

The Roman poet Virgil wrote in The Aeneid. "Easy is the descent to Hell; all night, all day, the door of dark Hades stands open; but to retrace the path; to come out again to the sweet air of Heaven--there is the task, there is the burden."  

Once we breathed the sweet air of heaven.  Today’s Americans have been the greatly blessed recipients of hard won freedoms.  We were the beneficiaries of a nation where the Word of God formed our laws, our moral standards, and our culture.   But the enemies of liberty have relentlessly pressed us backward in downward descent for a century.  And it has been so easy just to slide lower and then lower.  And to wring our hands and to mutter our concern.

Their pattern has been to assault our ways and standards, to file lawsuits in protest of the Ten Commandments displayed--or public prayer, or the expression of Christian faith in our schools.  They have railed against restrictions on immoral behavior in the name of civil rights.  They aim way beyond what popular opinion will accept.  And when we have protested, they have pretended to be remorseful.  But our efforts to oppose them only serve to retain the status quo.  We must win every time.  But they need triumph only once to lever us downward.  Relentlessly.  Perniciously. With patience and undeterred determination they press and plow against all we hold dear.

That is the tactic of Mayor Parker and the left leaning Houston City Council.  The mayor, the first openly homosexual mayor of a major American city, seems to have backed off the subpoena of sermons.  Or as she put it, “The words of the subpoena are overly broad.”  But the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance still stands.  Under its auspices, men who consider themselves inner females will use women’s restrooms in the city.  Pity your daughters.  The dignity and protection of our women counts for nothing.  And Christian pastors have been served notice.

And the easy pathway to hell stands open, yawning, gaping,--and we descend another small step.  

Must we?  Eric Metaxas said, “Everyone in America should be freaking out…If we tolerate this kind of abrogation of religious freedom in this nation, all of our liberties will be unraveled.” Metaxas continued, “It is that serious. America needs to wake up. The church, especially, needs to know that this is a huge trampling of something that the Founders said was at the heart of all of our liberties.”

But what should we do?  Some have called for pastors everywhere to send Mayor Parker copies of their sermons on religious liberty.  Or Bibles. (The mayor has received a thousand of them.) But that won’t really get us anywhere, will it?  A protest.  A flexing of the Christian muscle.  And the supporters of the mayor will apologize.  Or pretend to.  And they will back off.  Until the next assault.  And they know eventually they will prevail. If not in Houston, then somewhere else.  We are living through world changing history.

The first thing to do is to hear again the commission of Jesus to his disciples: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves.  But beware of men; for they will deliver you up to the courts, and scourge you in their synagogues; and you shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.” (Matthew 10:16-18) 

That’s the command not to take it anymore.   So stop wringing your hands and do something.  Even if it costs you.  As a start, wherever you are, you can rouse yourself and vote against them on November 4.  And next time, you might run for election yourself.

Dr. Rick Perrin is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and Chairman of the Board of World Reformed Fellowship..  He writes a weekly blog called ReTHINK which may be accessed at www.rethinkingnews.wordpress.com. He may be contacted directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..