Jude 2

San Diego News - Couple: County Trying To Stop Home Bible Studies

http://www.10news.com/news/19562217/detail.html

SAN DIEGO -- A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold bible studies in their home, 10News reported.

Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.

Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"

The county employee notified the couple that the small bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of county regulations, according to Broyles.

Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

"For churches and religious assemblies there's big parking concerns, there's environmental impact concerns...


..."If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly at home for poker night? What about people who meet for Tupperware parties? What about people who are meeting to watch baseball games on a regular basis and support the Chargers?" said Broyles.

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Oh.. I could rant Soooo much. We need to learn the details first... but the response from the county seems enough for me at the moment.

Another related story..
http://www.10news.com/news/19585458/detail.html

Seeing RED.

This article got me wondering.....do regular churches that are in fact "religious assemblies" have to have a major use permit and pay "tens of thousands of dollars"? Is this amount inflated to enhance the story or does California really have this kind of suppressive policy?

I could more easily understand maybe imposing a fine or requiring some sort of parking permit if you have 10 or 12 cars all up and down the road every Tuesday night. But even then, like you said MacUser, what about all the other tens of thousands of gatherings held by all those other types of groups?
But they specifically sited a "religious use" violation of the law. I wasn't aware that the government can restrict the free exercise of religion so why did they make a specific religious prohibiting law? I mean I know that the world hates the promotion of the christian ideology but man that's ridiculous!

This is too funny. I was reading some comments over here, and this guy said:

"I will not vilify the state until more details are made available, only because I have seen people 'use' their constitutionally legal rights to justify an imposition on other people that they care less about than themselves."

That's funny, "use there CONSTITUTIONALLY LEGAL RIGHTS" How dare they!! People are ridiculous sometimes. Oh what would happen if the church today had movements like the early church had in Christ's day!! 5000 assembled on the corner lot receiving the word of the Lord and being added to the church daily! It was in that context that I had posted before when I asked if we, as the church, are doing what we were suppose to be doing in our daily lives. If we (definitely ME) moved and acted like the early church did we would ALL be in prison! Would that expedite the coming of the Lord?

Simple WOW Looks like their selecting out christian's
They are using the law of the land to restrict or even stop home meetings of christians.

And, now a kid can't read a part of the bible at show and tell in kindergarten.

I am seriously convinced that the church in America is about to become, if anything, an underground movement. If that's the case, the true faith will spread like nobody's business, IMO. At a steep price, though.

This guy agrees.

dolfan wrote:I am seriously convinced that the church in America is about to become, if anything, an underground movement. If that's the case, the true faith will spread like nobody's business, IMO. At a steep price, though.

That's all our own fault. The church failed to do what it has been called to do by the Lord in general and that's why it tries to resort to the political arena to try to get stuff done.

If we all would have simply obeyed the Great Commission in the first place...

EagerBeaver wrote:That's all our own fault. The church failed to do what it has been called to do by the Lord in general and that's why it tries to resort to the political arena to try to get stuff done.

If we all would have simply obeyed the Great Commission in the first place...

Eager, I think you are really close on that observation... and I will take it even further to the point of being a more holistic approach.

The Church has failed at the down and dirty daily collective element of child rearing and a solid Bible lower education curriculum and focused on political powers, building larger social clubs and basically living beyond our means... while turing our kids over to reprobates that teach them. Then we have elders wondering where the youth has gone. You didn't invest in them.

I'm a little tired so hopefully I'm expressing that clearly.

God Bless

You're both right. Mac, I'd go one step back in time, even, and say that many of our parents trusted the public schools to teach their children what they had been taught -- traditional limited government civics, for example. Our parents went to sleep at the wheel. Today, they're too busy texting behind it, or just leaving it up to someone else "in the village" to drive their children's futures.

I want to share an example, by way of analogy, that demonstrates the truth of Jesus' observation that the children of the world are, in their generation, wiser than the children of light. Michael Moore wrote a blabbering diatribe about how the government should reconstitute GM as the union-hiring arm of transportation devoted to high speed light rail, a sort of "rail here, rail now" demand. Now, while I agree that high speed light rail is a fabulous idea, my agreement with Moore goes no further. Whoever is right, let's say that government takes on this idea that mass transit, however it is done, is the way of the future. The societal impact of that is immeasurable. One simple question shows this to be so: Will you have the right to have an open bible in a light rail car as you do in your own automobile now?

It isn't farfetched, is it, to think that government would forbid that? What with the new government intrusion into private homes to forbid Christians meeting (if it were gays meeting to plan a parade, they'd get a city grant), and now the Pa. decision to stop a kindergartner from sharing his bible verses in show and tell, you'd almost have to assume that no bibles or other Christian expressions would be allowed in mass transit/light rail.

How's all this add up to being "wise"? Well, here's the rule: Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he matures, he'll hold to that way. Right? Create, control and maintain the environment where your children learn how to live. We lack the patience and the vision of the future to unplug from the "grid" and live with dependence on each other as believers.

It is, (IMO, which won't get you a cup of coffee) more likely than not true that in order to do that, a wholesale abandonment of all of the civil structures of government are required. Half-measures won't do. Government schools, government processes for the vindication of rights and liberties, government participation --- all of it, I do believe, has to be rejected in favor of another way of ordering Christians' lives that is radically different and even opposed to the way we now do that.

The immediate objection is always, "Well, you can't separate yourselves from the whole world. It is impossible and hurts the witness of the church." Oh, really? As opposed to a failed and hopelessly misguided effort to be effective within the order of the world? As opposed to, say, not hurting the witness of the church by buying into a corrupt system that encourages our divorces, sexualizes our children, encourages amusement over equipping, substitutes virtues such as industry, charity and honesty with "virtues" such as redistribution of wealth, diversity, "tolerance" (so-called, unless you are Christian, of course), rewards consumption with endless credit and inflation and punishes saving wealth with taxation, and which convinces the church of Jesus that a corrupt order is a suitable surrogate for meeting the demands of the gospel to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, visit the prisoners, relieve the oppressed, etc. --- in other words, has totally removed the American church from the mission to which God has called the church worldwide??

There is nothing holding the church back from being the church. If you believe in a dispensationalist view of things (and I don't, but that's beside the point here) and you take seriously the view that after a rapture the Holy Spirit's withdrawal from earth will remove all restraint of evil, then you ought to equally believe and pursue conduct that says, in essence, while He is here and active through the church, the church will do what it did when it turned the world upside down ---- and that existence was underground, my friends. House churches. Secret meetings, as may be required, where people are serious about living the Jesus kind of life through His power and Spirit and by His word, not where they are entertained by it. A way where living has both the power and form of godliness. No big money shakedowns, but instead a simple devotion between small familial groupings to meet each others' real and material needs but where everybody works as much as possible in order to be able to meet them.

If you don't believe in a dispensational view, and you believe that the kingdom of Christ already is at work in this world and that His kindgom not only shall reign forever, but reigns now in this age, then what greater witness is there than this kind of life? How many are being truly won to a sacrificial life of humility, giving, devotedness to the people around you, all of these things in the way of Jesus --- how many are being won to it by the American model as it now exists? How long will this model continue without necessary recourse to the very institutions of government and society that oppose the church's essential, core purposes? I don't see how things are sustainable as they are. I just don't.

dolfan wrote:How's all this add up to being "wise"? Well, here's the rule: Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he matures, he'll hold to that way. Right? Create, control and maintain the environment where your children learn how to live. We lack the patience and the vision of the future to unplug from the "grid" and live with dependence on each other as believers.

Good post. The entire thing and I couldn't agree more. We HAVE to separate ourselves at some point or you will not be able to tell the difference. Yet accessible and transparent.

The fact that we can't see that is the real scary part. So many walk the middle ground at this stage and I think in the short future.. you won't be able to grunt without being called out if you get my meaning.

As things continue to get worse for the believers, several doctrines will begin to become seriously suspect. One is the prosperity doctrine. Televangelists are going to have to explain the apparent disappearance of support for the "God wants you to be rich, have all the stuff you want, and enjoy life" doctrine.

Another is the "nothing bad is going to happen until the Church is raptured" doctrine. A fresh look at 1 Thess. 4:13-17 will have to be taken, along with a new study of Matt. 24:29-31.

God never changes, so we will have to look again at God's M.O. throughout the entire history of man, if we are to see the source and method of God's deliverance for His people in the coming time of tribulation.

“Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?” (Amos 5:18-20).

San Diego County Formally Apologizes to Local Pastor

The Christian Post reports that San Diego county officials have issued a formal apology to a pastor who was told he couldn't hold Bible studies in his home without a permit. County Chief Administrative Officer Walt Ekard sent the letter to Pastor David Jones on Wednesday, fulfilling Jones's demand for the rescinded decision in writing. "Christians should not be punished simply for holding a Bible study in their home, so we are very encouraged by the county's response and their commitment to immediate corrective action," said Dean Broyles, president of the Western Center for Law & Policy and Jones' attorney. The county offices were reportedly flooded with complaints when several media outlets printed the story in April.

Well, you can't argue with results. But, I can argue for process! Why should it have to come down to attorneys being involved over the exercise of so basic a right as meeting to pray in one's home? Why would government ever even step in the direction of private property use as being "unlawful use of land" when that use is religious? Well, that's one why I know the answer to: because government depends on power, and exercising power, to thrive. When government is nosing into people's private affairs and telling them what to do, it stops. For government, control is all or nothing, it is government's essential core purpose as it is designed and operating today. The kingdoms of this world are 180 degrees out of phase with the kingdom of God, and sit diametrically opposed to it. That's why I dismiss any notions of reforming or rescuing government merely to operate it under any pretended "something different".

paul wrote:San Diego County Formally Apologizes to Local Pastor

The Christian Post reports that San Diego county officials have issued a formal apology to a pastor who was told he couldn't hold Bible studies in his home without a permit. County Chief Administrative Officer Walt Ekard sent the letter to Pastor David Jones on Wednesday, fulfilling Jones's demand for the rescinded decision in writing. "Christians should not be punished simply for holding a Bible study in their home, so we are very encouraged by the county's response and their commitment to immediate corrective action," said Dean Broyles, president of the Western Center for Law & Policy and Jones' attorney. The county offices were reportedly flooded with complaints when several media outlets printed the story in April.

Amen, Paul.. thank you for the update on this amazing issue!