Billboards promoting a celebration of
faith and freedom at the First Baptist Church in Dallas were removed after
complaints from Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and the Dallas Morning News. The
patriotic billboard campaign included the title of the sermon Dr. Robert
Jeffress planned to deliver on June 24 – “America is a Christian Nation.”
“We were told by the billboard company
that the message was divisive,” Jeffress told the Todd Starnes Radio Show. The
sermon title was inspired by comments made by US Supreme Court Justices John
Jay and David Josiah Brewer – both of whom described America as a Christian
nation.
However, the Dallas Morning News and Mayor Rawlings blasted the pastor’s sermon
title suggesting it was hateful and divisive.
“That is not the Christ I follow,” the mayor told the newspaper. “It’s not the Dallas I want to be – to say things
that do not unite us but divide us. I
never heard those words – that voice come out of Christ. Just the opposite. I was brought up to believe: Be proud of yours,
but do not diminish mine.”
Columnist Robert
Wilonsky started the controversy with a scathing column on June 7 titled,
“First Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress’ gospel of division does not represent my
Dallas.” Wilonsky was apparently
triggered by the patriotic billboard while stuck in traffic and suffered a
massive microaggression. “My rabbi
warned me there would be days like this,” he wrote. “All I saw Wednesday was someone telling me
and everyone else who does not worship Jesus Christ that we do not belong
here.”
The following day the church received
a message from the billboard company that their signed contract was being
canceled and the billboards would be taken down. “We are getting hammered by the media for the
‘America is a Christian Nation’ tagline on the billboards,” a representative of
Outfront Media wrote to a church
leader. “Dallas Morning News and other
news affiliates are doing stories on how it’s offensive and bigoted. Someone called our corporate office in New York
about the ‘offensive’ billboards and following our lawyer’s advice, we have to
take them down ASAP.”
The church offered to revise the
sermon title, “Is America a Christian Nation?” but that, too, was rejected by
the billboard company. “We were told
that the title was ‘anger-provoking rather than ‘thought provoking,’” Jeffress
told Starnes.
The local Outfront Media representative was apologetic – but it was clear the
New York-based company was no match for angry anti-Christian radicals.
“The reason those on the Left do not
want people to hear my message is that they know the historical evidence is on
my side that America was founded on the principles of the Christian faith,”
Jeffress said. “We will not be deterred
as we defend the foundational values of our country.”
City Hall spokesman Scott Goldstein
defended the mayor on Twitter. “Mayor
@Mike_Rawlings speaks for the real Dallas.
The guy on the billboard does not,” he wrote.
First Baptist Dallas has no beef with Outfront Media. They are a privately owned company and they
have a right to decide who they do business with. “We support the right of businesses to refuse
service to customers based on religious conviction,” said Jeffress. The problem, he said, is the Dallas Morning News and Mayor Rawlings. “It should greatly concern people of any faith
when those in the press or government proactively seek to defeat, censor or
silence any religious message with which they disagree,” Jeffress said. “We don’t believe Dallas city officials have
any right to directly or indirectly be involved in censoring a church’s
message.”
The mayor denied having any
involvement in having the billboards removed.
“I don’t ‘oppose’ the billboards,” the mayor told Starnes in a written
statement. “My Christian faith teaches
me not to be judgmental and to love those that are different than me. I also believe that as an American I can honor
my devout Christian beliefs and still respect the fact that this is a diverse
world and I represent a diverse constituency. Those two thoughts can go together. I don’t believe that the billboard captured those
important nuances.”
In reference to the Dallas Morning
News – who pose as champions of free speech – Jeffress says, “to try to censor
our church’s message is gross hypocrisy.”
It turns out another billboard company
offered to put up the church’s message on 20 billboards, not two.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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