PASADENA, Md.  The Rev. Chuck Baldwin, vice-presidential candidate of the Constitution Party, told attendees to the party's national convention, that cowardly pastors are to blame for America's political state.
According to a news release, Baldwin, who is pastor of the Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., delivered a speech indicting the nation's preachers for a lack of moral leadership.
"How have we reached this position of compromise and cowardice? Why have we acquiesced and surrendered our American heritage and our Christian convictions? As a pastor, I think I am qualified to speak on this topic.
"In my opinion, the chief culprit rests behind the sacred pulpits of America. I am ashamed to say it, but I believe that the majority of the men of God, the pastors of our churches across America, have become cowards. These men who have become ear ticklers, who put their fingers to the wind to see which way it is blowing in order to decide what and how to speak, are a disgrace to the colonial preachers who led the moral and righteous fight in our war for independence."
Baldwin said John the Baptist was beheaded for meddling in politics and he quoted John Adams' charge to preachers to speak against "sins as are most prevalent."
"In other words, it doesn't matter what the politicians think. It doesn't matter what the people think or what anyone else thinks: just preach the truth," Baldwin said.
Baldwin also addressed the issue of churches as tax exempt organizations prohibited from some political involvement. "I personally believe that the 501c3 tax-exempt status is merely a tree that preachers are using to hide behind," he said. "The problem, ultimately, is not the tax-exempt status of the church; the problem is the cowardly heart of the preacher in the pulpit."
He also accused preachers of being afraid of offending their own congregations. "Ladies and gentlemen, I firmly believe that if the preachers of America would demonstrate in their own churches Sunday-by-Sunday, month-by-month, and year-by-year, real courage, they could change the course of America."
