Newsletter Vol. 2 No. 6

What is Freedom Matters Today?

Welcome to the July Newsletter of Freedom Matters Today. The heart of the Christian message is freedom. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1).

Freedom from:
• Guilt and shame
• Sin and death
• Fear and despair
• Past and prejudice
• Fascism and tyranny
• War and conflict.

Pivoting in Post-Covid Insanities

My goal is to challenge the narratives over faith, life, flag, and futures by applying the identity, words, and actions of Jesus to our busy, post-modern lives, struggles and problems. I have no confidence or support for the institutional church, rituals, regulations, and laws that have denied, undermined, or confused the central message of the good news about Jesus.

Every generation Christians take a good look at the current mess, and decide to step out in faith, listen to God, walk in the Spirit, and withdraw their support for the dominant orthodoxy of institutional religion. It is what the Protestants did, and the Pentecostals, the Methodists and those who listened to Whitfield. Over time, those new movements became as corrupt as the ones they sought to replace.

Today, instead of following Jesus, Christians rush to defend the bricks and mortar buildings, the old sectarianism, the outdated cultural creeds, the defunct denominations, and the Culture War. They talk about ‘Christianity,’ ‘Christ,’ ‘the faith,’ and ‘Jesus,’ but they are but footnotes to their main concerns which are moralism, isolationism, money, and power.

These priorities are killing faith across the West and will lead to the eventual demise and decay of Christian witness. Christians will defend the church but not Christ, nor are they interested in the identity, words, and actions of Jesus anymore, as Jesus’ challenge is too deep, too personal, and too real. It is better to keep God boxed up on Sunday, it is better to retreat to the monastery rather than live in the world, and it is better to hide in rituals than embrace a relationship.

What does it mean to follow Jesus today in our busy, post-modern life? This is the question for us today and this is the focus for Freedom Matters Today.

In coming months, we are pivoting away from the problems that face us to the solutions that God presents us, away from the swamp, the mud, and the filth to the light, the path, and the way forward. It is time to look at freedom afresh, it is time to walk out of in faith, it is time to offer a brand-new narrative to our mad world shaped by the identity, the words, and the actions of Jesus.

What does the Bible say about freedom?

There are many Bible verses that speak of Christian freedom. Indeed, it is impossible to talk about Christianity without speaking of freedom. It is surprising because so many in the church condemned the talk of freedom as being unchristian. During lockdowns, many Christians rejected the martial law tyranny and stood against the suspension of democratic freedoms, but the church, overall, supported the martial law, the tyranny, and the mandates. The message of these Christian fascists was that freedom is not important in the Christian gospel, that Christians ought to submit to the state and whatever the state decides. They were, and remain liars and frauds, being morally and spiritually bankrupt. They need to open the Bible they keep closed and think of the God they pretend to believe in.

Here are a few clear passages from the New Testament:

Where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17).

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5: 1)

If the Son shall set you free, then you will be free indeed (John 8: 36).

We may approach God with freedom and confidence (Ephesians 3: 12)

Live as free people (1 Peter 2: 16).

He has sent me to proclaim freedom. (Luke 4: 18).

Freely you have received, freely give (Matthew 10: 8).

Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free (John 8: 32).

Through him everyone who believes is set free from sin (Acts 13: 39).

All are justified freely by his grace. (Romans 3: 24).

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God. (Romans 6: 22).

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins through his blood (Revelations 1: 5).

How did Churches fail in Covid-19 (Part 1 of 2)

Many people have asked me how did the churches fail in Covid-19? These are important questions because these institutions, even though they despise each other, claim to be the sole vehicle for promoting the good news about God in the world.

In the past, churches ran states, much like many accuse corporations of doing today, except instead of social media, bread and circuses, digital passports, and vaccines, the churches simply murdered people who didn’t fit their model of faith, be it Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. The Culture War, which the church had a part in starting, are skirmishes and holding actions compared to the Total Wars of religion in the past, wars that destroyed cities and countries, raged on for centuries, and created the conditions for the rise of true political freedom, which was, in the West at least, freedom from ecclesiastical power.

Let us have a look at how Churches failed in Covid-19, at least in summary form over two months, July, and August.

Religious Apostasy

In Covid-19 most churches closed their doors, adopted vaccine passports, solicited, and received government subsidies which they did not need, ensuring the end of their financial insecurities. Many churches condemned people who stood up to tyranny, they enlisted fascist propaganda the worst we have seen since the days of Franco, they corrupted Biblical texts to suit their political agenda, and they expelled thousands of ministers and priests around the world.

Even today, many of these men and women are still expelled. I have been the victim of bullying by fascists who claim their church stood against tyranny during Covid-19. They remind me of the men after the Second World War who pretended to be veterans but lied about their service.

Churches oppose democratic rights

Most churches have medieval and perverse disciplinary and court systems that have caused the ruin of thousands of ministers, priests, and pastors over the years. Church courts are basically illegal and out of touch with the values of Australian democracy and the rule of law. They are relics of the time when churches had the sword.

These days, the church uses ecclesiastical abuse to keep people in line, expel people, destroy reputations, and exist as an alternative source of the law. It has worked well for centuries. Over the years I have met so many people whose lives were destroyed by the Star Chamber and the Secret Tribunal of this crooked and wicked institution that preys on the vulnerable, while pretending to pray to God.

Whenever their money or position in society is threatened, these hypocrites rush to the secular court to defend their cases. Secular disputes are denounced by Christ, but their money and reputation are at stake, so it is no wonder they go to court to prove to the court their innocence, an innocence they have denied to their own congregation for decades. These hypocrites talk about submitting to authorities but they themselves refuse to do so.

I mention this because so many ministers, pastors, and priests were effectively excommunicated from the faith for daring to stand up to secular and ecclesiastical tyranny. I am not sure whether these hypocrites even bothered to take the expelled through the charade of the church courts or they were dismissed on the spot. The dismissal of the unvaccinated is a matter for the secular courts or civil actions against churches or people in authority.

It is easy to find information through the charities commission as to whether churches accepted Job Keeper took the money and closed their churches.

Beyond this, churches need to prove that they did not violate their charity laws by giving medical advice from the pulpit. I suspect many priests, pastors, and ministers told people to get vaccinated and attempted to provide medical advice. If they were not medical doctors or physicians, I cannot see how they were acting in accordance with charity laws.

Churches oppose freedom

The reality is that several denominations are so godless these days they don’t even pretend to believe in God openly. You can believe that there is no God, that Jesus never existed and keep your stipend in the church and your position, but not if you are unvaccinated. This is the wickedness of Covid-19.

When a crisis comes don’t expect the church to be on the side of freedom, they will be making lists of people that are unwelcome and casting them out, they will be reporting to the police church members who oppose government policy. This was done during Covid-19 by many. It will be done again.

Churches attract soul catchers

You can never trust these people again, but you never could anyway. After all, most ministers, priests, and pastors are soul catchers, they want to keep you in fear, guilt, and shame, and prevent you from finding the freedom God gives. The last person they want you to meet is Christ, because then you have no need of them.

Never underestimate the desire for control, for control over others. There are many who are faithful to God, but these days, they are in the minority, and sooner or later, godly men and women must stand for the truth and when they do, the church shows them the door, even the best churches.
In a practical sense, the church is the last institution in society where there are virtually no rules for checking the psychological condition of leaders.

Many priests and ministers are uniquely ill-suited to lead, many have a God- complex, and many are bullies. Many are abused by their congregation and changed forever, many just need help and cry out for help and no help comes, many suffer abuse from their congregations, and many are burnt out because their churches don’t care.

Many priests, ministers, and pastors are corrupt and are in it for the money. These corrupt ministers have come to the right place because money and power are the real goals of the modern Western church anyway.

Churches need to be completely reformed

There needs to be a radical overhaul of the church by the state. It needs to be brought into the economy and the tax system, there needs to be psychological evaluations of all church leaders and adequate training, but many Christian Nationalists lie about the separation of church and state. They don’t want scrutiny or oversight, they don’t want people knowing about the nepotism, the corruption, or the search for power.

In the West, there is no real separation of church and state. This is based on a simple misunderstanding of how the state works. There is no such thing as an ‘national’ institution that exists outside of the legal framework decided upon, negotiated by, and sustained by the state. There is no such thing as a magical ‘separation of church and state,’ not even in the American or Australian Constitutions.

It is not only the provisions or the absence of religious freedoms that influence the conduct, existence and perpetuity of church organizations and bodies. Many laws, many regulations shape, inform, and transform the worship of God when it moves from a simple personal or loosely held private group to a legal entity under the state.

Failure to understand this is profound and it shows deep ignorance of how governments work. It is the state that determines the boundaries of church charities. The constitutional boundaries were not set up to protect the church from the state but to protect the state from the church and religious power, an evil power in history, that plagued the West for a thousand years.

The framers of the American Constitution and the Australian Constitution were careful not to make religious profession a condition of office, unlike the English system where the King must be a Protestant member of the Church of England, regardless of whatever innovative oaths he took when taking office. The English state is subordinate to the Church of England, and they are so closely intertwined that where religion ends, and secularism begins is unclear.

The future of the church will be tyranny, abuse, and decline

I don’t expect any church reform to be forthcoming. Abuse of children will continue unabated especially in Australia where courts are increasingly unwilling to prosecute child abusers because it is alleged, they will not get a fair trial. This is a green to pedophiles. Expect more debased and disgusting cases of child abuse from within the church.

The abuse directed against priests, the bullying, harassment, and toxic relationships with congregations will end up in the courts, where priests will sue churches and individuals for compensation.

Likewise, congregation members will increasingly sue priests, pastors, and ministers for their abuse of power, their deceit, and their corruption. Governments will continue to show a lack of leadership due to the nepotism and cronyism between political parties, religious schools, and a misguided sense of loyalty.

All of this points to the collapse of the church in the West. The churches will continue to act outside the tax system greenlighting fraud and corruption. Efforts to attract parents to religious schools will continue but churches will amend the teachings to maximize profits and children will graduate with a deep sense of moralism and no sense of grace and love. Moralism erodes the authenticity of faith replacing grace with the Law, mercy with inflexible justice, and does away with the need for a Saviour since all that matters is their version of the Law of Moses.

Churches will not let you follow Jesus, so leave

The Jewish followers of the Messiah did not go back into the synagogue system to reform it. They left. They did not protect Jerusalem when the Romans came to destroy it. They left. They did not defend the Temple when the Romans came to burn it. They left.

Come out and be separate, says the Lord, and there is no clearer case than today. Christians are not called to protect the institution or the rituals, or the rites, or the traditions, but to stand together, contending for the good news. Paul writes in Philippians, that we ought to be ‘standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the good news.’ (1: 27, New Living Translation).

Most Christians hate each other, and that’s even in the same church, let alone the church down the road.

What should Christians do?

Like the men and women in the past who were confronted with an evil church, we are to leave it and start anew. The answer is simple: don’t go to church, follow Jesus instead. If you want, you can start your own gathering, and you don’t have to pay these crooks and frauds anymore, after all, you’re free, your life does not belong to your church, you are free to make your own choices.

Leave the church and start again. If you have God then you have everything, you are free to set up a home Bible Study, or a café group, or you can simply live out your faith in life.

These days, you know Church-going people in public because all that they talk about is church, they never talk about God, they never make faith real, and for them it is all about the ritual because they don’t have the relationship.

Covid-19 was a terrible time for all Christians but now we see clearly because most churches stood on the side of the state against Christ, stood for tyranny against freedom and revealed their true heart which is a love for money and power because they lack the humility of God and because they have given up on the power of God to change lives. Leave these places of abuse if you can, step out into the light, embrace the freedom for which you have been set free and follow Jesus.

Michael J. Sutton

Remember, freedom matters today because you matter to God.