Wentzville Pastors Appreciate Freedom of Religion

Freedom of religion was so important to the founders of our country that it is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

It is part of what makes the United States a bastion for all kinds of individual freedom, and local pastors appreciate it.

"When I think of freedom of religion, and the United States, religious freedom is one of the building blocks of our society," said the Rev. David Conley of . "I cannot imagine our country without freedom of religion. And since we have this freedom, we in the religious community are free to be prophetic--to speak truth in a culture that would rather hear spin. Someone once defined the Old Testament prophets as the ones who ‘comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable.’ Religious freedom makes it possible for us to do both."

Pastor Scott McNees of is proud to live in a country where freedom of religion is protected.

"As a Christian first, a minister second, my entire life is wrapped up in living and proclaiming the freedom we all can have in Jesus Christ," he said. "I mean freedom from sin and judgment. America is one of several other nations on a short list where this can happen. I consider it a privilege to live in this great nation and to have this freedom."

Pastor Mark Ford of in Wentzville worries that people are forgetting or neglecting the religious freedom this country established.

"The fact is that this nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles by a vast majority of Christians," he said. "That's a fact. It worked pretty well for a long time. Secularists have taken us a long ways in the other direction since our founding, but they still need to deal with true history rather than their own wishful thinking. Something about our distinctively Christian history made us a great nation. Whatever beliefs today's ‘educated’ American may hold, perhaps we all should rethink the wisdom of the hell-bent, yet popular effort to decry, devalue, destroy and delete the true nature of our foundations."

McNees has similar concerns.

"My concern is that I see a consistent erosion of that freedom," he said. "At times it is subtle, and at other times not so subtle. The ‘free exercise thereof’ clause of our Constitution seems to have been manipulated a bit in my lifetime, especially when it comes to Christianity. The government has a leaning toward restricting the free exercise of Christianity.

"Having said that," he said, "we still enjoy an enormous amount of freedom when it comes to practicing the born again, Spirit-filled life in Christ. I only hope we can turn the trend back in the right direction for future generations. Thankfully, we can still have a ‘church on every corner’ in America. This nation, and every nation, needs that. The church stands as one of the strongest adhesives to any society."

With Independence Day looming, it is a good time to remember the foresight of our country’s founders and how the exercise of freedom takes many forms, area religious leaders agreed.

"When I think of freedom and religion," Conley said, "this verse from Galatians 5:1 comes to mind: ‘For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.’ Here, the emphasis is not on what Christ has freed us from, but on what Christ has freed us for--no longer enslaved by the fear of death, we are free to live for Christ."