Pastors Have the Responsibility to Confront the Sin of Lawlessness at Every Level of Government

More pastors are speaking out against mandates Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and other members of the Executive Branch continue to impose on citizens in the name of public health. Increasingly, pastors are urging that corrective action come not only from the General Assembly but from every pulpit across the Keystone State.

Churchgoers throughout Pennsylvania have begun asking their pastors why they signed an Open Letter that the American Pastors Network and Pennsylvania Pastors Network (PPN, papastors.net) recently sent to all three branches of state government.

The Open Letter details why pastoral leadership is warranted in calling Pennsylvania citizens to Restore the Law (RestoretheLaw.org), and it includes a Resolution citing Coronavirus-related Executive and Judicial Branch abuses of power, as well as defining the problem, the causes, and the solution to the Governor’s unconstitutional mandates imposed on the Commonwealth’s citizens as a result of his Declaration of Emergency on March 6, 2020.

“Unless families and churches stand up and hold state leaders accountable to Pennsylvania statute, the Constitution and the Bible as the ultimate source and limitation of authority, our citizens will continue to lose their freedoms to the sinful encroachment of unlawful governance,” said APN President Sam Rohrer, a nine-term state representative.

“Pastors must take, and are even now taking, the lead in holding members of the Executive and Judicial Branch accountable for imposing restrictions on citizens that only the Legislative Branch has the authority to impose,” Rohrer continued. “This usurpation of power by the governor is not just unlawful — it is sinful, because it disobeys the plan for authority God has established and made plain in Scripture.”

APN’s insistence that government officials obey both civil law and Biblical principles of authority follows closely on the heels of the Republican National Convention last week, which highlighted the importance of law and order in society.

“The violence must stop, whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha,” said Vice President Mike Pence during the convention on August 26, referring to violent, vandalizing riots that government officials have failed or refused to contain. “Too many heroes have died defending our freedom to see Americans strike each other down. We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American of every race and creed and color.”

Rohrer says, “Pastors have the responsibility to confront the sin of lawlessness at every level of government.

“God has a plan for authority, and no one is above His plan, just as no one is above the law — including and especially the Governor, as the head of the branch of government responsible for enforcing the law.”

Pastors, congregants, voters and state officials are out of excuses to ignore the governor’s and the court’s abuses of power, APN’s Open Letter states.

“Now the Lawmaking Authority of the Commonwealth has been unlawfully seized by the Executive Branch and the Law spurned. … The serious and deteriorating nature of the COVID-19 policies confronting the citizens of this Commonwealth and the violations of Statutory Law and the Constitution, precipitated by the actions of the Executive and Judicial Branches, is clear. The disenfranchised and aggrieved position of the General Assembly as the Constitutionally authorized lawmaking Body in this Commonwealth is now beyond dispute,” the pastors write.

All people are invited to read and sign the Open Letter to the Citizens and historic resolution at www.RestoreTheLaw.org.

Photo by Tye Doring on Unsplash