The Black Regiment is Missing - Commentary by Jim Dean, Heritage TV

Jim Dean, Heritage TV producer/host

Jim Dean is the producer of Heritage TV and Vice-Chairman of the Georgia Heritage Council.

The Black Regiment is Missing – Commentary by Jim Dean

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others." --Thomas Jefferson

Dear folks,

This older article just got passed onto me via Joe McCutchen, a long time immigration reform activist. It discusses a problem that is usually only whispered about.

While the Christian Right has gotten politically active in the last decade, their participation has generally been involvement on the Right. While Liberals scream about the impropriety of this they give themselves a free pass for the multi decade of support of liberal churchmen in liberal causes. The Revolutionary 'Black Regiment' preachers discussed below were likewise liberals in the classical sense, rebelling against the conservative British rule.

But the Christian Right has been almost absent in the heritage wars until the churches themselves were attacked. Then they woke up, but only in regard to matters directly effecting them. Southern heritage activists generally got the cold shoulder. Only two years ago, the Roswell church that was once a field hospital in the Atlanta campaign told the local SCV camp to find somewhere else to hold their Confederate Memorial day church service.

This is a trend of many churches, disassociating themselves from their local communities, other than narrow interest church activities. In short, they were burning bridges, an unusual tactic for an institution with declining membership. The term 'community' took on a floating meaning, depending on the circumstances.

As Michael Gaddy lays out in his article below there is another reason the churches duck the good fight. They fear the loss of their tax exempt status for having the wrong views. So they avoid controversy except in critically important matters involving their core mission. But they do not hesitate to reach out to the wider community in asking for support when they are under attack from the secularists. You hear arguments like 'loss to the community' in their asking for support.

But any of you who have ever taken Southern heritage symbols to any type of church protest event have found that this concern is not a two way street. On the contrary, if sacrificing Southern heritage on the altar of PC lies benefits their cause, then it is a done deal. The 'loss to the community' does not seem to bother them much when it is someone else's symbols.

So the divide and conquer game goes on in the heritage wars. And many of our leaders are blind to it. They do not see the danger of being picked off one by one, so long as it is not them. Substitutes are sent in to face the lions, and many Christians are up in the stands. They may not be cheering the lion's work, but they are happy to be participating ONLY as spectators.

Fortunately we do have a small active 'Black Robe Regiment'. But alas, as we have been dumbed down historically in general, so have the churches lost their way in the confusion of battle, looking only to save themselves and their members.

William Manchester described the military combat version of this dilemma in Goodbye Darkness, his WWII autobiography about his Marine beach landings with his recon platoon.

"....a combat man's loyalty is confined to those around him, that as far as the Raggedy Ass Marines were concerned (his squad) the First Battalion might as well have belong to a separate race."

Sergeant Manchester's young green Marine Lieutenant wanted his men to leave the protection of the sea wall and charge the Japanese waiting for them in their defensive positions. His motivation was to 'save the lives of the Marines now dying.' None of Manchester's men, nor he, were following a green young Lieutenant on a mass suicide. The chubby Lieutenant requested a hand-cup foot-hoist up over the top of the coconut log sea wall to lead the charge by himself. As he got chest high over the top log, his last words were, 'Follow me.' No one moved but the Japanese machine gunner.

Manchester continues.

"I stood beneath the wall, my arms outstretched, waiting to catch what would be left. At that moment the slugs hit him. It was a Nambu; it stitched him vertically, from the forehead to the crotch....red pits blossomed down on him, four on his face alone, and a dozen others down his uniform. One was off center; it slammed into the Marine Corps emblem over his heart; the gunner knew his job."

I sometimes feel that the churchmen also view the heritage movement as 'belonging to a separate race'...and to lift a finger to worked together with us would be as suicidal as the young Lieutenant's short-lived charge. They are looking out only for their platoon. Are they as battle hardened and weary as Manchester's Marines on that beach? Do they prefer to be spectators and thankful that they are not in the arena?

Michael Gaddy feels the church needs to separate its relationship (tax exemption) with the state to really be free to participate in public affairs. I think the problem is much deeper than that. Ben Franklin figured this out a long time ago. "If we do not hang together, we will most assuredly all hang separately." Fear is what we have to separate ourselves from my friends, the fear of getting involved.

"The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself" said Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor, an event he had worked hard to create, but that is another story. It was a good line, said by a not so good president.

Our missing Black Regiment will not be led by Jerry Falwell or brother Pat Robertson. They are looking out after their own platoon, even though they face no Nambus. In their world, it's not about us, or the community. It's about them. If you understand that, then you will be able to always predict what they are going to do when you are 'the separate race.'

Jim Dean is the producer of Heritage TV and Vice-Chairman of the Georgia Heritage Council.

The Black Regiment Is Missing

By Michael Gaddy
© 2003

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experiences declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind. Thomas Jefferson

Old King George III didn't do a lot of worrying about the "rabble" in the colonies that were making so much noise and causing trouble with throwing the tea in the Boston Harbor. They would be easy to handle. He would make life unbearable by granting immunity from prosecution to his soldiers there. Then he would blockade the port and starve the upstarts into submission. All these atrocities committed against the "rabble" came to be known as the "Intolerable Acts."

Lost in our revisionist history is the identity of the group of patriots who inspired the colonists. They would be none other than the ministers/ preachers of the colonies. Not even the writings of those such as Thomas Paine did as much to motivate the colonists in their pursuit of liberty, as did those who espoused resistance and civil disobedience from the pulpit. These brave souls recognized unjust rules and despotic rulers and preached against them.

King George, who had prompted many of these men of God to leave England by demanding all of their profession submit to licensing by the crown, came to fear this group he referred to as the "Black Regiment." He called them this because of the black clerical robes they wore when preaching.

Without these men of God, it is very possible there would never have been a Declaration of Independence. These ministers were very much opposed to the divine right of kings. Often heard from the pulpit was the cry "Restore the crown rights of King Jesus."

These robed clerics became the number one source of recruits for what would become the Continental Army. Many of them single-handedly raised many companies of recruits and more often than not were requested by their recruits to be the commanders of their companies. Those who did not join the soldiers wrote many impassioned pamphlets insisting on liberty and freedom. These pamphlets were distributed among the troops and kept the morale of the soldiers high.

General George Washington often turned to this "Black Regiment" for help. He asked Lutheran pastor John Peter Gabriel Muhlenburg of Woodstock Virginia to raise a regiment of volunteers. Muhlenburg, incensed at the actions of the British at Lexington, Bunker and Breeds Hills, consented.

That Sunday Muhlenburg delivered his sermon from Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8. In conclusion he said, "The Bible tells us there is a time for all things and there is a time to preach and a time to pray but the time for me to preach has passed away, and there is a time to fight, and that time has come now. Now is the time to fight! Call for recruits! Sound the drums!"

With that Muhlenburg tore away his robe and underneath was the uniform of a Virginia Colonel. He pulled his musket from behind the pulpit, put on his three cornered Colonel's hat and quoted from Nehemiah 4:14, "Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives and your houses."

As Muhlenburg and his group of volunteers moved towards Charleston, he was able to recruit hundreds more to the cause of freedom. His uncommon courage on the field of battle was an inspiration to many and he came to be known as the Reverend Major General Muhlenburg.

Where are the members of the "Black Regiment" today as a despotic, tyrannical government seeks to enslave us all, send our children to their deaths as they build their world empire and tax and spend us into national poverty? They should surely be listed as missing in action.

Could it be our churches and their leaders have sold out to the god called the State? How many of our churches today have succumbed to the government enticement to transfer control of the church from God to the state by becoming "tax-exempt" entities? Again, we beg from government that which God already granted.

Retired Senior IRS Agent, Steve Nestor says, "The IRS position has always been that churches are automatically tax-exempt and tax-deductible without having to apply for 501(c)(3) recognition. Nevertheless, many thousands of churches have submitted form 1023 to the IRS for the "privilege" of being something the IRS already acknowledges they are."

When a church becomes a tax-exempt corporation they submit the church to the laws of the state. Matthew 6: 24 states, "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

Government can only tax that over which it has dominion and control. If the government can tax the church then there is no separation of church and state.

"The Constitution has not placed our religious rights under the power of any public functionary." Thomas Jefferson.

The very reason the "Black Regiment" is missing in our present day world is the ministers/preachers fear loss of this tax-exempt status if they speak against the state. There is no cry from the pulpit to stop the usurpations of the government as it steadily moves to enslave us all. There is very little but total support for unconstitutional wars that kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and thousands of our own soldiers. There is no plea to stop the usurpations of our GOD given rights to liberty and freedom as listed in the Constitution by the government. Is this not the lack of a separation of church and state we should be concerned with?

Michael Chitwood, of the firm Chitwood and Chitwood, an accounting firm that specializes in tax issues for churches, recently said in a seminar. "You must be ordained by the IRS as well as ordained by God."

Continuing with his lecture he said, "Pastor, if you don't get your house in order, get ready, you are going to have a jail ministry"

"There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. This subject is, for the honor of America, perfectly free and unshackled. The government has no jurisdiction over it." James Madison

One of my favorite ministers from the State of Mississippi has said from the pulpit "over 90% of the churches in America are nothing but social clubs for losers." Perhaps this affiliation with and fear of the state is the reason why. His sermons often combine scripture with quotes from Patrick Henry, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

Jeremiah 50: 6, "My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace."

It is time for the "Black Regiment" to assume their duties to the church and forget and forever sever their relationship with the state.

"The first Amendment's prohibition of laws respecting an establishment of religion has been described as resting on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion, and upon an awareness of the historical fact that governmentally established religions and religious persecutions go hand in hand."
16-A Am-Jur 2nd, Constitutional law: 466