Stirred by the jailing of Everett Sileven, Pastor of the Faith Baptist Church of Louisville, Nebraska for 297 days in the early 1980s, along with seven deacons also from the church, who refused to take a license to conduct an educational ministry in their church facility, one-hundred evangelical and fundamentalist pastors, evangelists and ministry leaders met at the O’Hare Holiday Inn Hotel in Chicago on August 8-9, 1983, for A Symposium On Theology and Methods of Christian Resistance.  The recent attack by the State of Texas on the Roloff Children’s homes in Corpus Christi and several other incidents of state tyranny against church and school ministries was also a catalyst for the meeting. 

 

It was literally a Who’s Who of Christian leaders of that time, including Tim LaHaye and personal representatives for Dr. Jack Hyles, D. James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell.  Out of that meeting came A Declaration and Demand for Redress of Grievances, addressed to the President, Congressmen, Governors and Legislatures of the United States. Even though many signed the declaration, including this preacher and his son Pastor Greg A. Dixon, some did not, including Tim LaHaye and of course the surrogates for the three named preachers above. Pastor Robert McCurry, who at that time was pastor of the Calvary Temple Bible Church (Baptist) of Atlanta, was the moderator of the meeting and the chief drafter of the Declaration.  H. Edward Rowe was also present to represent Dr. Kennedy, and later wrote an outstanding book on the Nebraska struggle titled The Day They Padlocked the Church, and went on to be the Director of the Church League of America.

 

When this Declaration was released to the media in 1983, the liberals were in almost total control of the “Fourth Estate,” and the Declaration was largely ignored by the press. Since then, the Lord has allowed access through the internet and on-line publications such as Freedom’s Phoenix, for which we are most thankful, so we are making the Declaration available again. We trust that it will be distributed far and wide.   

DEMAND FOR REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES

To The

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

And All

CONGRESSMEN AND SENATORS OF THE UNITED STATES

And All

GOVERNORS AND LEGISLATORS OF THE FIFTY STATES

 

  

IN THE SAME SPIRIT AS OUR FOREFATHERS who were the authors of the Declaration of Independence . . .

 

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT: -- that all men are created by the Lord God; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations of such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient cause; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariable the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

 

ON BEHALF OF OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY, we now declare that for the past seventy years the American people have patiently suffered similar grievances as those suffered by our forefathers; and such is now the necessity which constrains us to call upon the President of the United States and all members of the House of Representatives of the United States and all members of the Senate of the United States and all governors and Legislators to the Fifty states to immediately return America to the original purpose of this great nation as envisioned and structured by the founding fathers in the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

 

The history of the present government – including the Executive, Legislative, Judicial, and the unelected and unconstitutional fourth branch of government, the bureaucracy – for the past seventy years is a history of repeated injuring and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over the citizens. To prove this, let facts be submitted to all citizens of these United States.

 

The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights as envisioned and structured by the founding fathers have been declared null and void by Acts of Congress, the bureaucracy, and the courts. Many courts have banned the reading of or any reference to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in courtroom litigation.  The courts are endorsing and supporting the unelected bureaucracies at virtually every level in investigating, approving or disapproving, licensing and controlling religion, churches, and their God-ordained ministries. This, among many other abuses, has resulted in the jailing of pastors (some for refusing to surrender church records to unelected bureaucracies and the courts, and others for conducting church ministries of preaching and teaching the Gospel), the padlocking of a church, and worshipers being dragged from a church building by law enforcement officers. The courts are endorsing and supporting the unelected bureaucracies at virtually every level in investigating, approving or disapproving, licensing and controlling religion, churches, and their God-ordained ministries. This, among many other abuses, has resulted in the jailing of pastors (some for refusing to surrender church records to unelected bureaucracies and the courts, and others for conducting church ministries of preaching and teaching the Gospel), the padlocking of a church, and worshipers being dragged from a church building by law enforcement officers. The courts have returned to the Star Chamber and have assumed a role of self-appointed sovereign supremacy and thus have become tyrannical and despotic in their actions by ignoring the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights while protecting themselves with a self-imposed cloak of so-called sovereign immunity. The courts have assumed a legislative role and are imposing upon the citizens “judicial legislation” based upon so-called “public policy” and “overriding government interest” that violates the very Constitution they have sworn to uphold. The Supreme Court of the United States has decreed that justice will be meted out in light of current public sentiment and without regard to Divine absolutes. The Supreme Court of the United States has assumed a self-imposed role of deity and authorized the murder of over twelve million babies by way of abortion since 1973. Citizens are forced to pay for the murder of babies by way of tax-funded abortion in violation of their religious convictions. Citizens are forced to pay for the funding of sodomite organizations through taxation in violation of their religious convictions. Citizens are forced to pay for the funding of slothfulness, fornication, adultery, illegitimacy, and a multitude of other wicked sins through taxation in violation of their religious convictions. Citizens are forced to pay for a humanistic public educational system that is anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-Bible, anti-family, anti-American, and anti-Constitutional through taxation in violation of their religious convictions. Congress, legislatures, and the courts have combined with the bureaucracies to subject the citizens to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and the Bill of Rights and unacknowledged by the founding fathers. Our government has formed a multitude of new bureaucratic offices that send swarms of officers across America to harass the citizens and eat out their substance. The bureaucrats have become a standing army that wages war against the citizens and invades the privacy and security of the citizens in their persons, houses, papers, effects, businesses, families, and religion. The coinage of gold and silver has been unlawfully suspended in violation of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5, and Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States by Executive Order, Acts of Congress, and Judicial Rulings; and the circulation medium of exchange has been replaced with irredeemable paper currency called Federal Reserve Notes. The monetary policy of America is controlled by a privately-owed secretly-operated corporation – the Federal Reserve System. Government contrived and controlled inflation is destroying America and the hopes of our children and grandchildren of ever owning homes or land of their own. Taxes are imposed upon us without our consent. The oppressive boot of the communist-designed graduated income tax grinds more and more heavily on our necks and is destroying the producers of America. The Internal Revenue Service is enforcing social and public policy rules and regulations of its own design and formulation in violation of the Constitutional principle of separation of powers. The Internal Revenue Service regularly resorts to Gestapo-like tactics in the collection of “taxes”; this strategy has reduced the majority of our citizens to the fearful and whimpering state of common slaves. Churches have been unlawfully brought under the jurisdiction and control of government by Congress, the President, the Supreme Court of the United States, State Legislatures, and the unelected bureaucracies. Churches are required to have federal tax identification numbers and to collect and pay social security taxes in violation of their religious convictions. Congress, with few exceptions, has abdicated its Constitutional function by failing to guard against the erosion and destruction of the rights, privileges, and liberties of the citizens and by passing legislation that violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

 

IN EVERY STATE OF THESE OPPRESSIONS, we have warned time and time again of the unwarranted jurisdiction which these acts extend over us and have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our petitions have been answered only by a deaf ear and repeated injury. A government whose character is thus marked by every act which may define tyranny is unfit to be the government of a free people.

WE, THEREFORE, the undersigned, now humbly petition the President of the United States, the House of Representatives of the United States, the Senate of the United States, and the Governors and Legislatures of the Fifty States for a redress of grievances and for immediate relief and freedom from these tyrannical and despotic acts and oppressions of a government which is foreign to the republic envisioned and structured by the founding fathers and which has usurped the rights, privileges, and liberties of the American people as guaranteed and protected by the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

 

AS DID THE FOUNDING FATHERS, we place as a priority the restoration of our Gov-given rights and liberties as protected by the first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, to wit, that by virtue of Divine Authority from God, existing before the United States became a nation, the church has rights and responsibilities over and above the limitations handed down by men’s constantly changing opinions, philosophies, and laws which too often seek to prevail against the church and her mission on earth through time.

 

THEREFORE, BY VIRTUE OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT to the Constitution of the United States, it shall be recognized by al branches and at all levels of government, including the courts, that all religions, churches, and their ministries cannot and must not come under the jurisdiction of federal, state, or local governments or any of their agencies, except, when a religion or church of their ministries choose to voluntarily:

1.      Accept said jurisdiction

2.      Accept direct public tax funds

3.      Commit acts to a person against the will of the person or his legal guardian, which result in a crime against said person’s life, liberty, or property.

 

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN to the President and all Congressmen, Senators, Judges, and Magistrates of the United States; Governors, Legislators, Judges, and Magistrates of the Fifty States, and all others in governmental positions; if our demand for Redress of Grievances is met with deaf ears and repeated injuries, we will use whatever Biblical and Constitutional means are necessary to protect and defend our God-ordained families, homes, religious liberties, church and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the United States.

 

FINALLY, FOR THE SUPPORT OF THIS DECLARATION, we mutually pledge to our God, to each other, and to our posterity: our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

 

 

SIGNED this ______________ day of ____________________, 19______A.D.

 

 

Signature ________________________________________________________

 

 

Name ____________________________________________________________

 

Address __________________________________________________________

 

City ________________________________ State ____________ Zip _________

 

Telephone: Area Code (_______) Number _______________________________

 

 

 

 

This document adopted by 100 of America’s leading fundamental

 and evangelical church leaders at

August 8-9, 1983

O’Hare Holiday Inn Hotel in Chicago, Illinois

 

Additional information can be obtained by contacting:

Dr. Greg Dixon

P.O. Box 11 * Indianapolis, IN 46206

Phone 317-414-3478

E-mail – drgregdixon@earthlink.net