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Blog Series: The Pulpit Is Responsible – Post #1, by Jeff Bayard, a message to the voters of Virginia: the code violates the Virginia Constitution, egregiously…and
“If immorality prevails in the land, the fault is ours in a great degree. If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it.”
— Charles G. Finney, 1873
In 1873, Charles Finney stood in the ruins of a declining moral culture and declared the truth no one wanted to hear: the pulpit was responsible. Not the politicians. Not the newspapers. Not even the sinners in the street. The silence of the church, he said, was the great betrayal.
One hundred fifty years later, his warning is no less thunderous—and far more urgent.
What We’re Watching Today
The conscience of the Church is asleep while elections are being certified under conditions no honest person can defend. Voter rolls swollen with invalid names. Ballots counted in secret. Voters left unable to verify whether their vote counted, or if it was even legal. Leaders deny, dismiss, delay. And pastors? They pivot to safer subjects—personal peace, inner healing, or political neutrality.
And so, as Finney said, “If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it.”
The Gospel Without Law Is No Gospel at All
Finney condemned the false preaching of his day—a “milk-and-water gospel” that refused to confront sin or call men to repentance. What he called “antinomianism”, we now see in soft sermons that remove every moral edge from the message of Christ.
When the pulpit refuses to preach righteousness, lawlessness always fills the vacuum—in homes, in schools, and yes, in voting precincts.
From Theological Failure to Civic Collapse
When a generation of Christians no longer knows what righteousness is, they cannot recognize corruption either. They accept fraud as friction, lawbreaking as policy, and deceit as politics.
This is not just a theological failure. This is a betrayal of the Republic.
Virginia’s Moment of Reckoning
Right now, in counties across Virginia, citizens are raising the alarm. Evidence of tens of thousands of unverifiable voters. Election laws sidestepped or ignored. Entire processes shielded from view.
And still—the pulpits are quiet. Even as pastors pray for revival, they shrink from confronting the civic sins that block it.
But revival without repentance is a myth. And repentance begins where truth is preached—even when it costs.
What Must Be Preached Again
Finney thundered this truth in 1873, and we must thunder it again today:
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That God’s law is holy, and still binding.
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That a gospel which makes void the law is no gospel at all.
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That love without justice is not the love of God.
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That civil corruption must be condemned from the pulpit if we ever hope to cleanse it from the polls.
To the Pastors of Virginia
Your silence is not neutrality. It is surrender.
This is your moment to awaken the conscience of your people. To preach the law of God without apology. To name injustice, even when it hides behind official titles. You are not called to win popularity contests. You are called to preach righteousness and cry aloud.
If elections are broken in your county, then your pulpit must speak.
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Not to endorse candidates.
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Not to become political.
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But to be prophetic—boldly declaring right from wrong, truth from deception, light from darkness.
Finney’s Final Word
“Let us thunder forth the law and Gospel of God until our voices reach the capital of this nation… Let us give the reporters of the press such work to do as will make their ears and the ears of their readers tingle.”
Finney didn’t ask the culture to repent before the Church did. Neither should we.
This is the first post in a series. In the next, we’ll ask the hard question:
Has the Gospel in America been gutted of its power?
Because until pulpits return to preaching the law of God, we cannot expect the conscience of the nation to recover.
REFERENCE: THE GOSPEL TRUTH and THE COMPLETE WORKS OF CHARLES FINNEY
Far worse than silence, the vast majority of church pulpits have quenched the Holy Spirit! Author unknown describing my experience in the church to a T…until I found the church I am blessed to attend today, “They taught you to ignore your gut, silence your questions, mistrust your own soul, your own voice in your head, and they called it faith. But what if that wasn’t faith? What if that was fear dressed up in a Bible verse.”