Iowa pastor gets slap-happy; threatens to smack woman over separation of church and state in political pamphlet dispute

Pastor Steve Youngblood doesn't mess around when it comes to his political beliefs–and when he decided that the best course of action to remove Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins was to distribute pamphlets advocating that course of action in his church, one woman didn't go along with it.  Upon raising objections that distributing such a pamphlet violated the separation of church and state, and was thus, illegal, Youngblood, in a sermon, decided the best course of action to deal with this unexpected wrinkle was a misogynistic sermon.  The Des Moine Register reports:

“Don’t call yourself a Christian and do that,” Youngblood said in the sermon. “We need to draw a line in the sand. We need to begin to say that at City Church this is how we’re going to be."

In his Oct. 7 sermon, the audio of which was posted online, Youngblood speaks of the woman who complained, saying he’d “like to slap her” and that her husband should rise up and “correct her.”

“What makes me madder is that this person’s husband won’t correct them,” he said. “I don’t like rebellious women. I don’t like rebellious men, either. They’re even worse.”

RadioIowa gave a fuller picture of the sermon in which Youngblood equated the woman and her actions with Satan:

A woman who attended the service at The City Church in Burlington on September 30 told the pastor displaying the pamphlets was illegal. In an October 7 sermon posted on the church’s website, Pastor Steve Youngblood said the brochures were not being handed out — they were just available on a table.

“What’s crazier than that is that a member of our church gets offended by it,” Youngblood said.

The pastor said the woman doesn’t “have a clue” what his church is all about.

“If that’s what we’re going to produce…if that’s what we’re going to stand for, then let’s quit, because my God, we don’t need to aid the Devil,” he said. “We need to resist the Devil.”

A man in the congregation responded, twice saying: “Amen.”

According to Youngblood, the woman’s “rebelliousness” isn’t proper Christian behavior.

“Did you know every bona fide prophet in the Bible stood against the wickedness of a nation…I want to slap that person: ‘Wake up!’” Youngblood said. “What makes me madder is that they can hide among us for years — in and out and among us — and none of us heard it before and none of us confronted it before. That ain’t a church. What kind of church are we?”

Under a 1954 law proposed by Lyndon B. Johnson while he was a senator, (The Johnson Amendment) it is illegal for churches and nonprofits to conduct political campaign activities so that they can intervene in elections.  A number of organizations and individuals have a problem with the law including Pulpit Freedom Sunday, Michele Bachmann, The Alliance Defending Freedom, and Firebuilders.org, who states:

It began with what some historians believe to be a fraudulent election of Johnson to the Senate in 1948. It has been maintained by both conservative and liberal historians that Lyndon Johnson’s election to the Senate in 1948 was won by massive voter fraud. Known as “Landslide Lyndon,” this aspiring politician was “elected” by only 87 votes. His challenger, Coke Stevenson, challenged his election and presented credible evidence that hundreds of votes for Johnson had been faked. Johnson, however, was successful in blocking Stevenson’s effort by the clever use of “cooperative” court injunctions…

It is interesting to observe that our Founding Fathers and our first elected officials didn’t have any notion of “church/state separation,” so vehemently endorsed by Americans United and other modernist groups. Our Founders valued religion and wrote the First Amendment to protect the free expression of religious beliefs-and the freedom to speak out on the moral issues-including those involving politics and politicians.

The disservice that Lyndon Johnson did to religious freedom has yet to be undone, but in the current session of Congress, H.R. 235 must be passed-to undo Johnson’s vengeful action against his political opponents. We need to finally exorcise our public policies of the sad legacy of Landslide Lyndon.

Dakota O'Leary

Dakota O'Leary is a freethinker, and often sassy, scholar of theology and literature. She got her Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Theology from the State University of New York College at Buffalo, and her Master of Arts degree in Theology and Literature from Antioch University-Midwest. She is a contributing writer focusing on eschatology, biblical prophecy, and general religious news. Dakota is a co-host of the God Discussion radio show, offering insight to the news stories of the week. We like to call her "our in-house Biblical prophecy expert" as her articles on eschatology have received over 200,000 views on God Discussion.

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