WE'RE STICKING TO OUR PLAN!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner; but endure hardship for the Gospel according to the power of God, Who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before times eternal" (2 Tim.1:7-9).
We have the Spirit of power, not of fear. God has called us according to His grace, and that grace is the power, the energies of God Himself, not just a free gift like a birthday present. God's powerful grace gives us the ability to "endure hardship for the Gospel"!
Why am I saying this? On Thursday evening, September 5, we testified at a meeting of the Trafford Zoning Board. Trafford is the borough where we have an Offer to Purchase a beautiful 8.8-acre property on which to build our Agape Restoration Community. This property is the only "R-3 Multiple-Family"-zoned property left in Trafford where we could build a multi-family Christian co-op housing community. Back in May of this year, we received zoning approval to have a community room/chapel in one of the buildings, so we went ahead with sketching conceptual drawings and negotiating with the seller about purchasing the property. Then it happened:
Our architect's earlier proposal to the borough was that R-1 Single Family zones can include educational and religious use, so each less-restrictive zone (R-2 Double-, Multiple-Family, and Group Housing, as well as R-3 Multiple-Family) should also include educational and religious use and this was granted. But later, the borough's attorney returned a legal opinion that in order to have a community room/chapel in our Christian community, we would need a "variance" to the R-3 zoning rules. The borough retracted what they had earlier granted.
Here's what I wrote yesterday to those who said they were praying about the Zoning Board meeting: "The meeting with Trafford Zoning Board last night to request a variance for a 'community room/chapel' in our proposed Agape Restoration Community did not go well for us. All board members and townspeople who spoke had very picky, irrelevant, negative, anti-religious and even anti-Christian comments. The townspeople all made 'NIMBY' (Not In My Back Yard) remarks and some made false and slanderous statements about me personally. None of them spoke up in favor of granting the variance.
"The board's final decision will come on Sep. 25 at 7 p.m. but at this point, it seems not worthwhile to try to move ahead with this location: the locals will fight it at every turn. The last time, about 30 years ago, some builders proposed a townhouse community on this hilltop, the locals all pitched in to hire lawyers, brought a lawsuit and killed the project. We had hoped we could avoid such reactions this time around, but the same old attitudes - plus anti-religious ones - prevailed."
That meeting was like a punch in the face or in the gut: it temporarily knocked the wind out of our sails. But after another night's sleep and a clearer head, I've decided to press our case that this contradicts the normal application of English law on which U.S. law is based that whatever is not specifically forbidden is permitted: religious use in R-3 zones is not forbidden, so it should be permitted. It also flies in the face of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting "Freedom of Religious Expression" and all the legal precedents for "Freedom of Religious Association." Zoning rules can't overrule the U.S. Constitution.
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One of the Zoning Board members kept asking questions like - "What if a Muslim wants to live in your Christian community because the housing is nicer and less expensive than comparable places?" My reply was that this is a Christian community, not a Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or atheist community, so why would a Muslim really want to live in a specifically a Christian community? Those other religious confessions are free to build their own religious communities. The board member replied, "Isn't that discrimination?" No, it's freedom of religious association. To force Christians to accept into their community adherents of other faiths would be anti-religious discrimination.
Another board member asked whether the housing co-op fees would be used to support the religious use of the community room/chapel or clergy. Questions like these are irrelevant to the zoning variance application and display an obvious anti-religious, anti-Christian bias. My philosophy professor in university taught us - "To get the right answer, you have to ask the right question." If questions are phrased in such a way that the unavoidable answers sought for are - "Yes, it's discrimination," or "Yes, it's supporting clergy," then those are the wrong questions. The real, right question is - "Does this encourage or discourage the freedom of religious expression and association?"
If we fold on this issue, if we give up the struggle for freedom of religious expression and association, we and other Christians will increasingly be painted into a corner, told - "You can have your religious beliefs if you keep them to yourself, but you can't express them openly with others or hold religious meetings in your own homes or on your own property."
This is precisely what the socialist, secularist ideology and totalitarian religions try to impose on Christians. . . if they allow them to exist at all and don't physically exterminate them. The United States of America was founded on the principles of the freedoms of speech and of religious expression, not merely freedom of thought and freedom of religious belief. People of various beliefs or unbelief should be able to live in peace in this country, expressing their beliefs in their own communities.
For over fifty years now, I have been working and writing for the freedom of religious expression, working for these rights in communist and post-communist Central Europe and Russia. I have published literally hundreds of issues of newsletters and thousands of articles and social media posts on these matters. In this current issue of Hosken-News you will find various articles and my views about zoning restrictions being manipulated in order to deny Christians the right to meet together for worship, etc.
Authorities in one town in Russia where we lived first granted permission to construct a building for worship and then after believers spent much money on building materials and began construction, local Christians of another confession scrawled "Death to Baptists!" on the construction fence and tore down what was started on the building. If you look through the past issues of our Hosken-News over the past nearly 20 years, you'll find hundreds of articles on this very same kind of anti-religious discrimination and persecution.
Our organization Agape Restoration Society Inc. has expended thousands of dollars on architectural fees, an Offer to Purchase, zoning board applications, and now lawyers' fees to build an Agape Restoration Community in Trafford. If we throw in the towel now, that will be money that is lost. But more importantly, it will be one more hole in the dike that's keeping back the flood of the socialist, secularist ideology which is trying very hard to gradually impose its worldview on Christians and on other faiths. We're sticking to our plan!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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