By Washington, DC – The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), a faith-based coalition of 34,000 churches comprised of 15 denominations and 15.7 million African is urging all Christians to stay home on Good Friday and not to report for work. The Christian church has declared Good Friday as a national religious holy day and forbid any work by Christians to be performed on this day. It is the day that our Lord and Savior was crucified and was preparing to make the transformation to the Christ. It should be a day of reflection and prayer.
The Christian church has erred to allow its members to perform secular work on this holy day of suffering of our Lord and Savior. We are invoking our authority in declaring that no work or activities of secular means should be done on this day to undermine the teaching and revelation from God the Father in understanding the true suffering that Jesus went through. This society and government has continuously encroached on religious culture without any penalty of conscious. The church is now putting an end to this encroachment of Christian culture and church authority. The church recognizes that this edict will cause a deep conflict with commerce. The church does not apologize in any way of asserting its authority or causing conflict.
The church must stand on the Word of God and exercise its authority without any concern through the acts of commerce. Over the years, the church has been too eager to accommodate commerce and thus erred in its application of Christian teachings by allowing secular society to encroach upon the sacred space and history of the Christian faith.
Rev. Anthony Evans, President of the National Black Church Initiative declares, “This is long overdue. We should have done this years ago. This initiative will never allow the state to encroach upon our religious beliefs as they have done in imposing same sex marriage upon us. The church will and from now on, push back on the state of opposing any encroachment of our religious beliefs henceforth. Therefore we are strongly urging all confessing Christians of Christ Jesus not to show up for any type of work nor perform any type of work on Good Friday starting in 2017 henceforth.”
The church will not allow this to take place any longer. Starting in 2017 all Christians are strongly urged not to perform any secular work on Good Friday henceforth. NBCI will be sending a letter to all denominational heads and religious conventions urging them to issue similar edicts declaring Good Friday as a national religious holy day for all Christians.
For the short term, we do expect that the captains of commerce will not readily accommodate the mandate of this religious order. Therefore, we are urging all Christians to utilize their leave time to fulfill the spirit of this religious mandate. For those who do not have leave, we are urging them to get a letter from their pastors to be shared with their employer outlining that Good Friday is a national religious holy day of their faith. We want you to do that now so that you will be ready to implement this church mandate come 2017. We plan to file a lawsuit on behalf of Christian workers to defend the constitutional basis of this order.
In the name of Christ we humbly ask all denominations and pastors to adhere to this religious mandate henceforth without objection. We believe that this mandate should not cause any theological issues unless they reject the suffering and revelations of the crucifixion of Christ.
We plan to issue three letters to accommodate any objections in the near future.
- The first letter will be a letter to all Christian religious denominations and conventions spelling out the theological framework of why NBCI is taking this action now.
- The second letter will be a pastoral letter helping congregational pastors to explain theologically why the church needs to declare Christ’s crucifixion and suffering a day of reflection and prayer.
- The third letter will be in the form of a church edict spelling out the historic and theological context of the importance in declaring Good Friday as a national religious holiday particularly here in America.
The church is taking this particular action in light of the rise and the institutionalization of the radical homosexual culture and agenda in America religious life. President Obama and his justice department have targeted the Christian church with their wholehearted endorsement of the radical gay agenda. The church needs to push back by reclaiming its authority over its Christian religious heritage, culture and faith. This is the first step in the Christian church reasserting its authority over its’ member’s faith and the encroachment of commerce upon its theology. The church cannot and will not ever again allow commerce or corporations to shape and alter its theological position to accommodate sin i.e. same-sex marriage and the accommodation of restroom facilities for individuals not based on their biological sex but their adoption of their sexual orientation.