Analysis. At the IFA Policy & Prayer Summit, Ambassador Sam Brownback disclosed to intercessors how Chase Bank “de-banked” his ecumenical, bipartisan, religious-freedom organization. He explained how our Constitution protects religious freedom and discussed why organizations like Chase Bank want to strip those protections away.

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Brownback has served as a congressional representative, a senator, and the governor of Kansas, and he also ran for president. His latest public post was as ambassador-at-large for religious freedoms under President Trump. On Day 3  of the summit, Brownback recounted how Chase “de-banked” the National Committee for Religious Freedom (an organization he and his wife helped create), but he began with a history lesson on why our Constitution protects religious freedom in the first place.

Follow our podcast to hear more of Brownback’s talk. Here’s a summary:

Brownback quoted the sixteen words of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. … ” Then he explained how we got there:

[It] was very clear what the founders were getting at. These were religious people that came here from Europe. They’re forming a new country. They came from a continent where, if you were Church of England, okay, but if you’re in any other faith, and you’re in England, we lock you up. … They were killing each other because of disagreements over the faith. And remember the Pilgrims. … They start out in England: “We just want to practice our faith.” The British wouldn’t let them do that. “Okay, we’ll go over here to the Netherlands.”

Then the Pilgrims decided they needed to move, because the Dutch culture was corrupting their children. Said Brownback:

The Lord tells them, “Go to the new land.”… It’s … a phenomenal story, and they go across a murderous ocean. They don’t know where they’re going. Most of them die the first winter. And why did they do it? For religious freedom. … We had the Quakers go up to Pennsylvania. They had their model there. We had Catholics down in Maryland. We had Baptists. And so all the founders come from these various different Christian faiths, that in Europe didn’t get along. In Europe, they killed each other, fought wars over this.

Then, speaking as one of the Founding Fathers, Brownback said: “I guess we’ll all form a separate country. There’ll be the nation of Pennsylvania … the nation of Maryland,” but they realized: “We will be so much weaker that way. Well, how are we gonna get through this?… Let’s say there will not be an official religion of the land, but you have the constitutional right to practice your faith, whatever it is. Let’s do that … that’s brilliant. That’s perfect.”

Brownback noted:

That’s what allowed us to become a nation. We couldn’t have become a nation in the first place without this. But it’s both pieces. There is no Church of America, and the Constitution says there will not be. But we want people to be able to practice their faith. So there’ll be no prohibition on the free exercise of your faith. None. “Congress can make no law.” So here’s the secret sauce of how this thing pulls together. And they allow 13 disparate colonies to become one nation under God.

On Constitutional Corner, Cynthia Dunbar mentioned that the Mayflower Compact was the first document regulating self-government. And before this, Brownback said, the thought was:

You can’t do that. People are too unruly. They can’t govern themselves. You’ve got to have a king or queen. They’ve got to govern people because people can’t be trusted with this much liberty. They’re saying, “No. God made us free. So He trusted us with Liberty.” But the founders then said, “Well, how are we going to govern then if you’ve got people with all these freedoms, and they’re used to being governed by a king?” … That’s why we want a very religious people. They’ve got to govern themselves. … Why are you going to do that? Because we know there’s a lot of evil in the heart of man. Well, that’s where the faith comes in. And that’s the transformative piece.

Brownback told the gathered intercessors: That’s what you guys all know.

And he summed up our religious freedoms by saying:

And so here you get a nation of maximum freedom and self-governance: individual governance by faith. That was the design for us, and it’s worked brilliantly.

Why Religious Freedom Is Being Threatened

Brownback cited a conversation he had with Justice Samuel Alito, whom he described as “one of the lead guys on religious freedom.”

I asked him: Are we going to have religious freedom here in the United States? He said, “You’re going to have it in law. I don’t know if you’re going to be able to maintain it in your culture.”

Brownback said: [We are getting into] this crowding space. … We’re going to crowd religion.

He elaborated: You’re seeing this crowding in on religious freedom taking place in the country today. And it’s really typical. … The kingdom of man always tries to control the Kingdom of God, and it never works.

He said: The Orthodox Church is now in the parliament building that the communists had. … Now the communists controlled Romania for 60 years, so for a period of time, they had them under their thumb, but they just can never kill it.

Then he got down to the real reason for crowding religion:

Remember… religion is the only entity with enough loyalty to it — and enough people’s hearts pulls towards it — to stand up to a … government. It’s the only entity. Business can’t do that; civic societies can’t do that. But … people by faith will move, and they’ll move against a government if they are so moved.

The Chinese Communist Party Leads the Way

Brownback said China understands this principle very well:

I want to point out the Chinese example, because I’m afraid you’re gonna see this coming to a lot of countries. And unfortunately those models may come here. Chinese have put in now a virtual police state in their areas where they’re trying to control religion. They are at war with faith. I’m writing a book on this: China’s War on Faith. Because communism is atheistic, officially, and they cannot stand any entity that is seen as higher than the state. … They’re at war with the Tibetan Buddhists … the Uighur Muslims … the Christians … Falun Gong. And they’re using high technology. … Now they’ve got cameras everywhere. They track your cell phones, wherever you are … take DNA samples of you. They can recognize your face or your walk, your gait, by the artificial recognition system. They have social credit scores. If you go to church or a mosque you get down-graded on your social credit score. And then the big one they’re going for — and this one’s coming — they’re digitizing the currency. And so there won’t be any physical currency. It’ll just be: You pull out your phone, and you tap it on something and there’s your money. It’s gonna be very convenient. It’ll be sold as … convenient. There’s no transaction fees. It’s going to be sold that there are less germs to it. … It’s going to be healthier.

What could go wrong? He went on: But then if they decide they don’t like Dave Kubal or somebody else, they just turn your money off. That’s it. You don’t have any money.

Turning Off Money in America

Brownback has already experienced this here in the U.S.:

We’d started this National Committee for Religious Freedom … and we got promptly de-banked by Chase Bank before we were in existence a month. I went in to put some funds in the accounts because my wife and I helped start it up and get it going. And I go to put a deposit in Chase Bank. The teller there said, “I’m sorry … your account’s been closed.”

The teller didn’t know why, and when they took it to corporate headquarters they told them it was a decision made at the corporate level, and, “It’s secret as to why we made it, and it’s irrevocable.”

They later asked us, “Well, if you’ll identify for us your donors of up to 10% of your funds and tell us what you’re going to do with it, what sort of candidates you’re going to back, we might reopen the account.” And we said, we’re not going to do that. So we started a campaign called Chased Away, and we’re asking people if they’ve had a similar de-banking or de-financing activity happen to them or their group. We want to take this to Attorney Generals that might prosecute it, members of Congress to look into it, regulators.

Brownback pointed out: Chase hasn’t told us why they de-banked us. We hadn’t done anything yet, but we … were standing for the Free Exercise Clause. … We’ve got to fight back against these things.

Brownback addressed the summit before the Respect for Marriage Act was signed into law, basically criminalizing the full expression of Christianity. Now banks could freeze the funds of those who speak against sin.

At three points during his talk, Brownback emphasized the importance and power of prayer: Your prayers are … very powerful, and I’ve seen them in action. And I felt them, and I felt it when you don’t pray, too. I don’t like that feeling.

So let’s not stop praying for the protection of our religious freedoms!

For more articles about the IFA Policy & Prayer Summit, search for IFAsummit.

Post your prayers for the preservation of our religious liberties in the comments below.

(Photo Credit: Intercessors for America)