ICC Note: Dr. Eric Walsh was fired in 2014 by the Georgia Department of Public Health after sermons he previously delivered on topics including sexuality surfaced. The state then demanded that Walsh turn in all of his sermons and notes from a span of many years – a demand that Walsh has refused to comply with. The Family Research Council has since created a petition in support of Walsh which has amassed nearly 40,000 signatures to date.

By Ruth Gledhill

11/01/2016 United States (Christian Today) – Nearly 40,000 people have signed a petition backing a Christian pastor who is resisting demands to hand over his sermons to the state.

Walsh, a lay pastor who takes a traditional Biblical line on issues such as sexuality, was fired in 2014 from his job as a health administrator by the Georgia Department of Public Health. Officials had watched some of his sermons on YouTube.

Walsh, of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, was then ordered to hand over all his sermons, his sermon notes and his Bible and any other relevant documents going back to when he was just 18 years old to the state in a move criticised as an “unjust assault on people of faith.”

He has continued to refuse to do so.

The Family Research Council petition backing Dr Walsh says: “I stand with Dr Eric Walsh’s freedom to believe and live according to his deeply-held beliefs.

“The demand that he hand over his sermons, sermon notes, and all pastoral documents including his Bible represents a government intrusion into the sanctity of the church, pastor’s study, and pulpit.

“Heavy-handed tactics like this have the effect of intimidating and silencing people of faith everywhere. Such targeting of the pulpit by the government is unconscionable, and I urge you to use all means of your authority to correct this egregious overreach of the state into church affairs.”

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