What if I told you that the place in America where “free speech” is most often shut down… is the church?
We’ll wave the flag, quote the First Amendment, and proudly say, “I’ll die for your right to speak.” Then we walk into a building on Sunday where only one licensed professional is allowed to talk for 40 minutes, and everyone else is expected to stay quiet and “receive.”
That should bother us.
Because the very idea of freedom of speech is rooted in the conviction that truth does not need to be protected by silencing people. Truth stands up in the open, in honest conversation, in careful correction. And that idea comes straight out of the Bible.
Yet in the very place that confesses the Bible as our highest authority, we often deny the kind of open, Spirit-led conversation that Scripture commands.
A Deeper Problem Lies Beneath
Underneath all of this is a more fundamental error: We’ve started treating the church of Jesus Christ like a private, brandable institution that men can own, manage, and compartmentalize through corporations. That is not how Scripture describes the ekklesia. Let’s talk about that.
🤔 The First Amendment… in Church?
In civil life, we love the First Amendment. We know government can’t be trusted to be the final arbiter of truth. So we protect free speech, free press, and free assembly. Why?
- Error needs to be heard so it can be corrected.
- Truth can withstand challenge.
- Shutting people up usually protects power, not truth.
Now look at what God designed for His people:
Hebrews 10:24–25 (paraphrased)
And let us (all of us)
consider how (think ahead, prepare)
to stir up one another (mutual participation, not one-way lecture)
to love and good works (beyond head knowledge),
not neglecting to meet together (don’t give up this dynamic),
as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another (real exchange, real voices),
and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
That is not a description of one man on a platform doing almost all the talking while hundreds listen in silence. That is a “First Amendment of the kingdom” picture: many voices, one Spirit, open conversation, mutual encouragement, real-time correction, all under Christ.
But in most churches, the pulpit has become the only legal microphone, and everyone else is on mute. We’re pro-free speech in America… and pulpit-controlled speech in the body of Christ. 🎭 That’s hypocrisy.
🏢 The Church is Not a Private Corporation
Here’s where we’ve gone off the rails. We have treated the ekklesia as if it were a private religious company with a brand, a logo, a board, a membership list, and a communications department. Then we act like this man-made corporation is “the church.”
But biblically, the picture is radically different:
- The church is God-created, not man-invented.
- Christ is the Head, not any pastor, board, or founder.
- The church in a city or region is one spiritual body, not a cluster of competing private franchises.
Imagine if your city government worked the way churches do. Instead of one recognized, common government tasked with caring for the whole city, you’d have dozens of competing entities: CityGov™, Metro Kingdom Inc., United Civic Fellowship, and First Community Management Group. Each would claim a “slice” of the city, guard its brand, run its own rules, and manage its own communication policy.
Would you trust that setup to govern justice and truth in your town? Of course not. You’d say, “We cannot run a city with a thousand little private governments each treating the city like their brand territory.” Yet that’s exactly what we’ve done with the church. We have carved the people of God into religious brands and private institutions, each compartmentalizing believers under corporate control. The ekklesia was never meant to be a private compartment men could own and manage.
📖 Spiritual Truth is Spiritually Discerned
Spiritual truth is not controlled the way a company controls its messaging. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says that spiritual things are spiritually discerned. This means you can’t manage truth with PR or protect it with brand control. You can’t guarantee purity by putting one man and one pulpit in charge of all the speaking.
Scripture gives us a different, more organic pattern to deal with error, lies, and falsehood:
- Test the spirits (1 John 4:1).
- Expose the unfruitful works of darkness (Ephesians 5:11).
- Warn the divisive person, and if they persist, have nothing more to do with them (Titus 3:10–11).
- Purge the unrepentant evildoer from among the assembly (1 Corinthians 5).
Notice what’s missing? There is no instruction to hide conversation or control discourse through one elevated religious professional. The solution to false teachers isn't a thousand separate corporations guarding their own microphones. Instead, God calls us to a pattern of one body, recognized elders, open conversations where error can be corrected, and public exposure of dangerous voices.
🧠 Dunning-Kruger, Church Edition
“The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with limited knowledge or competence in a particular domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence. Due to a lack of self-awareness, they cannot accurately recognize their own incompetence.”
That’s all of us, at some stage. We all think we know enough to speak, open our mouths, and fall short. But with God, that’s part of how the system works. You cannot correct what is never spoken. You cannot grow what is never tested.
“Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them…”
– Malachi 3:16
God uses our imperfect conversations to grow us. Hebrews 10 shows that our “meeting together” was meant to be a many-to-many dialogue for mutual stirring and encouragement. This means you’re going to hear some wrong ideas. That’s not a reason to shut down speech. That is exactly why we need speech.
🛡️ “But What About False Teachers?”
Here’s the pushback: “If we open the floor, won’t that invite false teaching?” It sounds wise, but it’s actually fear-based. Scripture tells us to mark and avoid false teachers, but it shows us how: through open testing, public exposure, and a clear process of correction led by genuine elders who love the whole flock, not a corporate board protecting a trademark.
Instead of locking down the pulpit to control discourse, we should have elders who publicly expose those who persist in falsehood, creating a shared understanding across gatherings of who is unsafe to follow. The problem isn’t too much conversation; it’s too little biblical, open, loving conversation and too much one-way performance guarded by corporate policy.
⚖️ The Pulpit-and-Pew Ritual: Religious Legalism
Let’s be honest. When we turn “church” into a weekly event where one hired man with a degree speaks almost the entire time while hundreds sit as consumers, we have stepped into religious legalism, even if we preach grace. We have made a man-made pattern the functional law of our gatherings. God never said, “I will funnel my truth to My people primarily through one paid lecturer.” He gave gifts to the whole body. The pulpit-and-pew system often exists less to honor Christ and more to protect an organization, control the message, and manage risk. That is legalism wrapped in a Sunday suit.
⛪ One Church in the City, Many Gatherings
In the New Testament, you don’t see competing brands like First Church of Corinth™ or Corinth Community Bible Chapel®. You see “the church of God that is in Corinth.” One church per city, many gatherings, shared spiritual responsibility, with Christ as the one true Head. When problems arose, the apostolic answer was never to split into separate legal entities. It was always to confront the error, correct it with Scripture, and call everyone back to unity in one body. Dividing the people of God into a thousand private brands is not just unfortunate. It is sin we have normalized.
💡 A City on a Hill, Not a Brand Under a Bushel
Jesus said His people are a city on a hill, a lamp on a stand. You don’t hide that light inside private religious corporations with controlled platforms and managed speech. The church is meant to be publicly visible as one body with many members. If we are truly that city, then our conversations, disagreements, and corrections will happen in the light, shaped by Scripture, where the world can see that Christ truly is the Head.
📢 Free Speech for Citizens, Silence for Saints?
Here’s the bottom line: If we support free speech in civil law because truth shouldn’t fear open conversation, but then we shut down open conversation in the body of Christ… we are being hypocrites.
If we say the First Amendment is essential because we can’t trust a few powerful people to define truth, but in church we practice a system where one man and one brand control religious speech, then we are confessing with our structure that we trust the Constitution more than we trust Christ to guard His own church. Should we have free speech in civil law but not among the saints?
We don’t overcome error by silencing the sheep. We overcome error by letting the Shepherd lead through His word, His Spirit, and His gifts in the whole body.
You may not agree with every detail here. That’s okay. Let’s keep talking.
Because Hebrews 10 still says: “Let us consider how to stir up one another… encouraging one another… and all the more as we see the Day approaching.”
If I’m missing something, you can correct me or add to this. Don’t neglect it.
Credit to Terry Stanley, Brad R Herman, Tim Aagard and others.