When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859) shattered faith in Creation, God, and other fundamental Bible truths for many readers. Since that time Christian scholars have struggled to establish Creation on scientific grounds: first, through scientific creationism and recently through intelligent design. But in so doing they have unwittingly detached the Creation story from the
READ MOREIt was the "momentous question" that "awakened" and "terrified" Thomas Jefferson, like a "fire bell in the night." Jefferson considered it the "knell of the union." The "question" at issue was ostensibly that of slavery. Jefferson wrote about his nocturnal fright in 1819 and related it to the conflict around the Tallmadge Amendment, which sought
READ MOREAmid all the activity of a turbulent year, many missed the March 3, 2005, filing of the Constitution Restoration Act of 2005 (CRA) in both houses of Congress (S. 520 and H.R. 1070). If enacted, the CRA would effectively turn the United States into a theocracy, in which the arbitrary dictates of God—as interpreted or
READ MOREHas order been restored to the Supreme Court with the appointment of legal wunderkind John Roberts, and Samuel Alito an associate justice? After talk of the Nuclear Option, his easy confirmation seemed like the end of the cold war. The relatively collegial grilling of Judge Samuel Alito—the justice described as filling Sandra Day O'Connor's shoes—also
READ MOREMissing were the shouting protestors with placards, the miniature Ten Commandments tablets, and the throng of media representatives. It was almost business as usual the day the Supreme Court heard the term's sole religious liberty case. Unlike the Ten Commandments display cases that received so much media attention last term and flamed the cultural debates
READ MOREIt has been one of the stranger political alliances in American history: the conservative evangelicals of the Christian Right and America's Jews, two groups that—given their differences on just about everything from prayer in public school to abortion, taxes, and Jesus—would normally find themselves at each other's throats, not in each other's arms. Indeed, the
READ MOREThere is a widespread notion that the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, is and has historically been a force working against the freedom of man. This opinion is often stated not only by college students but also by distinguished scholars. They believe that the Greek heritage, with its philosophy, its poetry, its drama, its
READ MOREDoes religion promote freedom and tolerance? It is a question that might be asked by any observer of the rioting that has followed publication of cartoons in Denmark that offend Muslims worldwide. It is a question the United States government must be asking itself. After all, a linchpin of the war on terrorism has been
READ MOREBehind closed doors at a Religious Right strategy session in Washington, D.C., last spring, James Dobson sounded more like a hardball political operator than a Christian family counselor. Impatient with President George W. Bush and Republican congressional leaders for failing to move quickly enough on the Religious Right's agenda, Dobson issued a pointed directive. "We
READ MORE