When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
Clifford Goldstein makes some very good points in the matter of Christians loving their neighbor when he writes, "Thus, loving even those whose views oppose yours is about as fundamental as fundamental Christianity can get . . . Jesus never said to love your neighbor's beliefs, only your neighbor–a big difference" (THE LOGIC OF HATE,
READ MOREFar away from the damp and demoralizing influence of an Old World, where ethnic rivalry and religious compulsion stifled the spirit, the framers of the American Constitution and this new republic sought to perpetuate their larger vision. In anticipating this first editorial of my tenure as editor of Liberty I went back and reviewed some
READ MOREDeath came with a frigid dawn and the thump of mortar fire over the sleepy town of Prekez, Serbia. Marie Kodra, 38, fled with her five children as Serbs fired into the houses. Avoiding the streets that were crawling with police, Mrs. Kodra led the children into the hills. Seeing a police patrol and hoping
READ MOREThe concept of separation evolved during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from two movements. The Enlightenment view, so ably expounded by people like John Milton and John Locke, emphasized liberty of conscience in religious matters and implied a minimum of state involvement with religion. As early as 1644 Milton affirmed in his Areopagitica, "Give me
READ MOREI was very interested to read "The Establishment Clause Assault" by Glenn Bergmann, in the March/April 1999 edition of Liberty. Mr. Bergmann eloquently illustrated the perverse paradigms in the Establishment Clause controversy. Frequently, we are tempted to believe that threats to religious freedom come only from Supreme Court rulings, such as Boerne v. P.F. Flores,
READ MOREThese words of Jesus embody the biblical picture of God's creative and redemptive love–an all-embracing love which includes all people. These words also sum up the biblical theme of concern for basic human rights. While the expression "human rights" may not be found in the Bible, its essential components–freedom, justice, and peace–are. Each is central
READ MOREThe conflict between the rights of the dying and the rights of those treating them is age-old. In the Hippocratic oath, physicians were forbidden to "give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor make a suggestion to this effect."[1] The issue did not die with the encoding of this prohibition at the
READ MOREThe debate over these ten simple words–"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"–has been a relatively recent development. For the first century and a half after the Establishment Clause was written, there were few arguments over it. By the time the furious debates began, all those who either framed the clause or
READ MOREA few minutes earlier a 32-year-old auto mechanic named Keith Cook left a birthday party "drunk and angry." He tore off in his 1972 pickup, which soon approached the same road where the Russell accident had occurred. Cook's pickup became airborne as it barreled over a hill and, though he hit the brakes, smashed into
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