When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
My last editorial comments, written of necessity a few weeks before the U.S. presidential election, and this editorial, written unavoidably some weeks before the U.S. presidential inauguration, bracket a time of great moral hazard for all freedoms, not the least of which is religious liberty. It may be that calm settles again upon the land.
READ MOREWe face an apocalypse. The specter of death and economic collapse spread by the COVID-19 pandemic, the convulsive mass protests over police brutality coalescing with multiple preexisting crises: such things as global warming, identity crisis, fraying social fabric, polarized politics, tribalism, mass discontent, failing states, and an unraveling global order. If we picture these crises
READ MOREIn early America dissenting Baptists played a key role in the fight for religious liberty and the disestablishment of state churches. But while many Baptists fought for liberty for themselves, only a few fought for religious liberty for everyone. John Leland was one of those few. Leland was not only the most prominent Baptist but
READ MOREWhen Thomas Paine died in 1809, Quakers, whom he identified with, refused his wish to be buried in one of their graveyards. Their refusal stemmed from Paine’s attacks on organized religion in general and Christianity in particular. Instead, this best-selling pamphleteer, whom John Adams called “the father of the American Revolution,” without whose “pen” “the
READ MOREAs these words key into the computer file, I see off to the side news updates on the latest deluge to hit the Gulf Coast. Déjà Vu was never so debilitating. Again! Again! And are the still-smoldering fires out west just the latest in an ever-accelerating burnoff of the world as we know it? We
READ MOREHere we go again. The eternal question of evil in the world springs up one more time. Why? Why does God, the almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing, allow evil, pandemics, plagues, wars, and viruses of all kinds to afflict His creatures on this earth? Trying to answer this question fully is an impossible task. I shall not
READ MOREOn May 1, 2020, my wife and I flew to Sacramento, California, to pray for our state and to demonstrate our right to peaceably assemble and stand up for what we knew was an abomination to God. Nearly 2,000 others joined us in a peaceful patriotic assembly on the steps and the lawn of our
READ MOREThough not exactly known for this theological acumen, British Marxist Terry Eagleton did hit on something with this prescient quote: “There is a document that records God’s endless, dispiriting struggle with organized religion, known as the Bible.” Eagleton does have a point regarding what has been deemed, usually despairingly, “organized religion” (though what do you
READ MOREA Book Review . . .Reaganland: America’s Right Turn, 1976-1980. Rick Perlstein. Alarmed at what they saw as the decay of morality in the nation, religious fundamentalists John Conlon and Bill Bright in 1976 organized a group of activist protestants entitled the Christian Freedom Foundation. Previously the Southern Baptist Association sought to keep religion out
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