When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
In the decades after Luther’s formulation of the priesthood of all believers, various theologians and political thinkers explored the implications of that new theory of human equality for both church and state. As the role between church and state became adjusted in various countries, new conceptions and understandings of the individual arose. The Englishman John
READ MORE“There’s far too much religion in this world.” That statement coming from the editor of Liberty magazine took me by surprise. I’m sure many of our listeners stopped what they were doing and leaned just a little closer to their radios. How could a Christian journalist make such a startling statement, and during an international
READ MORENo flat earth imagery for this editorial! I want to keep it real. And is there anything more “real” than a soap opera? Ergo my title, which was the title of the second-longest-running soap opera of all time, which ran for 54 years! That covers nearly my whole lifetime, and provides an appropriate lead-in for
READ MOREThere was little fanfare when then President Obama signed the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) into law on December 16, 2016. He affixed his signature to the hard-won legislation along with some 50 other bills, ranging from the National Park Service Centennial Act to the Inspectors General Empowerment Act. Yet for the
READ MOREOn October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his now-famous 95 theses to the door of the All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany. In his theses Luther remonstrated against the use of relics, usury, simony, nepotism, and the sale of indulgences. Initiating what in later years was termed the Protestant Reformation, Luther questioned papal authority, the
READ MOREIn the cyber world that so many of us inhabit, life has become startling of late. It is hard to ignore claims of the looming presence of the planet Nabiru. It is supposedly so close many claim to have already spotted it in the night sky! Soon we will feel its gravitational effect as it
READ MOREThe concept of human dignity has become central to modern systems of civil and religious rights in the Western world—indeed, in most of the world at large. The centrality of human dignity to systems of rights was enshrined internationally in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948. In its
READ MOREIt doesn’t make sense. Why would you want to join today’s military while absolutely refusing to fire a weapon, drop a bomb, or end the life of someone bound and determined to end yours? What possible good is an unarmed soldier, sailor, or airman? Historically, many such individuals, labeled “conscientious objectors,” were penalized, imprisoned, or
READ MOREAn unfunny thing about political revolutions (the ones that succeed, anyway): those who “rage against the machine,” the revolutionaries, upon taking power eventually become the establishment, the powers-that-be, the “machine” (even if another model) that they once raged against. And with rare exceptions, the new machine becomes as dogmatic and intolerant of dissent as what
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