When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
Most folks who grew up in that rapidly decreasing institution of a two-parent home learned pretty quickly that you obeyed Father. How many kids, when told by Dad to do (or not to do) such and such, answered, "What gives you the authority to tell me what to do?" Though a few might have answered
READ MOREThe history of Sunday legislation in the United States shows a mass of contrary, inconsistent, and illogical cases and distinctions. The following instances help to prove this: In State of Nebraska v. Tim O'Rourke, 35 Nebr. 614, 1892, an indictment for playing baseball on Sunday, the court said: "No trial can be had on Sunday.
READ MORERestlessness is spreading worldwide and increasing daily in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and America. In fact, the entire world is experiencing great unrest as a result of a lack of peace, increased violence, and religious intolerance. Political and economic restlessness is increasingly common and increasingly connected to religious persecution. In this regard one cannot
READ MORESince the emergence of the Religious Right on the American political scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, cooperation between Protestants and Catholics for political purposes has been both open and active. Such religio-political alliances have existed before, of course, in the context of liberal causes (e.g., civil rights, the Vietnam War). The corporate
READ MOREAs the Arab Spring continues to unfold and degrade across the Middle East, Christians in Syria find themselves watching with a wary eye to see how their freedoms will be affected by the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Some Syrian Christians believe that Assad has been their friend, since he has provided protection to
READ MOREThe year A.D. 313 is an important date in the history of religious freedom. That date brought into a positive focus some very significant developments in “Christendom” and the Roman world of that time. The new emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Constantine the Great, signed an agreement with Licinius Augustus, the emperor of the
READ MOREJohn Locke was a pioneer for toleration. Today we know that toleration can be only a halfway house to real religious freedom. Yet his views were central to establishing a hitherto-unknown religious freedom. His mature view on toleration in A Letter Concerning Toleration was written at the end of a century or more of religious
READ MORENovus ordo seclorum, a phrase that appears on the American $1 bill, means &”a new order for the ages,&” and reflects the thinking and intent of the Founders in America at the time of the Continental Congress. For them, the New World discovered by Columbus offered many opportunities for a political experiment that was completely
READ MOREMinister John Baird underscored the integral role the defense of religious liberty plays in shaping the fabric of a democratic society during his keynote address at the May 24, 2012, Religious Liberty Dinner in Washington, D.C. Baird is the minister of foreign affairs for the federal government of Canada. &”There is special purpose in defending
READ MORE