When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
In matters of religion, parents are the primary educators of their children. This should be a self-evident statement. In past cases the Supreme Court of Canada has recognized this model when interpreting the rights of parents under the guarantee of freedom of conscience and religion in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There are, of
READ MOREShangri-la is a mythical land of peace and contentment supposedly found somewhere near Tibet, Nepal, and tiny little Bhutan. Actually Shangri-la is the product of the imagination of British novelist James Hilton. But Bhutan’s king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, seems to have aimed at taking possession of that myth. In 1972 he came up with the
READ MOREThe torrent of rain had not ceased for 10 days and the band of traveling refugees, eager to escape the bitter cold and insufferable living conditions, had to remain in their camp at Richardson's Point, Iowa, as the roads were in no condition to support their wagons. Temperatures had dropped, and supplies were dwindling. It
READ MOREWalls can be very hard to ignore. There’s a wall in China, they call it the Great Wall, that stretches 5,500 miles across a nation that today holds more than four times the population of the United States. That’s a mighty long wall—long enough to cross the continental United States twice. Actually, if some people
READ MOREThough it sounds like a cross between a B-grade horror film and a Saturday Night Live spoof, this article is about a real case with crucial freedom of speech and religious liberty issues that have much broader implications than the incident itself. The incident itself went like this: Last October, in the little town of
READ MOREIn August 2008 Rick Santorum gave a speech to students at Ave Maria University, a Catholic institution, in Florida. More than anything, Santorum reminded the students that they were fortunate to be living at a time when God's army was needed to rebuff satanic attacks against the institutions that form the framework of society. "This
READ MOREThe climax of The Merchant of Venice, one of Shakespeare's most beloved comedies, is a court scene in which Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, is cunningly prevented from carving a pound of flesh from the body of the Christian Antonio. The spirited Portia, disguised as a male lawyer, explains that if Shylock wishes to claim the
READ MORESecular&” is not a bad word, as many religious people and some politicians believe. In fact, it is a good word and, properly understood, is useful to describe our political culture and church-state configuration. The December 17, 2011, Metro Section of the Washington Post contained two articles that illustrate what I mean. One was a
READ MOREPersecution of Christians is alive and well in Communist China; it became especially vicious, brutal, sadistic, and deadly during the Cultural Revolution. Check-Hung Yee, former Salvation Army official in China, now living in San Francisco, California, says that &”before the Cultural Revolution, there were approximately 1 million Christians. The new atheistic government eventually closed all
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