When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
Sparks of religious controversy can be kindled from even the most everyday circumstances in the United States. One recent flash point was ignited by a minor fender-bender in a San Diego, California-area neighborhood and briefly erupted into a media firestorm. The confusion and fear this controversy caused could have been avoided, and the U.S. constitutional
READ MOREI am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger, I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error. —Thomas Babington Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays, 1870
READ MOREI am in Canterbury, England, at Canterbury Cathedral, home of the archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Anglican/Episcopal Church. I came to attend as an observer the annual meeting of the Council of Secretaries of the Christian World Communions. There are about 25 people attending the meeting: leaders from many denominations. Dr. John Graz, director
READ MOREIn a hill, far away, stood a plywood-covered cross, the emblem of religion and fame; and some love that white cross where the veterans remember those who were slain. Sounds like the makings of a hymn, but actually it is fodder for a church-state case before the United States Supreme Court. The case will determine
READ MOREAs I write these words the shock of the Fort Hood shootings has subsided, somewhat. Tragic as it is, in a time of war(s), we almost get used to reports of American service members being shot. That’s what military people sometimes do: get shot. But for such shootings to happen in the &”homeland&” itself, and
READ MOREWe welcome any sons of Adam who come in love among us and will not condemn, punish, banish, prosecute, or lay violent hands upon anyone, in whatever name, form, or title he might appear. We are true subjects of both the church and the state and we are bound by the law of God and
READ MOREReligion and religious expression have been objects of censorship in the public schools for quite some time. However, the intolerance of anything related to religion has taken a turn for the absurd in recent years. Much of the credit for this state of affairs can be chalked up to those who have been relentlessly working
READ MOREFor much of the twentieth century, observers of American political culture could dismiss apocalyptic prophecy as a preoccupation thriving only on the paranoid fringes of national life. Nearly a decade into the twenty-first century, though, such a view is long past. The phenomenal commercial success of the Left Behind books and films put the spotlight
READ MORE&”The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. . . . &”The good Samaritan represents the conscience of mankind because he also was obedient to that which could not be enforced. No law in the world could have produced
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