Advance and Defend
- March/April 2012
- March 1, 2012
On January 11, 2012, the Supreme Court delivered a historic reaffirmation of the First Amendment guarantee of &”free exercise&” of religion and ban on religious establishments. The Court’s clarity in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC is signaled by the clear and unanimous decision. The decision shields churches and other religious organizations from discrimination lawsuits by ministerial employees,
READ MOREAmericans are increasingly concentrated at opposite ends of the religious spectrum—the highly religious at one pole, and the avowedly secular at the other. The moderate religious middle is shrinking.&” So say professors Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, a comprehensive and evenhanded account of American
READ MOREThomas Jefferson, in an unsent letter from Monticello, dated September 27, 1809, to a James Fishback that addressed his own views on the proper roles of church and state, provided a rather extraordinary response line. He passionately observed that &”among the Mahometans we are told that thousands fell victims to the dispute whether the first
READ MOREHouston Baptist University scholar/educator Louis Markos, writing in From Achilles to Christ (InterVarsity Press), gives the example of Sophocles’ play Antigone as an affirmation there is a higher, universal, immortal law written in humanity’s heart, mind, and conscience. In Antigone Creon, the governor of the state, has commanded that no one may bury his nephew,
READ MOREIn an unusually candid speech early last year, a former president of the World Bank made a startling prediction. James Wolfensohn told Stanford Graduate School of Business students that the world is poised on the edge of a major global power shift. He told them that the next few decades will see today’s leading economic
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