The Political Utility of Religious Pluralism
- November/December 2006
- November 1, 2006
Over the past year, new fights have broken out in states across the nation about Bible courses in public schools. Competing "Bible bills" have popped up in various state legislatures, with Republicans and Democrats vying to see who can thump the Bible the loudest. First prize goes to Georgia Republicans. In March 2006 the Georgia
READ MOREBehind the lectern and the platform seating area of the little Seventh-day Adventist church in Debary, Florida, is a quite striking stained glass window. I had seen it once or twice before, but had never really looked at it till that afternoon memorial service four days after my father's death. My task was to present
READ MOREIllustration By James Mellett The woman sitting to my left at the May 2 CARE Act Rally in the Hart Senate building turned out to be from a Christian community aid program in Phoenix, Arizona. By her wide-eyed intensity I had picked her to be of the mind-set I'd observed before in various multilevel marketing
READ MOREOn the eve of October 12, 539 B.C. (Tishri 16), the inhabitants of Babylon rested in ease and security. It was a grand city not far down the river Euphrates from the site of present-day Baghdad. In the festal hall of King Nabonidus' summer palace, his son, Belshazzar, who had been appointed as prince regent,
READ MOREOn March 28, 2006, a court in Hamburg, Germany, sentenced a 43-year-old father to a week in jail because his three older children, aged 10, 12, and 14, have not attended school for four years. Instead, he has taught them at home. If, despite the jail term, he still boycotts the state school, his wife
READ MOREThe middle years of this decade, 2005-2007, see the 350th anniversary of three very significant episodes in the history of political and religious liberty: The English intervention in the Principality of Savoy-Piedmont (the forerunner of modern Italy) to halt persecution of the Waldenses––arguably the first humanitarian intervention in history; The readmission of the Jews into
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