EXCERPT: It passed with only scant notice, as with so many of the rude extremes of American life in a kinetic media age. The bodies of those Norwegian children slaughtered by a terrorist had yet to be fully recovered, let alone buried, when Glenn Beck compared the victims to Nazis. The summer camp where children […]
Archives for July 2011
Discernibly Proactive: History of Adventist Involvement in Public Policy
[T]he leaders of the Church need to place a much higher priority on being involved in the public sphere, finding ways to be discernibly proactive while keeping the larger constitutional and prophetic pictures ever in focus. There are times to remain neutral, but we also need to be a serious player, not isolationists or sideliners.
Rep. Schakowsky talks about the Importance of Protecting Religious Minorities Abroad (C-SPAN)
On July 27, 2011, Jan Schakowsky (D – Illinois) spoke in support of HR 440, to provide for the establishment of a special envoy to promote religious freedom of religious minorities in the near east and south central Asia.
Circumcision Ban: Violating Religious Freedom? (Odyssey Networks)
A coalition including Jewish and Muslim groups have launched a lawsuit challenging a proposed ban on circumcision that is due to go before San Francisco voters in the Fall. The coalition asserts that a ban on circumcision, a ritual practice in both religious traditions, represents a violation of the right to religious expression, and that, […]
Slavery and the Civil War – How the North and South were to Blame (Adventist Review)
On this 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, the Adventist Review is examining the history of the fiercest conflict ever on American soil. In light of the modern human trafficking that most people are only now becoming aware of, Ellen White’s article originally published during the Civil War is worth re-reading. EXCERPT: […]
Buying Power: Human Trafficking and the Local Marketplace
I’m not willing to pick cocoa beans or cotton for a dollar a day, so who is? Trafficked boys on the Ivory Coast and factory children in Asia whose fingers are small enough to work intricate and dangerous machines fill this gap. – One of the biggest reminders and strongest points I repeat daily is that I have done nothing to secure the position I have in life of being in a free country, just like these modern day slaves have done nothing to have their entire lives indebted to us because of the harsh demands we put on them with our high consumerist behavior. These socially conscious products contain more than just a new age aura or a better selling point; they represent a desire for the priority of humanity instead of selfish search for profit.
Southern Mexico’s religious liberty forum spotlights local challenges to freedom of belief
Although they garner little attention from the international community, recent cases of violence directed toward Protestants in the region, among them Adventists, intensify the need to protect the region’s tenuous religious liberty.
Following Norway attack, Adventist religious liberty director urges caution in use of ‘fundamentalist’ label
Graz also urged caution in the use of the term “fundamentalist” to describe the individual alleged to have carried out the attacks, instead proffering the term “extremist” as a more accurate description of the type of ideology and behavior that falls far outside the norms of a religious community.
“There’s a risk that ‘fundamentalism’ will become blurred in people’s minds with the idea of ‘conservative Christianity’ — a confusion that could serve to widen the gulf of misunderstanding between different religious traditions,” he said.
Atheist Group Wants to Stop World Trade Center Cross (CNN)
EXCERPT: A group of atheists has filed a lawsuit to stop the display of the World Trade Center cross at a memorial of the 9/11 terror attacks. The “government enshrinement of the cross was an impermissible mingling of church and state,” the American Atheists say in a press statement. The group says it filed the […]
Suit Seeks To Invalidate New York Same-Sex Marriage Law For Procedural Irregularities (Religion Clause)
EXCERPT: Liberty Counsel announced today that it has filed a lawsuit in New York asking a state court to declare the state’s Marriage Equality Act void and to declare void any same-sex marriages that have taken place under the Act. The complain in New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms v. New York State Senate, (Livingston Co. […]