By Prince Charles – For more than twenty years, I have tried to build bridges between Islam and Christianity and to dispel ignorance and misunderstanding between them. Islam is the second largest faith community in the world and the second largest in Britain, and so bridges between Islam and Christianity are something that must concern every responsible person.
By Bryan Fulwider – On May 5 the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to Christianity with its 5-4 prayer ruling in the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway.
However, that’s definitely not how any headlines I read described the decision. Nor is it how the five-justice majority would have viewed it. And it’s certainly not what most Christians would say. But that’s what happened, I believe. Now for some background.
Agape love is the central premise of Protestant Christian theology. According to The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics, “Luther’s rediscovery of the primacy of agape was the linchpin of the Reformation and the rediscovery of genuine Christian ethics.” (See G. Meilaender and W. Werpehowski, The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics, 2007, p. 456.)
Many confuse the concept of agape love with the concept of caritas, or charity, but these are two separate ideas. The concept of agape love is the love of God reaching down to save humanity through grace, while caritas is about humans reaching upward toward God through works.
On May 5, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in Galloway v. Greece (click for text) that since opening prayers are permissible as a tradition of Congress and state legislatures, Marsh v. Chambers(1983), they are also permissible at town council meetings so long as they don’t condemn or try to convert people who are not members of a particular religion.