By Martin Surridge – When I accepted a position as a ninth and tenth-grade English teacher a little ways north of Seattle, the principal of my new public high school asked me quite good-naturedly, “Now, you won’t have a problem coming from Christian school, teaching in the public system?” I explained to her that of course I would be very respectful and professional and that I anticipated no problems, which has been true.
The similarity between the persecutions of Muslims in 2013, alleged Communists in 1950, and those believed to be witches in 1692 is a perceived threat to the traditional conservative Christian culture of the American people.
The story of Savonarola is not a lesson in the necessity of violence for a successful revolution, but rather a lesson in the dangerous consequences of speaking truth to power.
In opposition to many of his Calvinist colleagues who believed in predestination, Milton argued, through the unrhymed lines of poetry in Paradise Lost, that the push for more political freedom on earth is an unstoppable tide of progress. That desire for liberty exists only because of the divinely instilled presence of free will given to humanity by the Creator, who, while He may have foreseen the Fall, allowed it to happen in order to give humanity an opportunity to make the greatest decision the universe could ever present.
Martin Surridge describes the status of religious liberty in Iran. EXCERPT: [dc]F[/dc]or the past few months the eyes of the believers around the world have been fixed on an Iranian death row “apostate” who has refused to recant his faith in Jesus Christ. Yousef Nadarkhani was first arrested in his hometown of Rasht, Iran, in…
If Mitt Romney were to become the first president of the United States from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, it would indeed be a milestone given the history of Mormonism in America, especially when one considers that for a while Latter-day Saints were public enemy number one in many of the same Midwestern states that nominated Romney ahead of Santorum and former House speaker Newt Gingrich.
“You shouldn’t elect a president on the basis of
By Martin Surridge Liberty Magazine – July / August 2012 The climax of The Merchant of Venice, one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, is a court scene in which Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, is cunningly prevented from carving a pound of flesh from the body of the Christian Antonio. The spirited Portia, disguised as a male…
My easily excited cousin, also a pastor’s son, would climb on the outdoor wall of the church and sing improvisational reggae in a Jamaican accent to the passerby, while dancing a little jig, repeating “Come to our church and be baptized! Be baptized in the name of the Lord!” Strangers would stare, but we would duck and hide,
EXCERPT: When Mack Wolford, one of the most famous Pentecostal serpent handlers in Appalachia, is laid to rest Saturday at his West Virginia church, a week after succumbing to a snake bite, his friends may very well show up with boxes of copperheads, rattlesnakes and cottonmouths. That’s the Holiness Pentecostal way in tiny mountain towns…
EDITOR’S NOTE: [dc]I[/dc] live in this town of Calhoun, GA. For the two years that I have resided here, I have noticed several curious differences between this small southern town and the cities where I lived in California, Washington State, and the United Kingdom. One of which is the illegality of selling alcohol on Sunday. While…