Current Events

The 2008 Election – Religion, the Economy, and Values Voters (AP)

“Barriers remain to both major parties if they seek to appeal to religious voters on the economy. You’re either for or against gay marriage or abortion rights, but no one supports foreclosures and layoffs. Differences arise over solutions, and analysts say it can make more sense for campaigns to make general pitches on the economy than faith-based appeals.”

October 6, 2008 Read →

Southern Evangelicals More Likely to Support Torture

The report cited a survey of 600 Southern white evangelicals and said that 57 percent hold the belief that torture can sometimes or often be used to extract information from suspected terrorists, as opposed to 48 percent of the general population. The survey also pointed out that they are guided by their own life experience and common sense rather than the Bible when thinking about the acceptability of torture.

October 3, 2008 Read →

INDIA – 27 Seventh-day Adventists Die in Religious Violence

Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders in India have reported at least 27 Adventists dead from anti-Christian brutality that developed in the eastern India region of Orissa in late August. Church leaders said there are still violent outbreaks in the area despite India’s Central Reserve Police forces patrolling the state.

September 30, 2008 Read →

Controlling Freedom of Conscience

By Robert Moon, Ph.D. – Historically, most governments required citizens/subjects to have the same religion or belief-system (e.a. Fascism and communism ) as the ruler(s). Exceptions were seldom tolerated. Those who publicly practiced an alternate belief system to the ruler(s) were often intimidated, persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, and martyred. In the discussion that follows paradigms typically used by governments attempting to control freedom of conscience are referred to as: the Gold Rule Paradigm (GRP), the Gatekeeper Paradigm (GP), and the Over Stimulation – Fantasy Paradigm (OS-FP).

September 28, 2008 Read →