By Robert J. Ray – Realistically, can a government allow every employer to customize the rules without descending into administrative chaos? Justice Antonin Scalia argued in Oregon v. Smith that one’s religious beliefs don’t negate the need to comply with valid laws.
On the other hand, freedom of religion is a crucial principle that must be defended. But how far?
Excerpt: NEW YORK (Reuters) – One-third of Americans reject the idea of evolution and Republicans have grown more skeptical about it, according to a poll released on Monday. Sixty percent of Americans say that “humans and other living things have evolved over time,” the telephone survey by the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life…
The Obama administration should take greater steps to promote religious freedom internationally. In First Things magazine, Thomas Farr notes the importance of religious freedom in American efforts abroad. “Religious freedom plays a necessary role in the consolidation of democracy, in economic development, and in social harmony,” he says. Religious freedom leads to respect for dissenting…
Excerpt: The Senate passed a defense bill with strong bipartisan support last week that includes important language to strengthen and protect the religious freedom of military members and chaplains. https://www.worldmag.com/mobile/article.php?id=28724
Excerpt: It is easy to downplay or domesticate the Christmas story. The whole thing smacks of squalor and desperation rather than romance – the teen mother, the last-choice accommodations, the company of livestock. If you ascribe eternal significance to these events, they are theologically and socially subversive. Rather than being a timeless Other, God somehow…
Excerpt: With the recent events surrounding same-sex marriage in Utah, it was only a matter of time before conservative lawmakers began to react. HJR 1 – Joint Resolution on Religious Liberty from Representative Jacob Anderegg (Republican – Lehi) appears to be just that. The Joint Resolution intends to modify Article I, Section 4 of Utah’s…
Pastor Tony Brandon – What I am going to be addressing this morning is a very specific issue, and that is abortions in Adventist institutions. So that’s what I’m going to be focused on and I have taken a whole different angle on this, that I don’t believe that you’ve heard before.
By Jason Hines – Hobby Lobby is attempting to argue that they will deduct the cost of birth control from their employees’ salary so that employees can’t buy birth control with the salary they are given. The health insurance does not belong to Hobby Lobby, it belongs to the employees.
By Loren Seibold – [dc]P[/dc]erhaps you’ve seen reports of the new United States $100 bill, with new and improved anti-counterfeiting features. I like it. I’ve been surprised at the number of people who’ve objected to it’s colorfulness. “It looks too much like the Euro” many comment. Anything having to do with US currency brings out…
By James Coffin – Whatever the justices decide concerning legislative prayer, their decision will have little impact on what I’ll do when, as a member of the Christian clergy, I’m asked to pray at such gatherings. I don’t wear one of those WWJD? wristbands. But I regularly ask the what-would-Jesus-do question. And I’m convinced about what he’d do regarding legislative prayer.