Yesterday, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment does not protect a photographer’s decision not to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony even if it would violate the photographer’s deeply held religious beliefs.
Category: Current Events
Egypt: Mob burns Adventist Church in Assiut (ANN)
The Assiut Adventist Church, located approximately 220 miles south of Cairo, was attacked by a mob and heavily damaged after it was set on fire. The pastor and his wife hid in their upstairs apartment and were not found by the attackers, who set the building on fire. The pastor and his wife were rescued from the burning building by Muslim neighbors.
The Firebrand: The Dangers of Speaking Truth to Power (Liberty Magazine)
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.
No upside for babies – NIH should withdraw funding for research on cannabis use during pregnancy
An NIH-funded study at the University of Washington is intended to determine whether there are adverse effects of cannabis use by pregnant women on infants. The best case scenario is if the baby develops normally to the point of matching the “control group” that was not exposed to marijuana. At worst, they might be born underweight, have cognitive and behavioral disorders, or develop physical brain abnormalities identified in imaging studies, or fail to survive.
Down the Rabbit Hole: What’s Really at Stake With Domestic Surveillance? (Huffington Post)
Ryan J. Bell writes the following for the Huffington Post, excerpted briefly below. Click here to read the full article. EXCERPT: [box]We know that PRISM is not a surveillance program but a massive computer system used to crunch data. But the claim that anyone who refers to PRISM as a data-mining program should not be trusted cuts…
Prayers, Parks, and Monuments: Litigation Over Religious Symbols in America
By Jason Hines – Now the clock is ticking for the group because there are KY tourism tax incentives for the project that are set to expire in May of 2014. The longer it takes to open the park, the less the group can receive in rebates. Under the current plan, the group can receive up to 25% of the cost of the project over ten years.
A Concentrated Blaze of Truth to Shine Against Darkness
By Ellen White -When trees without fruit are cut down as cumberers of the ground, when multitudes of false brethren are distinguished from the true, then the hidden ones will be revealed to view, and with hosannas range under the banner of Christ. Those who have been timid and self-distrustful will declare themselves openly for Christ and His truth. The most weak and hesitating in the church will be as David—willing to do and dare. The deeper the night for God’s people, the more brilliant the stars.
The Church is the University. The University is the Church.
For institutions whose founding and resulting success can be traced back to the unapologetic pursuit of Biblical truth, forfeiting the foundation and expecting the success to continue would be an exercise in futility. Adventist institutions have been phenomenally successful because of, not despite, Adventist beliefs and doctrine. True, not all who attend and benefit from the success of the university will believe the doctrine, and there may be tensions that can lead to wonderful conversations, but it cannot be removed or distanced from its spiritual roots.
In Romania, Adventists launch ‘Freedom Caravan’ to defend religious liberty (ANN)
Apr. 23, 2013 Bucharest, Romania RUC staff/Adventist News Network [dc]A[/dc]s Romanian legislators consider changes to the national constitution, the Seventh-day Adventist Church is sponsoring a mass promotion of religious liberty with a marathon of town hall meetings, university lectures and inter-faith consultations. Religious freedom proponents from six faith groups, along with government officials, met in…
Liberty in Milton’s Paradise Lost (Liberty Magazine)
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.