Human Life

Like the classic American cars that drive up and down Havana’s hot streets, communist Cuba is a country from another era–Cold War isolationism, a American trade embargo that began fifty years ago, and a pair of aging dictator-brothers who have ruled the nation and restricted its freedom for decades. But while Cuba may be living in the past in many respects, its religious freedoms are a curious blend of old-fashioned totalitarian crackdown and modern globalist acquiescence.

Desmond T. Doss was 23 years old when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942. The lanky Lynchburg, Va., native was much like other young men of the Greatest Generation, but one thing set Desmond apart from the other new troops. He was a devout Seventh Day Adventist and refused to touch a weapon. Some of the men in his training unit made jokes about him, others threatened him, but Desmond held firm to his beliefs. . . . >>>

Last week I spent three days at a gathering of the leaders of the Religious Peace Fellowships in Stony Point, N.Y. There were representatives from more than a dozen Christian denominations — from Catholic and Orthodox to Mennonite and Brethren — as well as Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist peace fellowships. And me, from the Adventist Peace Fellowship. It was the first time such a gathering had taken place in many years. It was clear that while peacemaking in our increasingly violent world was an urgent priority for all of us, working together across denominational and religious lines was something we didn’t understand as well.

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EXCERPT: Sex and civic education in schools in Europe is an “attack” on religious freedom, Pope Benedict XVI said on Monday, following a Vatican row with Spain over a new […]

By Jason Hines – 2010 has been an interesting year in the area of church-state relations, both at home and abroad. While we cannot cover every event of magnitude that […]

This year the Defamation of Religions Resolution will once again be voted on in the UN General Assembly. Its supporters claim that it protects religious freedom… but in fact it […]

By Martin Surridge  A multitude of Walla Walla University students joined local community members and concerned citizens at Shelter for Freedom’s headlining event on Saturday night, January 16, 2010, filling Whitman College’s […]

In 1999, comedian George Carlin wrote, “Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you.”

I thought about Carlin’s statement as I watched a clip of Pat Robertson blaming this week’s earthquake in Haiti on a mythical pact that the people of Haiti supposedly made with the Devil in order to become independent of France over two centuries ago. ““[E]ver since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor,” Robertson said.

Cargo: Innocence Lost – Film screening – Saturday, January 16, 5:00 pm, Cordiner Hall, Whitman College – Documentary by Michael Cory Davis on human trafficking in the United States – […]