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 Cordiner Hall for the screening of the documentary film “Cargo: Innocence Lost.” The screening, which was followed by a panel discussion, was just one of…
Category: In the News
VIDEO – Pat Robertson Gives Religion A Bad Name With His Disaster Comments – CNN
Arianna Huffington joined The Nation’s Ari Melber and former evangelist Frank Schaeffer on The Joy Behar Show Thursday. The panel weighed in on evangelist Pat Robertson’s claims that the earthquake in Haiti is the result of that country’s “pact with the devil.” Arianna Huffington thinks Robertson is giving religion a bad name. “For anybody of faith,…
Pat Robertson, the Earthquake in Haiti, and the Righteousness of God
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.
‘Aye, those be slighting words against the Lord:’ Ireland’s blasphemy law (National Post)
EXCERPT: On the first day of 2010 (note: not 1310), Ireland’s new blasphemy law came into effect, making statements about the folly of religion punishable by a 25,000 euro fine. Specifically, the law forbids “publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion.” Ireland, yet again,…
Pope Benedict: “the Great Consolidator” (American Spectator)
EXCERPT from the Article by Jeremy Lott: That makes him a conservative but a radical one. The easiest way to change a church is to drastically change her membership, and that is exactly what the pope is calling for with his impatient prodding to bring whole communions into the flock. Yesterday the traditionalists, today the…
Report says 225,000 Haiti children work as slaves (AP)
From http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/latinamerica/6783415.html EXCERPT: PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Poverty has forced at least 225,000 children in Haiti’s cities into slavery as unpaid household servants, far more than previously thought, a report said Tuesday. The Pan American Development Foundation’s report also said some of those children – mostly young girls – suffer sexual, psychological and physical abuse while…
Dr. Adrian Westney Passes Away
Dr. Adrian Theophilus Westney passed away at the age of 82 on December 14, 2009 after having served the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the cause of religious freedom for over 60 years. Before coming to the United States in 1960, Westney planted churches and pastored in his homeland of Jamaica, as well as…
Jan Paulsen on Freedon
Pastor Jan Paulsen, world president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church discusses freedom as a foundational value for human dignity.
Faith, Freedom, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor (Liberty Magazine)
By David A. Pendleton – Ever since President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court, the chattering classes have speculated endlessly regarding the impact she might have on the future of American jurisprudence. She would bring wide-ranging experiences to the Court: prosecutor, civil litigator, federal trial judge, federal appellate judge, law…
Michigan Church Has the Right to Help Poor People, ACLU Tells Court (ACLU Release)
“Congress enacted the Religious Land Use Act to protect the fundamental right of freedom of religion,” said Dan Korobkin, an ACLU of Michigan staff attorney who is representing the church. “Churches and other religious institutions have the right to use their property to exercise their religious beliefs — which in this case entails providing charitable services to the poor and underprivileged.”