By Jason Hines – Today the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that Hobby Lobby and other closely held corporations can refuse to cover certain forms of contraception in the insurance plans they provide to employees because of their “religious beliefs.” Now I put religious beliefs in quotes because despite the Court’s decision, I refuse to admit that corporations, created in order to separate themselves from the people who create them, can have religious beliefs.
Most business owners set up corporations as legal alter-egos to avoid being held personally responsible if their businesses get sued, but in this case, the employers (in Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood, and Mardel) are saying that their corporations can still manifest the owners’ religious beliefs even if it comes at the potential expense of their employees. The Supreme Court agrees.
On June 16, 2014 the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in the much-anticipated case, Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus. Justice Thomas delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court finding in favor of the Pro-Life group, Susan B. Anthony List (SBA). The court ruled that SBA and co-petitioner COAST (Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes) have standing to challenge an Ohio election statute under which they had been threatened with prosecution for holding members of Congress responsible for their voting record.
Fox News is reporting that 24 hours after she was released from prison, Miriam Ibrahim, the 27-year-old Christian woman who had been arrested and sentenced to death for refusing to convert to Islam, has now been re-arrested. An Islamic court of apostasy had convicted her for refusing to embrace Islam and for committing adultery by…
Dr. Eric Walsh speaks on his recent experience at the Advent Hope Sabbath School in Loma Linda, California on May 31, 2014. Click to listen: https://www.audioverse.org/english/sermons/recordings/6163/is-your-window-open.html
By Prince Charles – For more than twenty years, I have tried to build bridges between Islam and Christianity and to dispel ignorance and misunderstanding between them. Islam is the second largest faith community in the world and the second largest in Britain, and so bridges between Islam and Christianity are something that must concern every responsible person.
By Bryan Fulwider – On May 5 the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to Christianity with its 5-4 prayer ruling in the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway.
However, that’s definitely not how any headlines I read described the decision. Nor is it how the five-justice majority would have viewed it. And it’s certainly not what most Christians would say. But that’s what happened, I believe. Now for some background.
Agape love is the central premise of Protestant Christian theology. According to The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics, “Luther’s rediscovery of the primacy of agape was the linchpin of the Reformation and the rediscovery of genuine Christian ethics.” (See G. Meilaender and W. Werpehowski, The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics, 2007, p. 456.)
Many confuse the concept of agape love with the concept of caritas, or charity, but these are two separate ideas. The concept of agape love is the love of God reaching down to save humanity through grace, while caritas is about humans reaching upward toward God through works.
On May 5, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in Galloway v. Greece (click for text) that since opening prayers are permissible as a tradition of Congress and state legislatures, Marsh v. Chambers(1983), they are also permissible at town council meetings so long as they don’t condemn or try to convert people who are not members of a particular religion.
By Michael Peabody – Last November, a federal judge stuck a stick in a beehive when she found that a long-standing tax-exemption for clergy housing was unconstitutional. The case, Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) vs. Lew, is currently on appeal to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and religious organizations are out in force defending the exemption.