Religious Freedom

Pentagon Reportedly Forbidding Military Personnel To Share Their Faith

Wednesday, May 1st, 2013

The Pentagon confirmed to Fox News that Christian evangelism is against regulations.

“Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense, LCDR Nate Christensen said in a written statement. He declined to say if any chaplains or service members had been prosecuted for such an offense.

“Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis and it would be inappropriate to speculate on the outcome in specific cases,” he said.

Source

This could potentially include chaplains, according to some reports.

Decisions …

Tagged As: Religious Freedom

Book Review: “The Insanity of God”

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013

Book Review: The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected by Nik Ripken with Gregg Lewis.

Let me get a couple of beefs out of the way to begin with. This is an outstanding book (see below), even though the title doesn’t fit and seems wrong.

The choice of title often a publisher’s call to make, rather than the author’s, and I have a theory about that, which you’ll see in a moment. There was nothing in here of faith dying, …

Tagged As: Book Reviews, Mission, Religious Freedom

A New “Gay Rights” Assault on Freedom Of Conscience

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

If you think “gay rights” is a perfectly innocent and harmless matter, please read this from Mike Adams about a major assault being made on freedom of conscience and religion in North Carolina.

Mike usually takes a wry, satirical tone in his writings. This could have been a nice noir fiction piece on the deep intolerance of “tolerance.” But Mike was stone-cold sober this time, and his article wasn’t fiction. (Permanently available PDF version of that link.)

East Carolina University has set …

Tagged As: Homosexual Activism, Religious Freedom

Church Discipline, The Courts, and Church and State Separation

Monday, December 10th, 2012

Book Note

I just took a good look through A Tale of Two Governments: Church Discipline, The Courts, and the Separation of Church and State, by Robert J. Renaud and Lael D. Weinberger. It’s a bit off my turf, but I enjoyed it, and I expect there are some readers who might want to know about it.

Written by two lawyers, the book is nicely focused on the specific question of who makes decisions for churches, the state or the church, especially with respect …

Tagged As: Book Reviews, Religious Freedom

Why Religious Freedom Matters

Friday, November 30th, 2012

Religious liberty is under attack, not only from Federal mandates to violate doctrine and conscience, but also from a more intentional philosophical perspective. Ryan Anderson of editor of Public Discourse, recently reviewed Brian Leiter’s Why Tolerate Religion? I do not expect to have time to read Leiter’s book, though I suppose I may have to eventually; it’s an important question he raises and it needs a sustained thoughtful response.

I think even without reading the book there is something to be added to …

Tagged As: Islam, Power, Religious Freedom

“Belarussian Court demands that New Life church should vacate its building immediately”

Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

Very current news. I have friends in this church. Persecution in the former Soviet Bloc has not yet ended.

On November 27 New Life church received court summons from the Supreme Economic Court officer, named O.N. Scherbakovich, in which the church is offered to vacate its building, located at the address in Minsk, Kovaleva street 72, make an extra set of keys for representatives of the Moscow District Household Management Department of the Minsk City no later than December 5, 2012.

[From ...

Tagged As: Religious Freedom

Preparing for Persecution

Thursday, November 8th, 2012

The world is changing on us. Tuesday night after the election results were made known, I tweeted this short word…

History teaches: Bad times are bad. Wrong decisions matter. Still God’s kingdom has survived and thrived in worse times; always will.

… and I went to bed. Wednesday morning I woke up very early, with a lot on my mind.

We have re-elected a President who supports abortion and same-sex “marriage,” whose health care program mandates violates religious freedom by requiring nearly all employers identifiable …

Tagged As: Christian Life, Christianity In Action, Post-Comfortable Christianity, Religious Freedom

Separation of Church and Business?

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012

The Hobby Lobby chain of retail stores is bringing suit against the new federal requirement to provide free contraception, including morning-after abortifacients.* RealityCheck.org opines that

There are a lot of problems with the Hobby Lobby plaintiffs’ theory of the case as detailed by the federal government. To start, the business plaintiffs are all for-profit, secular organizations that provide secular goods and services. They can’t, as the Supreme Court held in United States v. Lee, claim to exercise religion as a means of avoiding complying with …

Tagged As: Life and Choices, Religious Freedom

Gay Advocacy Doesn’t Affect Anyone Else, Right?

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012

Gay-rights advocates tell us they’re only after equality, not putting anyone else down, and that their efforts aren’t going to harm anyone else.

R-i-i-ght.

Tagged As: Homosexual Activism, Life and Choices, Religious Freedom

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