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Are Christianity and Islam morally equivalent? – Part I

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During his presidency, Barak Obama has been the chief American apologist for Islam in spite of a worldwide upsurge of terror conducted by its adherents. Open Doors ministry reported that of the fifty countries with the worst persecution, forty-one are Muslim.[1] Both the Vatican and the Center for Study of Global Christianity reported that 100,000 Christians died in 2012 because they were Christian—devout, nominal, or cultural. These statistics include Christians killed for their beliefs or ethnicity, killed while worshiping in a church, murdered because they were children of Christians, or killed because of their Christian witness.[2] Most of the deaths were at the hands of Muslims and committed in the name of Islam as dictated by the Qur’an. Given the substantial increase in Muslim violence […]

Criminalizing Christian beliefs and behavior

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As Liberals see it, some people are just more equal than others. Barronelle Stutzman is a florist and owner of Arlene’s Flowers in the State of Washington who is in peril of losing her business, personal assets, and retirement. Because of her religious beliefs and her faithfulness to those beliefs, she was sued by the State of Washington and the ACLU in 2013. Her crime was telling Rob Ingersoll that she would not provide her services as a florist for his upcoming marriage to his same-sex partner because it was a violation of her belief that marriage was to be between a man and woman. In February 2015, a Washington judge ruled that Ms. Stutzman had broken the law by discriminating against Ingersoll. The court […]

The Separated Church – Part IV

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In the first part of the twentieth century many liberal Protestant churches abandoned their biblical roots by acceptance and incorporation of humanistic tenets into their liberal social gospel. God became irrelevant as the liberal church focused on saving society as opposed to saving man. Social life, good deeds, and membership replaced sin, salvation, and death to self. In 1930, Dietrich Bonhoeffer described the face of the ascendant liberal, progressive Protestantism that he observed while completing a Sloane Fellowship at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Anyone who has seen the weekly program of one of the large New York churches, with their daily, indeed almost hourly events, teas, lectures, concerts, charity events, opportunities for sports, games, bowling, dancing for every age group, anyone who […]

The Separated Church – Part III

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Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians describes the great apostasy that will occur in the last days. Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to meet him, we beg you brethren, not to be quickly shaken in mind or excited, either by spirit or by word, or by letter purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of […]

The Separated Church – Part II

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Near the beginning of His Sermon on the Mount, Christ admonished His disciples about their mission in a dark and desolate world. You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. […]

The Separated Church – Part I

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The separateness of the church from worldliness and the wicked is a consistent theme which runs throughout the Bible, particularly in the New Testament. One of the clearest statements to the believer regarding God’s command to be separate is found in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church. Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God…Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them…” [2 Corinthians 14-16a, 17a. RSV] Life is a journey and the separateness of which […]

The REAL separation of church and state – Part III

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We ended Part II with the thoughts of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as to the importance of interpreting the Constitution according to its plain meaning and intent of the authors. George Washington also wrote of the importance of adhering to the prescribed methods for changing the Constitution. If, in the opinion of the people…the constitutional powers be at any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; though this in one instance be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”[1] [emphasis added] Joseph Story was the leading Constitutional scholar of the nineteenth century and in 1833 wrote in Commentaries on the […]

The REAL separation of church and state – Part II

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1947 was a busy, exhilarating, and optimistic year in America. The final days of World War II ended sixteen months earlier with the defeat of the Japanese Empire. Miracle on 34th Street was playing in the movie houses across the nation, and a solid-state semi-conductor called a transistor was invented in the Bell Laboratories. An unknown object crashed in the desert near Roswell, New Mexico. Thousands of former soldiers and sailors were in their second year of a G.I. Bill-financed college education, and the first Boomer generation children were barely over a year old. But in 1947, many Americans also sensed an increasing undercurrent of unease and foreboding. The post war euphoria was short-lived as 1947 was the beginning of the four-decade long Cold War […]

The REAL separation of church and state – Part I

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Ask the average American to define the meaning of the oft-repeated phrase of “separation of church and state” and usually you will receive a blank stare. Following a brief pause, they may start giving examples like: “It means we can’t have prayer in schools.” “The government can’t sponsor any event that is connected with a church.” or “The Founders wanted to keep church and faith out of government.” If one follows up with a question as to the origins of “separation of church,” answers will include: “It was invented by Thomas Jefferson.” “It is part of the Declaration of Independence.” “It was established by the Supreme Court.” And a few will identify its source as the U.S. Constitution. Not only are most Americans substantially ignorant […]

Progressive Protestantism – Declining Faith

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The Reverend John M. Buchanan is the editor/publisher of Christian Century, the leading voice of mainline Protestantism and what some call Progressive Protestantism. Buchanan likens the current decline in many Protestant denominations to the equivalent of a rummage sale. “Things that are old and worn out get sold to make room for a new things. Every 500 years there’s a major shift.” He points to the Protestant Reformation of 500 years ago and claims that we’re due for one of those major shifts. “I think we’re in the middle of a rummage sale. We’re trying to figure out what comes next. And I think something new is going to emerge out of this. We don’t know what it is yet.”[1] For a brief overview of […]

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