A gracEmail reader asks, "Is America a Christian nation? Was it ever one?" * * * Our nation was founded on belief in a Supreme Being and in broad biblical principles of morality. The founders expressed these convictions in the nation's charter documents and frequently in their own speech and private writing as well. Some, like George Washington, were committed practicing Christians. Others, like Thomas Jefferson, were deists who rejected the deity of Christ and biblical miracles but believed in one true God who is sovereign over the world. The percentage of the general … [Read more...]
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE COMMANDMENTS (5)
There can be no doubt that a culture war is underway in our country. Anti-religious forces, personified by the American Civil Liberties Union and other such groups, constantly exploit the legal system to further their values of secularism, pluralism and "diversity," and to drive every trace of our Judeo-Christian heritage from public view. The entertainment industry and much of the media support the same anti-biblical agenda. In the face of all this, what are we as Christian citizens of the United States to think and to do? First, we should give thanks. Despite all the victories of the … [Read more...]
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE COMMANDMENTS (4)
In the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman, the U.S. Supreme Court provided a three-part test for deciding whether a law or governmental action constitutes an "establishment of religion" and is therefore unconstitutional. Under this "Lemon test" a court asks: (1) whether the law or action of government has a genuine secular purpose; (2) whether it has the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion; and (3) whether it excessively entangles religion and government. By answering these questions, courts attempt to walk the tightrope between the two Religion Clauses of the First … [Read more...]
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE COMMANDMENTS (3)
For about 150 years, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government; states were free to discriminate between religions if they wished. Following the Civil War, however, a seed was planted that would eventually change the legal landscape in a way the founding fathers never envisioned. That seed was the passage of the 14th Amendment which provided in part that "no state shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law." In the 1947 case of Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court held for the first time that the First Amendment's … [Read more...]
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE COMMANDMENTS (2)
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees religious liberty with two clauses: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof." If asked what these two clauses mean, many Americans would respond that they mean whatever their authors meant when they wrote them. History makes plain what the founders meant. They intended for the newly-formed federal government to keep its nose out of religion within the various states, leaving the states to do just about anything they respectively wished. Ten of the original 13 … [Read more...]
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE COMMANDMENTS (1)
A gracEmail subscriber has asked for my comments, as an attorney and a Christian teacher, regarding the controversy surrounding the installation of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building and the federal judge's order to remove the monument on which they are inscribed. * * * Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is much in the news lately. As a trial court judge, he hung a framed copy of the Ten Commandments in his Alabama courtroom. More recently, as the highest-ranking judge in his state, Mr. Moore had a 5,280-pound granite monument installed in the Alabama … [Read more...]
LITTLE SHERD VS. GIANT THEORY? (2)
The discovery of any potentially-important ancient writing normally triggers a period of scholarly debate, with the debate's intensity directly proportionate to the writing's significance. Translating a document has its own issues, especially when the writing is faded and some words are missing. Scholars must replace missing words and letters and translate the restored text before they even attempt to interpret the writing's significance in the broader picture. Because scholars are regular people subject to normal prejudices and passions, interpretations often involve considerable … [Read more...]
LITTLE SHERD VS. GIANT THEORY? (1)
On July 8, 2008, 17-year-old volunteer Oded Yair was digging with an archaeological team in the 3,000-year-old ruins of an ancient Jewish village called Khirbet Qeiyafa, just off Israel's Route 38 overlooking the Eila Valley (the biblical Valley of Elah, where David fought Goliath). About ten o'clock that morning, Yair unearthed a six-inch near-square of broken pottery ("sherd" or "shard") and automatically dropped it into a plastic bag holding other finds from the same room. That afternoon, when the team washed their artifacts, they discovered that the sherd was an ostracon, a piece of … [Read more...]
PREACHER URGES SCIENCE/FAITH CHAT – 2
Charles Prince is not the first author with hopes of stirring discussion between scientific folks and people of faith. That was also the goal of Dr. Francis S. Collins, eminent scientist, atheist-turned-evangelical believer, now retired head of the Human Genome Project, and author of the 2006 book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press). Collins writes as a top-tier scientist who became an evangelical Christian. Prince, who in semi-retirement at age 80 still teaches advanced Bible and Koine Greek at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, writes from the … [Read more...]
PREACHER URGES SCIENCE/FAITH CHAT -1
In the Spring of 1949, Charles Prince was studying as a chemistry major at what later became Rice University, taking double-minors classes in biology and physics. He continued his schooling at Abilene Christian University and Harvard Divinity School. For several decades, he was plagued by internal struggles over what appeared to be irreconcilable truths of science and faith. Over the years, he came to see the fight, not as between science and faith at all, but rather between "some scientists" and "some preachers." Now he has written a book for intelligent lay-persons in both fields, hoping the … [Read more...]
