An amazing thing is happening in the 2024 presidential campaign. Religious beliefs and hostility toward religion are playing bigger roles than in any election in modern times.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz represent the anti-religious ticket. Their past actions and current statements communicate clear opposition to, and disdain for, religion in ways which would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
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by Carrie Sheffield “There is an important body of conservative thought that is now nearly or completely absent on the faculties of many eminent universities,” former Harvard University President Derek Bok wrote in Harvard Magazine following Hamas’ terrorist attacks Oct. 7 in Israel and the ensuing campus chaos. He recommends “some immediate progress by trying…
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In episode 34 of his newest production, “Tucker on X,” host Tucker Carlson interviewed Canadian attorney Robert Amsterdam about the Ukrainian government’s repression of the ancient Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
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On Saturday, 264 congregations part of the United Methodists of the Holston Conference had their requests processed to leave the denomination, citing “issues around human sexuality and other matters.”
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In the faith of nations is their life and their undoing, much as it is with individuals. We may survive on the faith of others, but we cannot flourish any more than a child would when attempting to live out the dreams of his parents without making them his own. Faith is an intangible. The artificial intelligence of a computer might precisely calculate the chance of a success but it has no clue as to the value of failure. Faith can absorb both and then some.
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On January 15, during a Sabbath service at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, four worshipers were taken hostage by Malik Faisal Akram. Thankfully, all four hostages were freed, but that does not erase the evil and hate surrounding this terrorist attack.
Using Jewish worshippers as hostages to force the release of an imprisoned convicted terrorist was the explicit motive of Akram, as made clear by his statements during the attack. The Washington Post reported, “Akram chose this place, according to people who heard him on the live stream, because it appeared to be the closest assemblage of Jews to a federal facility in Fort Worth where an American-educated Pakistani convicted terrorist is serving an 86-year sentence for shooting at U.S. soldiers and FBI agents.”
Ironically, the day after this horrific attack, the United States observed National Religious Freedom Day, which commemorates the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786. This law later inspired and shaped the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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A federal judge ordered the University of Iowa (UI) to pay $1.9 million in fees and damages after two student groups won a series of religious discrimination lawsuits against the university.
The Becket Fund, which represents Business Leaders in Christ, will receive $1.37 million while Intervarsity Christian Fellowship will get $533,000, Crux reports.
Eric Baxter, a senior VP and counsel at The Becket Fund, told Campus Reform targeting students of faith “comes at a price.”
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Timothy Keiderling’s decision to enroll in the Princeton Theological Seminary reflected his commitment “to give my life to work for justice and to live out the values of the Kingdom of God.” In a letter to the seminary’s president, Craig Barnes, he wrote that he “would sacrifice anything to make sure that my brothers and sisters see relief from their oppression.”
But the seminary’s concept of justice clashed with Keiderling’s conscience when PTS required him to attend “anti-racism” training sessions that he considered a form of indoctrination. He refused to participate in the sessions even after being reminded that they were mandatory. And then – early this year, with the potent support of the newly founded Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) – he convinced the seminary to exempt him from the training.
It was “a real victory which can advance the academic freedom cause substantially,” says Princeton Professor Robert George, a leader of the AFA who acted as an adviser to Keiderling, and whom the latter credits with making his victory possible. “Instead of a victim, we have a victor — one who stuck to his guns and persuaded his institution not only to respect his right of conscience, but to acknowledge the difference between education and indoctrination.”
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In one of the most extraordinary passages of his most extraordinary book, C.S. Lewis, the 20th century’s greatest Christian apologist, wrote of Jesus Christ, that he was either the son of God, as he claimed, or a madman. In the Christmas season, believers take comfort in their faith and joyfully embrace the first alternative.
The United States has a tradition of separating church and state, but there is a competing tradition, equally venerable, that our government is only fit for a religious people, one that understands there is a divine order to which humankind ought to conform, and that, as Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett once explained, it is our task to contribute to the building of the Kingdom of God.
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Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Monday that “faith-oriented” people in Congress have told her they “don’t believe in science.”
The California Democrat spoke Monday on the house floor where she discussed coronavirus relief and the recently approved vaccines, accusing the White House of spreading “quackery” notions of herd immunity.
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The vast majority of U.S. voters say their religious faith plays an important role in their personal life, according to a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen.
A full 72% of voters say that their “religion or faith” is either somewhat or very important to them. Just 24% of voters said religion holds little to no significance in their personal lives.
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Ponder this…
Are you in a state of fear due to the coronavirus outbreak? Just a simple trip to the grocery store can strike fear into your otherwise calm spirit. People wearing face masks and gloves, empty shelves that are normally fully stocked, and people standing six feet apart at the checkout are unsettling images.
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In his observations about 19th-century America, Alexis de Tocqueville pointed to religion as the first of the country’s political institutions—sweeping in its influence on our customs and powerful in its propensity to preempt and prevent tyranny.
Yet today, American religiosity is in decline. Weekly church attendance is trending downward, as is self-identification with a formal religion, denomination or belief system. The rise of the “nones” is increasing in speed and expanding in influence, replacing religious-cultural paradigms of old with a modern menu of personalized, à la carte “spiritualities.” Even where religiosity remains, it is often resistant or opposed to public expression, never mind institutional or cultural prominence.
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by Joshua Gill Religious affiliation actually prolong one’s life through positive social effects according to a recent study of obituaries in Iowa and across the nation. Laura E. Wallace of Ohio State University, one of the study’s authors, found that among the social factors that affect one’s physical health and…
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It is an ancient ritual of fathers and their children. The child yearning to grow into adulthood, and a father’s tough love. Mothers can be demanding, but they have that nurturing and caring side that escapes most men. Fathers try to instill discipline in order to help their children succeed in a heartless, often uncaring, world.
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