Professor Alan Jacobs believes we will soon have the freedom to worship without much religious liberty, personal freedom to contemplate the divine on our own time without the liberty to exercise loving our neighbor in the name of Christ.
“I suspect that within my lifetime American Christians, at least those who hold traditional theological and more views, will be faced with a number of situations in which they will have to choose between compromising their consciences and civil disobedience. In such a situation there are multiple temptations. The most obvious is to silence the voice of conscience in order to get along. But there are also the temptations of responding in anger, in resentment, in bitterness, in vengeance. It might be a good exercise in self-examination for each of us to figure out which temptation is most likely for us.”
The recent Romeike immigration case highlights the current administration’s view of religious freedom. A German family came to America to homeschool their children because German law required children to be removed from any family that failed to enroll them in school. The Romeike’s applied for asylum based on religious persecution, arguing that the fact that they wanted to homeschool for religious reasons and if they did so in Germany the state would take away their children. The State Department argued that it wasn’t religious persecution because they could avoid losing their children simply by enrolling them in the government school. In other words, you have the freedom to believe anything you want as long as you don’t act on those beliefs. That goes along with the recent change in emphasis from freedom of religion to freedom of worship in many of our international dealings.
The mystery to me is why Christians vote for politicians who are methodically destroying their liberty. It would appear they place a low value on freedom.
p.s. that Captcha thing is almost impossible to read. It took me four times to get it right… that seems a bit much to ask.
I’m sorry. It does appear to stop spammers. I’ll try the questions again.
Goodness! We got 718 spam comments this morning. All were flagged, so you aren’t seeing them, but what in the world tipped them off?
Still getting hit with spam. Mercy.
I think anger is the most tempting. But I am advised: “He that is angry without cause, shall be in danger; but he that is angry with cause, shall not be in danger: for without anger, teaching will be useless, judgments unstable, crimes unchecked.”