No one can escape the advocacy of right and wrong. It’s an inescapable concept. Some will call good evil and evil good (Isa. 5:20), but there is no way to hide from the inevitability of proposing that some things are good and other things are bad even if we disagree on what those things are. Others will claim to be moral relativists, but in practice they do believe in moral absolutes, especially w [...]

Our elected officials have denounced cigarette smoking as a health hazard and a drain on the nation’s healthcare system. They tell us that even second-hand smoke can kill you. To get people to stop smoking, laws have been passed to increase the tax on a pack of cigarettes at the federal, state, and local levels. The federal per pack tax is 39 cents. The highest combined state-local tax rate is $3. [...]

“It is hoped that but few will think the subject of [this sermon] an improper one to be discoursed on in the pulpit, under a notion that this is preaching politics, instead of Christ. However, to remove all prejudices of this sort, I beg it may be remembered that ‘all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.’ Why, then, should [...]

One way to keep Christians out of the public arena, especially politics, is to claim that there is a separation between Church and State. The argument is based on the assumption that in biblical times Church and State were merged, and in modern times the First Amendment separates the two institutions. Supposedly, under biblical law, priests ruled over elders, judges, and kings. If this is the case [...]

Ann Coulter begins her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism with this opening salvo: “Liberals love to boast that they are not ‘religious,’ which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion. Of course liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own priests, its own saints, its own total w [...]

If there is no final authority, then there can be no law that has legitimacy. “If there is no absolute moral standard,” Francis A. Schaeffer wrote, “then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which applies [to all people], that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an a [...]

Barbara Ehrenreich, author of a number of books pushing Marxist ideology and articles hostile to the role of Christianity and politics, claims that the “fear of governmental tyranny kept the Founding Fathers from proscribing anything like ‘family values.’ Homosexuality was not unknown 200 years ago; nor was abortion. But these were matters, like religion, that the founders left to individual consc [...]

Aware of the anti-religious climate that was directed at him, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Benjamin Rush that he would not publish The Life and Morals of Jesus. Did he fear public retribution? [I am] averse to the communication of my religious tenets to the public, because it would countenance the presumption of those who have endeavored to draw them before that tribunal, and to seduce public opinion [...]

Early in his campaign for president Jefferson was accused of being an atheist by many prominent clergymen. One of Jefferson’s most vocal early critics was Timothy Dwight, president of Yale. On July 4, 1798, Dwight delivered a speech urging the voters to defeat the Jeffersonians—“the illuminati, the philosophers, the atheists, and the deists.” Dwight predicted dire consequences if Jefferson and his [...]

In Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, first published in 1957 and one of the most widely read novels, the people who make the world work and run with their ideas and productivity go on strike. They disappear from the society that was exploiting their gifts and energies. With these achievers no longer contributing to society, disintegration sets in. The interventionists are left without the productiv [...]

With the high price of gasoline, the temptation to fix the problem through government will be strong. It won’t work; it hasn’t ever worked. If all governments have to do to make us prosperous is to pass laws, why not get them to make us all rich? Socialism, as a political and economic system, continues to attract adherents around the world. America has its large share of operational socialists. Ma [...]

The History Channel aired a two-part program on the Ten Commandments last week (April 12–13, 2006). While I did not see all of it, I was able to watch from the eighth commandment to the conclusion. Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard and popular author who made a name for himself by getting a conviction overturned for Claus Von Bülow who had been accused of attemptin [...]

Garry Wills has caused quite a stir with his article “Christ Among the Partisans,” published in the New York Times (April 9, 2006). I won’t rehearse the arguments presented by Eric Rauch in yesterday’s article.[1] What I will do is describe, briefly, why it’s necessary that civil government and its governors to acknowledge the sovereign government of God (Isa. 9:6–7). While more Christians are ste [...]

Homosexuals decry anti-homosexual rhetoric because they believe it leads to anti-homosexual violence. There is no evidence to support this claim. Christians are ridiculed and taunted every day in America. Do we shout down the opposition, call for “hate-law” legislation, or throw blood and condoms at the opposition? If you can’t take it, then pack your bags and go home. The goal of homosexuals is t [...]

The Southern Poverty Law Center, with headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, is one of the nation’s top fund-raising organizations. Founded in 1971 by lawyers Morris Dees and Joe Levin, the SPLC describes itself as being “internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacists and its tracking of hate groups.” From the years 2000 through 2003, SPLC [...]

IRS Commissioner Mark Everson is warning churches not to speak out on political issues. Churches who violate IRS regulations could lose their tax-exempt status and be forced to pay a ten percent excise tax on all donations. Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), led by Executive Director Barry Lynn, has been monitoring the content of Sunday sermons since 2004. If these self-appo [...]

I was not surprised when an Associated Press article reported that more people are familiar with pop culture than the Constitution. The article states that “only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half can name at least two members of [...]

“Politics as usual” is a familiar refrain heard during an election year. It simply means that people expect politicians to act in their own best interests and contrary to the oath they took to protect and defend the Constitution. There is nothing new in this. But because of America’s unique constitutional protections, the citizenry has an almost limitless freedom to expose and block the efforts of [...]

Without a proper understanding of the State’s purpose and function, the citizenry can be trapped into believing that the State ought to promote policies beyond its legitimate role and authority. This can lead to the people turning to the State for protection and security. For example, Adolf Hitler studied the policies of Otto Von Bismarck because Bismark understood the German citizen’s state of mi [...]

A brochure published by officials of the state Supreme Court of Pennsylvania shows a blurred depiction of a mural depicting the Ten Commandments which included the following words: “The Decalogue—Hebrew Idea of Revealed Law.” One photograph shows state Supreme Court justices at the bench in the courtroom with the blurred image of the mural behind them. Elsewhere in the brochure the mural is printe [...]