Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Individual Liberty

December 04, 2012

St. John of Damascus in the History of Liberty

Today (Dec. 4) is commemorated an important, though sometimes little-known, saint: St. John of Damascus. Not only is he important to Church history as a theologian, hymnographer, liturgist, and defender of Orthodoxy, but he is also important, I believe, to the history of liberty. Continue Reading...
November 30, 2012

Another (Temporary) Advance for Religious Liberty

While its depressing that not being forced to violate one’s conscience is considered a victory, you take what you can get in the age of ObamaCare. So I’m thankful for the news that an appeals court imposed a temporary injunction against the Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing its contraception mandate on a privately owned business: Missouri business owner Frank O’Brien, who employs 87 people at O’Brien Industrial Holdings, alleged in the lawsuit that led to the injunction that the mandate unconstitutionally infringes on his religious beliefs. Continue Reading...
November 27, 2012

The Naked Private Square

In his 1984 book The Naked Public Square, Richard John Neuhaus explained how a strict separationist reading of the First Amendment which forbids all religious speech leaves the public square “naked.” Continue Reading...
November 22, 2012

Recommended: ‘That Hideous Strength’

I just finished re-reading through C.S. Lewis’ “Space Trilogy” and have a Holiday book recommendation for you: the third title in this series, That Hideous Strength. Certainly all three are fantastic and important reads that incorporate thematic elements relating to theology, philosophy, history, politics, economics and astronomy. Continue Reading...
November 21, 2012

Massive Fines and Growing Anxieties: The HHS Mandate

Religious groups and businesses who, by weight of conscience, are choosing not to participate in the HHS mandate requiring them to provide abortifacients, artificial birth control, sterilization procedures and abortions as part of “health” care coverage, are now faced with massive fines from the government. Continue Reading...
November 20, 2012

Court Rules Hobby Lobby Must Violate Its Faith

On Friday the cause of religious liberty was advanced when a federal court stopped enforcement of the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate against Tyndale House Publishers, the world’s largest privately held Christian publisher of Bibles. Continue Reading...
November 15, 2012

Want to Lower Poverty Rates? Increase Entrepreneurship

The Goldwater Institute has released a new study showing that states with a larger share of entrepreneurs do a better job at reducing poverty than states with fewer entrepreneurs. There is a strong connection between a state’s rate of entrepreneurship and declines in poverty. Continue Reading...
November 13, 2012

Bastiat on My Mind

One night during either my sophomore or junior year of college, while delaying the doing of homework by walking around the upstairs of Taylor University’s library looking for embarrassing books I could hide in friends’ backpacks so the alarm would go off when we walked out together and they’d have to sheepishly present them at the front desk, I stumbled upon a little treatise called The Law by some French dude named Frederic Bastiat I had never heard of.  Continue Reading...