The role of a caliph is to rule over the Muslim umma in a way that unites both the secular and religious spheres. After all, the caliphate is to be founded upon the prophetic methodology (ʿala minhāj al-nabūwa), and Muḥammad, according to . . . Continue reading →
Civil Life
Remember 9/11
The Zeitgeist
They’ll tell you it’s wrong in private, but in public they felt they had to go along…. —Bill Kristol
On Self-Defense
A correspondent asked the other day for a brief account of the biblical doctrine of self-defense. Let us establish some fundamental truths. First, God is sovereign over all things. He is Creator and Redeemer but he administers creation under the sphere of . . . Continue reading →
End Of Watch: Officer Jonathan DeGuzman
The Attraction Of Denial
History is thick with the stench of decay rising from dead consciences. —Maureen Mullarkey
Of Conventions, Prayers, And Church
The Importance Of Distinguishing Sacred And Secular
Both the opening and closing of last night’s events are a good argument for doing away with public, shared prayers in such events. It’s not that delegates to political conventions should not pray. They should. It’s not that candidates should not pray. They should. It’s not that voters should not pray. They should. It is dubious, however, whether it is appropriate to open a common, secular, assembly with prayer. To whom are we praying? In whose name? What are we praying? As a Christian minister of the United Reformed Churches in North America I am not free to offer prayers to God that he has not authorized. I am not free to pray to any other deity than the Triune God of Scripture, to the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am not authorized to approach God in any other name than the name of Jesus. It is not a matter of bigotry. It is a matter of truth, eternal life, and salvation. Jesus was raised from the dead. He is the truth (John 14:6). There are not multiple ways to God. Religion is not multifaceted expression of a common religious experience. It is revealed by God to us. Continue reading →
Calvin: God’s Twofold Government Contra Over-Realized Eschatology
First, before we enter into the matter itself, we must keep in mind that distinction which we previously laid down so that we do not (as commonly happens) unwisely mingle these two, which have a completely different nature. For certain men, when . . . Continue reading →
Another Police Officer Was Murdered Today
Source
When A Society Turns To Skepticism
No amount of force, or gun-control legislation, is going to fix a society where there is no longer a sense that we have law rooted in truth, which every citizen, in every station of life, respects and takes seriously. —Star Parker
U. S. Senator Tim Scott On Solutions To The American Racial Crisis
The Kind Of Conversation We Should Be Having
Glenn Loury And John McWhorter On Defining Racism
(HT: Daniel Aims)
United States Senator Tim Scott On Driving While Black
A Sobering Testimony
Bakersfield School Board Member Resigns:What It Means
As I considered the many requests I became increasingly dogged by the concern that staying on the board would be giving Christian parents false hope. Why? I do not believe this battle can be won at the school board level. It is . . . Continue reading →
Iowa Civil Rights Commission Asserts Authority To Determine Christian Faith And Practice
An Existential Threat To Religious Liberty
DOES THIS LAW APPLY TO CHURCHES? Sometimes. Iowa law provides that these protections do not apply to religious institutions with respect to any religion-based qualifications when such qualifications are related to a bona fide religious purpose. Where qualifications are not related to . . . Continue reading →
The Wilsonian Legacy: Too Big To Jail
This is the Wilsonian legacy, finally achieved after a century of waiting: the Big Man (or Woman), unanswerable to the law, approved by the population without regard to equality under the law. We now elect our dictators. And they are unanswerable to . . . Continue reading →
Justice Thomas Contra The Majority On Making Up Law As We Go Along
I remain fundamentally opposed to the Court’s abortion jurisprudence. …It is tempting to identify the Court’s invention of a constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, as the tipping point that transformed third-party standing doctrine and the . . . Continue reading →
Justice Thomas Contra Racial Preference
I join JUSTICE ALITO’s dissent. As JUSTICE ALITO explains, the Court’s decision today is irreconcilable with strict scrutiny, rests on pernicious assumptions about race, and departs from many of our precedents. I write separately to reaffirm that “a State’s use of race . . . Continue reading →
Governmental Interpretation Of Religion? A Constitutional Problem
Almost immediately after the attacks on 9/11/2001 federal officials, beginning with the President of the United States, assured the world that the views held by and motivating the attacks by those who perpetrated the attacks did not represent true or genuine Islam. . . . Continue reading →
Frederick Douglass On The Three Boxes Of Civil Rights
“A man’s rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex.” . . . Continue reading →