Is Religious Freedom Under Attack in the USA?

Actually, I don’t believe it’s “religious” freedom that is under attack in America, but “Christian” freedom is certainly under fire in this nation. Increasingly, we are seeing a court system and legislature that want more tolerance of a certain form of religion, but at the expense of an intolerance of Christianity. More and more this culture seeks the absolute tolerance of the religion of secularism and its moral relativism, but at the same time intolerance of the absolutes of Christianity built on the foundation of the absolute authority of the Word of God.

Personally, I believe the U.S. Supreme Court case about Obamacare and Hobby Lobby (our lead article on the Court’s important decision today will be posted soon) has been just another blatant example of the attempted erosion of Christian freedoms in this nation. Yes, the news this morning from the U.S. Supreme Court was encouraging, but how did this nation even get to the point where Christian-owned businesses would be forced to offer abortion-causing drugs in its health coverage for employees?   Continue at Ken Ham

2013 Annual Report on the State of International Religious Freedom Identifies World’s Worst Violators

Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent federal advisory body created by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) to monitor religious freedom abuses abroad, today released its 2013 Annual Report.  The Report highlights the status of religious freedom globally and identifies those governments that are the most egregious violators.  

 

“The state of international religious freedom is increasingly dire due to the presence of forces that fuel instability.  These forces include the rise of violent religious extremism coupled with the actions and inactions of governments.   Extremists target religious minorities and dissenters from majority religious communities for violence, including physical assaults and even murder.  Authoritarian governments also repress religious freedom through intricate webs of discriminatory rules, arbitrary requirements and draconian edicts,” said Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, USCIRF’s Chair.

 

The 2013 Annual Report recommends that the Secretary of State re-designate the following eight nations as “countries of particular concern” or CPCs: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.  USCIRF finds that seven other countries meet the CPC threshold and should be so designated:  Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam.

 

“The Annual Report ultimately is about people and how their governments treat them. Violations affect members of diverse religious communities around the world, be they Rohinghya Muslims in Burma, Coptic Christians in Egypt, Buddhists, Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong in China, Baha’is in Iran, Ahmadis and Christians in Pakistan, or Muslims in Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan and in non-Muslim nations like Russia.  We recommend that the White House adopt a whole-of-government strategy to guide U.S. religious freedom promotion and that Secretary of State Kerry promptly designate CPCs, before currently designated actions expire later this year,” said Lantos Swett.    Continue at USCIRF

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Who Is Hobby Lobby?

We all heard the news earlier this week about the death of religious freedom at Hobby Lobby. Even though the public is becoming aware that the owners David and Barbara Green are Christians, Americans still need to know more about these good people and what they stand for. To this end, Ben Domenech writes:

The Hobby Lobby folks are a straight-up American success story. A family business, started in Oklahoma in 1970 with a $600 bank loan, they started by making their frames from wood bought from local sellers, building them in their garage. The kids glued them together on the kitchen table in exchange for baseball cards. The family opened their first frame retail shop in Oklahoma City in 1972. They had four employees. Now they have 514 stores in 41 states. They employ 13,240 people full time. In 1981 they added another store to the family, Mardel, a Christian/church supply shop which sells Bibles and study books, curriculum, Christian craft supplies. That’s another 35 stores, in 7 states, with 372 employees. So they went from a garage business started with $600 to two businesses that employ more than 13,600 people full time across basically the entire country.  Continue at Denny Burk