Yet today, Vanderbilt officials are restricting the liberty of the very sorts of religious folks who not only founded the school but whose followers led many of the nondiscrimination battles of 19th-century higher education. (Editor’s Note: After sumarizing the story, Mr Murray give this illustrtion.) Ironically, the very freedom Vanderbilt administrators have to make their... Continue Reading

Editor’s Note: In seeking a ‘lead story’ for Mother’s Day, we go back 10 years to a Mother’s Day sermon preached (and then published) on the Back To God Hour by the then radio preacher, David Feddes. It was part of a series on the cultural impact Christianity has had for the past 2,000 years.... Continue Reading

Authors: Bryant Wright, President of the Southern Baptist Convention and Senior Pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church; Richard Land, President, The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; O. S. Hawkins, President/CEO, GuideStone Financial Resources, Southern Baptist Convention We acknowledge that Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists have differing views on how we understand and... Continue Reading

Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, sees the Martinez decision “lurking in the background” of other cases. He filed suit in February on behalf of the Christian anti-abortion group Make Up Your Own Mind at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. The school, which does not have an all-comers policy like Hastings, was... Continue Reading

The temptation is for Christians go silent and give up the marriage fight: “It’s no use staying in this battle,” we think to ourselves. “We don’t have to change our personal position. We’ll keep speaking the truth and upholding the Bible in our churches, but getting worked up over gay marriage in the public square... Continue Reading

J.D. Greear, lead pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., a Southern Baptist congregation, urged the church’s members to support the amendment. “Government did not define or establish marriage. God did. Government merely recognized that which has been established by the Creator.” North Carolina voters have made the state the 30th in the U.S.... Continue Reading

[Court] said McGlone’s desire to share his beliefs is protected First Amendment activity and the open areas of Tennessee Tech’s campus are public forums. When deciding to allow people on campus, the policies must not grant overly broad licensing discretion to government officials…[and] the two-week notice period is unreasonable, far longer than other timeframes upheld... Continue Reading

There have always been men–like this fellow and like Chrysostom or Knox or Whitefield or Spurgeon or Lloyd-Jones or ten thousand others–who have been “famous among all the churches for [their] preaching of the gospel.” It is not a capitulation to culture to admit this fact. And it’s not bad to acknowledge these men and... Continue Reading

“It’s easy to believe in the separation of church and state when one has nothing but scorn for all organized religion. That was the position of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s hatred of the clergy and established churches knew no bounds. He thought that members of the ‘priestcraft’ were always in alliance with despots against liberty.” –Gordon... Continue Reading

What Kaine and his successor, McDonnell, have in common is they are Virginia’s first two Roman Catholic governors, and both are mindful of the church’s opposition to capital punishment. Kaine allowed executions to proceed, as has McDonnell, despite faith-based teachings to the contrary. “I think they’re both right. Justice is a fundamental tenet of our... Continue Reading