Perhaps the most important rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights (the Constitution?s first Ten Amendments) are two of the four listed in the First Amendment?the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion (?the free exercise? of religious beliefs and conscience). Both of these precious freedoms are under significant stress today and in fact are threatened by the realities of this Postmodern, post-Christian era in which we live. Both need rigorous defense and protection, and, according to the Constitution, it is the state that is to offer the foremost protection of these two rights. Let?s examine the nature of this stress.

This June, the US Supreme Court ended its year with a series of important decisions. Perhaps most important was the Whole Women?s Health v. Hellerstedt decision (handed down on 27 June 2016) which tested the state of Texas?s attempt to further regulate abortion clinic requirements. The Court ruled 5-3 that Texas cannot place restrictions on the delivery of abortion services that create an undue burden for women seeking an abortion. The Texas law required abortion providers to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers and to upgrade their building, safety, parking, and staffing to meet the standards of a hospital room. The Court?s decision deemed these requirements unnecessary and expensive as well as an attempt to limit abortion access rather than provide safety to women.

As mentioned in a previous Issues (2 July 2016), the world order set in place after World War II is coming apart. In the Middle East, nation states are disappearing, replaced by ancient tribalism and clan loyalties rooted deep in the region?s history. The benefits of open borders with lower tariffs and growing international trade are being challenged by a narrow nationalism, a dangerous isolationism and a short-sighted introversion. Islamic terrorism is fostering bloody rivalries between Sunnis and Shiites, rendering the nation states created after World War I irrelevant and dangerous. All aspects of the old order. . .are under siege with little or no public trust in that order.

As I have reported in past editions of Issues, Israel faces the ongoing absurdity of the BDS movement?the efforts by western governments and individual citizens to ?boycott, divest and sanction? (BDS) Israel. At the end of 2015, the European Union (EU) adopted rules that wine coming from Israel, some of which is produced in the West Bank, must be labeled ?Product of the West Bank (Israeli settlement).? This effort to boycott or sanction Israel for its policies in the West Bank has been growing in the EU, which exports heavily from Israel.

At the end of World War II, the United States and its victorious allies constructed an entire new world order based on military and financial treaties and alliances that were to promote the goals of global peace, security and economic prosperity. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank were the institutions created to foster these postwar goals. Intense nationalism and high protective tariffs (taxes on imported goods) were seen as the enemies of this new order and these institutions were designed to balance nationalism with globalization and tariffs with a penchant for free trade.

This May, the founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, invited a group of conservative leaders to his Silicon Valley board room to discuss the perceived Facebook bias against conservative views and positions being displayed on the Facebook platform. He denied bias against conservative views. The alleged censorship focuses on a feature on Facebook?s desktop version called ?trending topics,? which relies on special curators to help select the new items to highlight. . . But leaving aside this controversy over the ?trending topics? part of Facebook, I want to concentrate in this Perspective on the subtle but real power of this social network. A few items for consideration:

As a result of the Supreme Court ruling last June legalizing same-sex marriage, the social battleground has shifted to transgenderism. Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox have added a pop-culture dimension to transgender issues, and President Obama has made it an issue of rights protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Michael Scherer of Time magazine writes that ?with the power of federal purse strings, the Obama Administration has declared that all students must be treated equally regardless of gender identity, defining innate feelings of male and female identity as legally protected rights.?

The Pew Research Center periodically issues valuable studies on religious movements, trends and often speculates on what present tendencies tell us about the future. The Pew Center recently published its Global Religious Futures, which gives focus to eight major global religious groups and speculates on what present tendencies tell us about these groups through 2050. What follows is a summary of the Center?s salient findings:

Senior columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Ari Shavit, has written that the 20th century was ?the most dramatic century in the dramatic history of the Jews. In its first half, we lost a third of our people. But the second half of the century was miraculous. In North America, we created the perfect diaspora, while in the land of Israel we established modern Jewish sovereignty. The Jews of the 21st century have today what their great-grandparents could only dream of: equality, freedom, prosperity, dignity. The persecuted people are now emancipated. The pitiful people are now proud and independent . . . [Israel] is the demography of hope: an almost extinguished people renewing itself.?

I recently came across a noteworthy article that summarizes Google searches among Americans seeking answers to religious questions. The results are curious and reveal much about American culture in the early 21st century. Here is a brief summary of some of the salient findings:

The number one Google question in America is ?who created God?? Second is why does God allow suffering? If God is all powerful and all good, how can He allow suffering? The third most-asked question is, ?why does God hate me?? The fourth is, ?why does God need so much praise??