Two and a half years ago, President Obama declared, as America exited Iraq, that Iraq was now a ?sovereign, stable and self-reliant? state. Today, radical jihadists are destroying Iraq. Over the last two weeks, Iraq has been invaded by fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The twentieth century witnessed harsh anti-Semitism, vicious pogroms, and the unimaginable Holocaust. Over a third of the world?s Jews were killed. The unspeakable horror of the Holocaust cannot be forgotten and each generation must comprehend this genocide?s magnitude and vow ?never again.? I have visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. once and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, annually for many years. Each time I go there, I am aghast at the horror of what Nazi Germany did.
Steven Wise, a 63-year-old animal rights legal scholar, and the Nonhuman Rights Project (Nh.R.P.) are seeking to establish the legal personhood of animals. It has only been in the last 30 years that the distinct field of animal law (i.e., laws and legal theory for and about nonhuman animals) has emerged.
Bart Ehrman, religious scholar, bitter critic of biblical Christianity and former evangelical, has written, ?The God I once believed in was a God who was active in the world.
May 22, 2014, marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s ?Great Society? address, delivered at the spring commencement for the University of Michigan. Johnson?s speech remains the most ambitious call to date by any president to use the power of the national government to effect a far-reaching transformation of American society.
In 1796, when George Washington decided not to seek a third term as president, he warned the young Republic about the dangers of foreign entanglements. His counsel produced the policy of isolationism.
Nearly two years ago, a well-known historian of early Christianity from Harvard Divinity School, Karen L. King, argued that a scrap of papyrus of a Coptic gospel text [30 Coptic words in eight fragmentary lines of writing] was authentic and raised the possibility that Jesus was married.
About two years ago, Vladimir Putin began his third term as President of Russia, with his declared objective being to launch a 21st century resurgence of Russia. Rhetorically, he has embraced Russia?s imperial past, which has brought him into conflict with the West, especially the United States. Ukraine is the most recent manifestation of this resurgence. There are two key elements of his worldview that are germane to his actions in Ukraine and to his vision of a resurgent Russia.
That we are free in Christ is a central teaching of genuine biblical Christianity. In the non-moral areas of life, we have the responsible freedom to choose. Christians have often not appreciated this freedom, choosing instead to universalize their convictions in certain entertainment areas of life, as well as in leisure time activities. The result has usually been some form of legalism that ignores God?s grace and the freedom it brings.
One of the most fundamental of all biblical propositions is that humans are created in God?s image: That humans both resemble God (e.g., attributes such as intellect, emotion, will) and represent God (i.e., as His theocratic stewards, Gen. 1:26ff) provide the basis for the worth, value and dignity of humanity.
