Robert Kagan, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, recently wrote that ?the willingness of the United States to use force to defend its interests and the liberal world order has been an essential and unavoidable part of sustaining the world order since World War II. It is also an essential part of effective diplomacy . . . The question today is finding the right balance between when to use force and when not to.?

The recent Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case is a momentous and welcomed decision upholding religious liberty in America. But in many ways, the media and many politicians have distorted the case itself and the implications of this Supreme Court decision. First, a review of the case itself and the substantive aspects of the Court?s decision.

Genesis 1:26ff explains that humans are God?s dominion stewards over His world. In fact, as this text makes clear, this stewardship responsibility is part of being in the image of God. Humans are accountable to God for this stewardship. It is therefore only common sense that it is not good for humanity to be spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Managing the environment is important and to wantonly destroy or do harm to God?s world is irresponsible and hardly pleasing to God.

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).

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.

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.

Over the last twenty years especially, homosexuality has been reframed as an issue of rights. The debate over same-sex marriage has been redefined that way as well. Overall, both issues are now viewed exclusively as a civil rights issue. One of the primary results of viewing these as civil rights issues is the tendency to limit First Amendment rights, especially the freedom of speech and the freedom of religious expression. In other nations, we are already seeing this occur. In England, a Catholic school was forbidden to fire its openly gay headmaster. In Canada, the Alberta Human Rights Commission forbade a Christian pastor from making ?disparaging? remarks about homosexuality or even repeating biblical condemnations. Such blatant challenges to free speech are not quite yet occurring in America, but we are almost there.