July/August 2016

People of a certain age, and I include myself, still have problems with body tattoos and various piercings. People of a certain provenance, and I include myself, remember seeing this sort of thing on newsreel footage of cannibals in New Guinea. To see it now makes me wonder again about the real meaning of the phenomenon.

Any predictions about the imminent extinction of Evangelicals are seriously exaggerated.

It is right to be concerned about the rise of religious fear in the United States. Of course that goes in spades for Europe. Fear can be displaced from one thing to another, so that nervousness about the economy can be transferred to a scapegoat group—people of another religion or nationality, for example. While fear is essential for biological security, it needs guiding principles in social matters—grief, sympathy, and accurate knowledge.

With independence from Great Britain finally secured through the ratification of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, domestic concerns once again became more prominent. Many Virginians were appalled by what was generally perceived to be a lack of civic virtue among their citizens. There was a widespread consensus that this problem was caused by the growing secularization of society and the resulting moral laxity. To compensate, a seemingly minor and innocuous piece of legislation was introduced in the state legislature to authorize the government to financially support “teachers of the Christian religion.”

It was a remarkable moment on June 16, 2012, when a slight Burmese woman dressed in purple, with flowers in her hair, stood on the stage of Oslo’s City Hall. As the crowd rose to give her the first of many standing ovations, human rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi began a speech she should have given 21 years earlier.

This year the Northwest Religious Liberty Association (NRLA) will be celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary since it was rechartered in 1991.

Roger Williams pioneered the way for the disestablishment of religion and the divorcement of the church from the state in America. The burden of his soul was that all men might be free to worship or not to worship God, as their own consciences dictated. He endeavored to reestablish primitive Christianity in harmony with the teaching and practice of the Author of Christianity. The burden of every sermon he preached, of every book he wrote, and of all his labors of charity, was to reveal the spirit of Christ to men, and lead them back to the true religion.

Since 1965, Goodpasture Christian School (originally East Nashville Christian School) has been, in the words of its current president, Ricky Perry, “a ministry serving the educational needs of families who wish to have godly values and a knowledge of Jesus Christ as the center of their child’s learning experiences.” What started as a few buildings in the 1960s, with about 150 students, faculty, and staff, is now a sprawling campus outside Nashville, Tennessee, with more than 900 students. Goodpasture covers everything from preschool to high school, and though it is affiliated with the Church of Christ, students from various Christian backgrounds attend. Its Website indicates a thriving, multifaceted campus that offers a strong Christian environment.