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The 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was passed to protect the religious freedom citizens from the government. In order for the government to restrict a person from their "free exercise", a law had to pass two tests.

1) there had to be a compelling government interest.

2) the law had to be the least restrictive way to accomplish that interest. The "Do No Harm Act" (expected to be reintroduced in 2021) grants the government more authority to restrict religious liberty.

This bill prohibits the application of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to specified federal laws or the implementation of such laws. Currently, RFRA prohibits the government from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest when using the least restrictive means.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1450

Who Would This Affect?

This bill would only federally funded entities (for now) but, ANY government funding would be included. Attempts have been made to include any monies granted to parents that is paid to Christian day care facilities.

The Do No Harm Act “would preserve the law’s power to protect religious freedom, but also clarify that it can’t be used to cause harm,” said Maggie Garrett, vice president for public policy for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2021/1/8/22204893/religious-freedom-law-do-no-harm-act-congress-trump-administration-legal-conflict

Here's the thing...whoever is in power gets to define "harm".

Unrestricted government power is the one thing our founding fathers feared. Furthermore, the Constitution was written to restrict the government and the first thing protected was the freedom to exercise religion.

The proposal even says that RFRA should not allow any “party” to discriminate against others, “including persons who do not belong to the religion or adhere to the beliefs of that party.” Think about that. Today, RFRA allows churches or organizations to challenge federal laws or regulations that would force them to hire or include as members persons who oppose their beliefs. The Harris bill would allow the government to make that choice instead.

https://www.heritage.org/religious-liberty/commentary/diluting-the-substance-religious-freedom

Again, right now, a church can hire people who agree with what that church believes and teaches. There has been talk of punishing Bible-believing churches who don't toe the agenda line. Law suits are one way. Removing their non-profit status if they "discriminate" against "name that minority" is another.

The "Do No Harm" act is a step in that direction.

The first article: The Equality Act of 2020 is here.

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I was at a work site and picked up a leaflet with the title “(Way More Than) 100 Things Every Religious Liberal Should Know” (note: I first published this in 2013, but as I accumulate series of posts, I'm trying to organize a bit differently)

My first thought was: Why is this church trying to limit the audience? Okay, maybe I read more into that than I need to…but then, the next paragraph...(A list of terms and ideas that every religious liberal should know, to be religiously literate.)

So they iterated twice, that the list is for religious liberals (a discussion for another day.) I’m a long way from liberal, but I’m pretty religiously literate. There are nearly 200 terms on this list and I’m at least passingly familiar with many, if not most of them.

Anyway...if I post once a week from this list, that's more than three years!

1. Sh’ma
2. Yin and Yang
3. Tanakh
4. Trinity
5. 4 Vedas

...continue reading →

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Sermon Notes: Imprecations Intro-Part 1

Our pastor is preaching a series on imprecatory prayers and there's a lot unpack. The first point was "we are here" and the first point of the first point was "The Equality Act"

February 7, 2021 - we are here with the Equality Act

the "equality act" would add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the list of civil right protection. H.R.5 is expected to be reintroduced in 2021.

Implications of The Equality Act

...continue reading →

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I just finished reading The Jungle Book - by Rudyard Kipling. I guess "I finished" is not quite the right term. One of my students with dyslexia read it out loud to me. This is a student with a mild cognitive disorder and he enjoyed reading this book (reading and comprehension at about a 4th grade level.) The book is in the Christian Reading Challenge under the "read a classic novel" category. (more book reviews here)

I had never read the book, so I wasn't relying on memory.

 The Jungle Book is told in 3rd person narration, but reads as if it was somebody who was very close to the action, or a folk story that might have been told by a parent to a child.

The story is set in the jungles of India, the book tells of a "man cub" (Mowgli) who was targeted and hunted by a tiger - a tension that lasts throughout the book.

Mowgli was adopted into a wolf family. His best friends and mentors, the bear Baloo and panther Bagheera - his closest friends and mentors follow his adventures.  When Mowgli is supposed to be listening and learning, he's off on another adventure.  

This book can be a sort of gospel story.

Mowgli is not like the animals in the jungle, but he is adopted into a wolf family.  He is close to this family, but he is not really accepted into the larger community, even though he provides a service to them.

Shere Khan, the enemy knows who Mowgli is and the enemy is determined to destroy him.

This enemy is death personified.  He is the only one in the jungle to openly hunt and kill man.  All cower when he comes...Except Mowgli

The enemy comes into the camp, and persuades the wolf pack to reject him, put him out and banish him. 

The wolf pack suffers with Mowgli's absence (both for lack of his leadership and because they followed Shere Khan where they should not have followed). The wolves are hungry with the enemy leading them, and the enemy is still determined to hunt Mowgli.

Mowgli arranges a great battle and *good* wins, and the family is reunited.

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Theology

“Double” Predestination" by R.C. Sproul

This concept is one of the more difficult - did God preordain some for destruction, or does He just allow humans to damn themselves and He ordains a few for glory?

Politics

A Tsunami of Hate

We are suffering from a Tsunami of Hate emanating from the Democrat Party that seeks to demonize, criminalize and extinguish dissent from the 75 million supporters of Donald Trump. It is now official Washington dogma that to question an election result – something the congressional Democrats have done in the face of every Republican presidential victory since 2000 - is now “insurrection” and “domestic terrorism,” or the incitement thereto, and needs to be prosecuted and suppressed.

Fortress DC

(this one is a bit old)

According to Ken Cuccinelli, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, Pelosi not only asked for those massive numbers of troops, but she also asked for the Guard to have crew-manned vehicle mounted machine guns. Now that’s absolutely crazy, was she really envisioning Guard members machine gunning down Americans? Remember these are the same folks who ignored violent riots precipitated by BLM/Antifa for months and chastised President Donald Trump for responding to them with federal agents.

But now reports are suggesting that Pelosi wants them there into March, during impeachment proceedings…

So she’s going to try to use them like her personal Army till mid-March? Welcome to the security state. Based on what? Notice how they’re very happy to use the Guard for themselves yet not so much for other citizens during the months of rioting.

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Biden Takes Heat For Killing Trump’s Opioid-Treatment Prescription Plan Praised By Doctors

President Joe Biden last week killed a plan from the Trump administration to allow more physicians to prescribe an opioid-treatment drug.

The move from the Trump administration was widely praised by both physicians and lawmakers, and came on the heels of another spike in opioid-related deaths during the pandemic. Criticizing the Biden administration on the reversal, Trump’s Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Brett Giroir warned the move “will cost thousands of lives.”

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What I'm Reading

Biblical Imprecations: Christians’ Secret Weapon

Biblical Imprecations: Christians’ Secret Weapon demonstrates the unity of Biblical teaching regarding such imprecations, examining: (1) Christ and the Apostles endorsement of Old Testament imprecations; (2) imprecations spoken by Christ and the Apostles; and (3) imprecations spoken by God’s angels and by glorified martyrs in heaven.


Eight key Biblical-theological principles underlying the imprecatory Psalms are developed: (follow the link)

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What does it mean that our old man was crucified?

 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; (Roman's 6:6 ASV)

From Sunday's (AM) sermon -

A lot of translations render the "old man" as "old self"

this leads to wrong thinking about what the verse is saying. Our pastor illustrated with the phrase "sphere of existence" - our "old man" = "in Adam" and our "new man" = "in Christ.

(below is my understanding, not from the sermon)

...continue reading →

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Lots of links today...and one of them is no longer active (well, it didn't take long for that censorship to happen...

In the Christian Sphere

A Biblical Case for Civil Disobedience & the Right Use of Romans 13 - James White

"Yet unqualified Christian obedience to government cannot be taught from texts which explicitly limit the boundaries of government authority and the extent of our submission.  God Himself clearly restricts the role of government, not giving it unlimited authority: it acts “for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right” (1 Pet. 2:14).  When rulers reverse that, as often happens, by praising evildoers and punishing those who do right, they violate their delegated, God-given authority and transgress their divinely established boundaries and assigned jurisdiction.  "

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...continue reading →

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Psa 106:32-48

32 They angered him at the waters of Meribah,
    and it went ill with Moses on their account,
33 for they made his spirit bitter,[a]
    and he spoke rashly with his lips.

34 They did not destroy the peoples,
    as the Lord commanded them,
35 but they mixed with the nations
    and learned to do as they did.
36 They served their idols,
    which became a snare to them.
37 They sacrificed their sons
    and their daughters to the demons;
38 they poured out innocent blood,
    the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
    and the land was polluted with blood.
39 Thus they became unclean by their acts,
    and played the whore in their deeds.

40 Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people,
    and he abhorred his heritage;
41 he gave them into the hand of the nations,
    so that those who hated them ruled over them.
42 Their enemies oppressed them,
    and they were brought into subjection under their power.
43 Many times he delivered them,
    but they were rebellious in their purposes
    and were brought low through their iniquity.

44 Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress,
    when he heard their cry.
45 For their sake he remembered his covenant,
    and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
46 He caused them to be pitied
    by all those who held them captive.

47 Save us, O Lord our God,
    and gather us from among the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name
    and glory in your praise.

48 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting!
And let all the people say, “Amen!”
    Praise the Lord!

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I've been either a member or regular-attender at several different churches, over over close to thirty years. (Put that way, the "church hopping number" doesn't sound all that bad, especially since two of the moves were because I moved to a new state.)

Church hopping has a definition that doesn't fit my whole experience: First, a working definition: church hopping is going from one church to another without committing to any one church for any significant period of time (which makes it different than legitimate church “shopping”). (definition from Crosswalk)

I am reading "Grounded in the Gospel" - a book about the Christian tradition of teaching through catechism. One thing led to another in my brain and that led me to this post. Going over what led me, and kept me in various churches.

So let's take a walk. I'm not going to name the churches, unless they were spectacular.

The Pre-history

I had taken a few years off from church and I can remember so very clearly the day I knew I had to return. We had taken a vacation and had ended up in Nauvoo, Illinois. Nauvoo is a Mormon settlement on the Mississippi River and they have a beautiful "monument to women" (I am *NOT* pro-Mormon; we were there for the history).

Being what Mormon is, the statues not only had Book of Mormon references, they had Bible references also. As I walked through this garden with my two children (then ages 5 and 3) I knew that if I wanted to be what God wanted me to be, I had to return to Him.

In my church hopping experiences, each church that I've been in has led me to a deep topical study, and that's a good thing. Even in the churches that suck...something good came of it.

...continue reading →