Tag Archives: Christianity

News

UK government: Christians do not have right to wear a cross at work

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Tom sent me this article from the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Christians do not have a right to wear a cross or crucifix openly at work, the Government is to argue in a landmark court case.

In a highly significant move, ministers will fight a case at the European Court of Human Rights in which two British women will seek to establish their right to display the cross.

It is the first time that the Government has been forced to state whether it backs the right of Christians to wear the symbol at work.

A document seen by The Sunday Telegraph discloses that ministers will argue that because it is not a “requirement” of the Christian faith, employers can ban the wearing of the cross and sack workers who insist on doing so.

[…]The Government’s refusal to say that Christians have a right to display the symbol of their faith at work emerged after its plans to legalise same-sex marriages were attacked by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain.

A poll commissioned by The Sunday Telegraph shows that the country is split on the issue.

Overall, 45 per cent of voters support moves to allow gay marriage, with 36 per cent against, while 19 per cent say they do not know.

However, the Prime Minister is out of step with his own party.

Exactly half of Conservative voters oppose same-sex marriage in principle and only 35 per cent back it.

There is no public appetite to change the law urgently, with more than three quarters of people polled saying it was wrong to fast-track the plan before 2015 and only 14 per cent saying it was right.

The Strasbourg case hinges on whether human rights laws protect the right to wear a cross or crucifix at work under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

It states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”

The Christian women bringing the case, Nadia Eweida and Shirley Chaplin, claim that they were discriminated against when their employers barred them from wearing the symbols.

They want the European Court to rule that this breached their human right to manifest their religion.

The Government’s official response states that wearing the cross is not a “requirement of the faith” and therefore does not fall under the remit of Article 9.

Lawyers for the two women claim that the Government is setting the bar too high and that “manifesting” religion includes doing things that are not a “requirement of the faith”, and that they are therefore protected by human rights.

They say that Christians are given less protection than members of other religions who have been granted special status for garments or symbols such as the Sikh turban and kara bracelet, or the Muslim hijab.

I think that many of the people in the UK who push for the marginalization of religion from society are probably the same people who decry the decline of moral standards. It is a secularist fantasy that people will act as they ought to act when people think that there is no way that the universe ought to be. The UK is self-destructing because they are cutting themselves off from the ground of morality, and one of the pillars of Western Civilization.

News

Obama makes fifth attempt to reduce tax deduction for charity

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From the Heritage Foundation.

Excerpt:

Once again, President Barack Obama has proposed lowering the income tax deduction for charitable giving. In his proposed budget for fiscal year 2013, the President calls for reducing the charitable deduction rate from 35 percent to 28 percent for those in the top tax bracket (individuals making $200,000 or more or families making $250,000 or more). By decreasing the value of itemized tax deductions for higher-income taxpayers, Obama’s proposal would weaken the incentive for the wealthy to give to organizations that help the poor.

President Obama has tried this before. Not once, not twice, not three times, but on four previous occasions, he has put forward a plan to lower the deduction rate for wealthy donors (twice in previous budget proposals and twice in funding proposals for other priorities, including Obamacare).

As The Heritage Foundation has previously noted, the President’s plan would likely dampen charitable giving at a time when nonprofits have been forced to do more with less. The greatest impact would probably hit organizations like hospitals and educational institutions that depend on large gifts from wealthy donors. While these donors make up only a small percentage of total American households, they contribute almost half of the donations claimed each year as charitable deductions.

How far would Obama’s proposal cause total itemized contributions to fall? Experts predict up to $5.6 billion each year.

Why would a socialist like Obama want to discourage people from giving to charity? Well, socialists want to increase the amount of dependency that people in need have on the government, so that the government can control them. When people in need have options, they don’t have to care as much about the opinions of the people who help them. But when the government squeezes charities out by cutting off their donations, then the people in need have to choose government. And what do you suppose happens at election time? A whole bunch of people in need vote for their savior – big government. This is not good.

People in need should be able to get help from their families, neighbors and charities, in that order. We don’t want this becoming political – i.e. “vote for me or you don’t eat”. It should also be noted that when government takes over the task of helping the poor, the Christian church loses its influence. Do we really want Christians to lose influence at a time when millions of unborn children are being murdered and the family is being redefined by liberal social engineers?

Commentary

Women who are serious about their faith are much less likely to divorce

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Here’s a post that van Rooinek sent to me that contains marriage advice for Christian men.

Excerpt:

There are a couple of reasons why I advise my sons and my fellow men to marry hard-core believers. First, is has been my consistent observation that in today’s world, with women armed as they are with so many choices, choices that include whether a man’s child escapes the uterus intact and whether a man gets to participate in the rearing of his own seed, indeed whether he remains free or is sold into a state of semi-slavery, a woman’s locus of control becomes paramount. If she is internally controlled, as I’ve observed most women are, then her actions will be primarily driven by whim. Or biochemistry. Or modern chemistry. Or even a dartboard. Whatever heuristic a woman uses to govern her actions, if she peers inside herself to determine what to do and where to go, run, don’t walk away. Such women is but a leaf in the autumn wind. Who knows where the air currents will take her, and by extension, where the man tied to such a woman finds himself.

Hard core Believers, on the other hand, are externally governed. Their locus of control tends to be directed outside themselves, toward a fixed point that doesn’t move. In the case of Believers, that fixed point is Scripture and the Holy Spirit, and women whose decision tree starts and ends there are a whole lot less likely to follow their Game-manipulable lizard hind brain into situations which their hamster must then rationalize away.

[…]This brings me to the second reason why I advise men to marry zealots: they take their faith seriously. A seriousness that is reflected in their church/synagogue attendance rates. And it turns out that said attendance rates are highly correlated with marital success. Read on:

“Christians divorce at roughly the same rate as the world!”

It’s one of the most quoted stats by Christian leaders today. And it’s perhaps one of the most inaccurate.

The factor making the most difference is religious commitment and practice. Couples who regularly practice any combination of serious religious behaviors and attitudes – attend church nearly every week, read their bibles and spiritual materials regularly; pray privately and together; generally take their faith seriously, living not as perfect disciples, but serious disciples – enjoy significantly lower divorce rates than mere church members, the general public and unbelievers.

[…]Looking at the data, one thing is very clear. Those that are serious about their faiths stand a significantly lower risk of marital disruption than those that are not. Fine. This is great news, but not the end of the story, for what I also find very interesting about this table is that those who dabble in their faiths, those who are neither hot nor cold, are the ones setting themselves up for failure the most…+20 for Protestants, -5 for Catholics, and a whopping +53 for Jews.My advice for my sons and my fellow brothers is this: find and marry a woman who is zealous about her faith, a zealotry that is demonstrated by her actions.

I keep telling Christian women that men really do think about these things. We really are doing our homework first. And we really do have big plans that we are trying to fit you to. That’s why we ask you so many questions, so you should be ready to answer.

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