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Why Sharia is Unconstitutional, and why Oklahoma should have left things alone
Oklahoma has decided to amend its Constitution to say that its judges may not consider or use Islamic Shari'a law. A Federal judge has stayed that for the time being.
There are at least four reasons why Shari'a is unconstitutional and should not be used in American courts, this Court could be wrong. First, if a civil court adopts shari'a per se it would be an unconstitutional as an endorsement of religion. I suppose if parties agree to have private arbitrations performed with reference to shari'a, that's their business. A court to be prudent should ascertain whether such an arbitration is voluntary, given the inequities which are inherent in shari'a from our point of view.
Second, and more importantly, when we understand that shari'a is not a matter of religious principles but a total system of life, we realize that shari'a as a system is already unconstitutional regardless of what Oklahoma does. This is because the U.S. Constitution says that the Federal government shall guarantee to each State "a Republican form of government." In other words, the United States will protect each State's government against usurpation by other forms of government which are not republican such as a monarchy, a Commmunist dictatorship - or an Islamic theocracy.
Third, I question whether and to what extent the U.S. government, in the person of a Federal judge, is able to simply draw a big "X" over a State constitutional provision. This should only be done in the clearest of circumstances, and only, in my opinion, where the U.S. Constitution has directly spoken. For example, no State could now amend its State Constitution so as to allow slavery.
Fourth, and least likely to prevail in our current environment, shari'a is against the American tradition which is built on the Christian tradition. As late as 1890 the Supreme Court could recognize that this is a Christian nation - not of course in the sense of having an established Church, but that the vast majority of people are Christian and our nation presupposes a Christian worldview. There is a secular way to uphold these principles if we reflect on the fact that our founding documents assert the values that come from the Protestant tradition - we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and that they endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, etc. Now, the shari'a system of course doesn't recognize this at all since in Islam all men are not intrinsically equal by virtue of their humanity. In Islam, Muslims have more rights than non-Muslims, men more rights than women and so forth.
These four quick answers should be apparent to, at a minimum, any person in the United States who has been to law school. Yet, people do not speak against the political aspect of Islam, expressed through shari'a, because the Left is making common cause with Islam all over the world (a move they may live to regret).
As a side note, and as many have pointed out, doesn't Oklahoma by its Amendment simply uphold the purposes of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States? We could actually see Oklahoma's decision to propose such a specific Amendment as foolish because it gives people the opportunity to litigate matters which should never be litigated. It should already be clear because of the First Amendment that the shari'a comprises no part of the law of Oklahoma.
So why put that ball in play, so to speak?
Karate for Christ?
I didn't know there was Karate for Christ. Here's an interesting look from CNN at the proliferation of weight-loss programs in the church.
And to think that Spurgeon smoked cigars.
Wall Street Journal delves into Manute Bol's "Radical Christianity"
Interesting piece about a side of this man few people seem to have known. Great quote:
"Bol reportedly gave most of his fortune, estimated at $6 million, to aid Sudanese refugees. As one twitter feed aptly put it: 'Most NBA cats go broke on cars, jewelry & groupies. Manute Bol went broke building hospitals.'"
And who wouldn't want to hear something new from Matt Redman?
I know I would. He says wife Beth "came to the rescue" again when writing "This Is How We Know."
Jews and Evangelicals Meet
The event, held June 15-16, attracted leaders representing large swaths of the more than 50 million evangelical Christian adults in the United States — and, in the process, underscored the changing face of the movement.
7 Iraqi Churches Bombed Within 48 Hours
''We were expecting this, and we expect it to get worse.... Their goal is to drive the Christians out of Iraq,'' said Abdullah Nufaili, who heads the Christian Endowment.
American Missionary Killed by Al Qaeda, gets reviled at home
On Tuesday, June 23rd 2009, an American Christian worker named Chris Leggett was gunned down by Al Qaeda for the alleged “crime” of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. To give you an idea of what kind of man Chris Legget was, the 39-year old native of Cleveland, Tennessee not only taught computer science in a low-class neighborhood in the capital city of Nouakchott, he also, according to the Cleveland Daily Banner, worked with the prison systems to train and equip women and young boys to re-enter society, directed a training center providing training in computer skills, sewing, and literacy, and oversaw a micro-loan program which fostered the growth of hundreds of small businesses.
Although the miniscule media coverage has been fairly straightforward, I was saddened to see some of the nasty comments on the Huffington Post when Ahmed Mohammed posted the Associated Press story on the site. Although a few of the comments unequivocally condemned Leggett’s murder for what it is, a cowardly act of violence motivated by extremists, far too many seemed to think that Leggett was somehow “asking for it” because of the nature of his work in a Muslim land, as if Chris Leggett somehow deserved to die because of his passion for sharing his faith.
One commenter wrote, “Well, you know, it is their country. You go walking around with arrogant disregard of their laws, you better be prepared to pay the consequences. Non-story.” Another commenter cut from the same cloth replied, “I agree. It doesn't take much intelligence for non-military Americans to keep out of these countries. You not only go there at your own risk - you ask for it.”
My beef isn’t so much with the Huffington Post (who likely has little control over what people comment on the site), but to the people who made those nasty comments (there were some that were far worse) I would like to say feel free to criticize Christian missionaries working in Muslims lands, but I hope you realize that you’re criticizing from a position of privilege. Many of you live in countries that allow you to choose your religious beliefs without fear of torture, imprisonment, or death. Hundreds of millions of Muslims live in countries that deny them that right. How do you know that out of the worlds’ roughly 1.2 billion Muslims, that some of them don’t want to hear another perspective?
Chris Leggett most likely wasn’t banging the Bible over anyone’s head, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few curious Muslims quietly asked him about his religious beliefs. After all, most Muslims I know-unlike most Westerners I know-like to discuss religion in every day conversation and enjoy hearing other people’s perspectives. If a few of these same Muslims through peaceful dialogue came to the conclusion that Chris’s beliefs were correct, where’s the crime in that? If Chris Leggett did break Mauritanian law, then it was an unjust law that he broke. Last time I checked, breaking unjust laws is called civil disobedience. Acts of civil disobedience have been crucial to every major advance in human rights.
Article by Aaron Taylor. Yes, it's easy to trumpet the cry of "human rights" but this is usually done on premises which honor them to some degree. Still no churches in the Kingdom of Saud.
Why?
Episcopal Church drives over cliff and enjoys the descent
The one and only David Virtue eviscerates the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA after her comments that individual salvation is the "great Western heresy."
In her opening address to the church's General Conference in California, Jefferts Schori said it was a "heresy" to believe that an individual can be saved through personal faith and trust in Jesus Christ acknowledged in a prayer of repentance.She said that view is 'caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus.'According to Schori, it is heresy to believe that an individual's prayer can achieve a saving relationship with God. "That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy."Ms. Jefferts Schori is dead wrong.The entire message of both Old and New Testaments is God's pursuit of man, not man's search for Ubuntu.Her ridiculing of personal salvation in favor of social amelioration through Millennium Development Goals is little more than a rehash of the Social Gospel of the Sixties that has seen a massive hemorrhaging of mainline denominations in America.Jefferts Schori is on the wrong side of history. Her, and the church's understanding of mission - to save the world for God - is arrogance and hubris. No one human being, organization or ministry has that capacity. God alone has the power to save the world. Jesus himself admitted that the poor would always be with us.We are called to be obedient to The Great Commission, "to go into all the world and preach the gospel" of God's grace, inviting people into his kingdom based on the very (and personal) call to repentance.It is not about a "formula", as Jefferts Schori caricatures it. The Sinner's Prayer is not a recitation of the Four Spiritual Laws. Formula faith is not real faith; it never has been and never will be.Many of those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ have wrestled with that call. St. Paul's Damascus Road experience was no "Ubuntu" moment. Neither was the experience of John Bunyan of Pilgrim's Progress, an everyman character, which centers itself on his journey from his hometown, the "City of Destruction" ("this world"), to the "Celestial City" ("that which is to come": Heaven) atop Mt. Zion. He is only and finally freed from the weight of his burden - the knowledge of his sin - when he repents of his sin at the foot of the cross.Jefferts Schori will have none of that kind of faith or talk.
