social justice – “Reasons for the Faith, aka Apologetics”

Universities Must Give Christian Clubs Equal Treatment

Universities Can’t Hold Christian Clubs to a Different Standard than Other Clubs.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled for the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship against the University of Iowa, calling the university’s decision to deregister a Christian student group one of the most obvious examples of discrimination that it has ever seen.

The case is Intervarsity Christian Fellowship v. the University of Iowa. https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/2021-07-16_IVCF-Iowa_Opinion.pdf

Intervarsity is one of several faith-based groups that organizes local chapters at colleges and universities around the country, holding worship services and conducting Bible studies. It had been a registered campus club at the U. of Iowa InterVarsity for over twenty-five years.

Unequal Application of Anti-Discrimination Laws and Policies.

As is often the case, people who are hostile to the Gospel use a facially-neutral anti-discrimination law as a vehicle for harassing Christian businesses, churches, and clubs. The people who serve on the government enforcement commissions are quite likely to share the same worldview as the people who file the complaints.

The Colorado Human Rights Commission has on multiple occasions pursued complaints against Jack of Masterpiece Cakes. Christians who filed similar complaints were summarily dismissed by the commission.

Intervarsity Becomes Collateral Damage.

Intervarsity became collateral damage in 2017, when a student filed a complaint against a different club, Business Leaders in Christ. He was denied a leadership role after refusing to affirm the group’s belief that same-sex relationships were against the Bible.

The University ruled in favor of the student and de-registered BLIC. BLIC filed for and received a preliminary injunction.

In response to the injunction, the University, through its Center for Student Involvement and Leadership, began a “Student Org Clean Up Proposal” and reviewed all student organization constitutions to bring them into compliance with the Human Rights Policy. several were deregistered for requiring their leaders to affirm statements of faith.

It appears from the language of the case that only Christian groups were deregistered.

Constitutional Law Summary.

This is from the final paragraph of the case:

“What the University did here was clearly unconstitutional. It targeted religious groups for differential treatment under the Human Rights Policy—while carving out exemptions and ignoring other violative groups with missions they presumably supported. The University and individual defendants turned a blind eye to decades of First Amendment jurisprudence or they proceeded full speed ahead knowing they were violating the law. Either way, qualified immunity provides no safe haven.”

Qualified Immunity.

According to Cornell Law School, “Qualified immunity is a type of legal immunity. Qualified immunity balances two important interests—the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably”.

“Specifically, qualified immunity protects a government official from lawsuits alleging that the official violated a plaintiff‘s rights, only allowing suits where officials violated a clearly established” statutory or constitutional right.”

Conclusion.

If this reasoning applies in a religious liberty setting, might it also apply when government agents violate one’s Due Process and Equal Protection rights protected by the 5th & 14th Amendments? I’m thinking of all the business owners whose companies failed after government actors proclaimed them to be “non-essential.”

I asked a civil liberties lawyer about qualified immunity, and he replied: “The whole qualified immunity issue needs to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. Lower courts have been too aggressive with it in letting government actors off if there is not an exact rule on point.”

Thank you!

Michael Oswald

michael@msochartered.com

www.msochartered.com

Michael Oswald is a follower of Jesus who lives in Boise, Idaho. Unless otherwise specified, the opinions expressed in this article are his own.

Please Consider Homeschool or Charter School

I believe the government’s near-monopoly on K-12 education (and the corresponding indoctrination in the religion of atheism) is a major cause of the ungodly behavior we are seeing all across the USA.

Dinesh D’Souza’s recent article explains in great detail how the schools and universities were systematically turned into indoctrination centers. https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-philosopher-of-antifa_3380743.html

If we want to help restore civility to our streets, we need to break the government stranglehold on our children’s education.

Please consider homeschooling or sending your kids to a charter school.

Homeschooling.

I have written two posts on the subject of homeschooling.

In my 4/21/20 post titled Homeschool Your Kids? The Left Wants to Stop You, I sounded the alarm about efforts to strip parents of their God-given rights to direct their children’s education.

In my 4/28/20 post, Looking for Homeschooling Resources? Here Are Some, I shared some resources from people I trust to help parents find material that will help them educate their children in ways that honor God.

Many of you homeschooled your kids to some extent after schools were closed last Spring. It is no longer a great mystery to you. Please help other parents by sharing your success stories as well as the things you will do differently going forward.

Charter Schools.

If homeschooling is a bridge too far for you, please consider sending your kids to a charter school.

Providentially (from my viewpoint), Thomas Sowell has just released a book in defense of charter schools It is titled “Charter Schools and Their Enemies”.

Here’s a link to his 6/27/20 opinion piece in the New York Post, Charter Schools are the Best Way to Wipe out Educational Disparity: https://nypost.com/2020/06/27/charter-schools-are-the-best-way-to-wipe-out-educational-disparity/

Here are excerpts from the article:

Depending on who you read or listen to, charter schools are either a striking success or a “failed and damaging experiment” — or even just “fads.”

Such conflicting opinions have led to bitter controversies that have raged for years. But my new book, “Charter Schools and Their Enemies,” features hard facts about educational outcomes in more than a hundred individually identified New York City schools.

No wonder most critics of charter schools, and defenders of traditional public schools, want to argue on the basis of rhetoric.

They don’t want to argue on the basis of facts about test results.

One common example of misleading rhetoric is an often-repeated statement that — nationwide — charter schools “as a whole” do not perform any better than traditional public schools “as a whole.”

Please read his article.

Conclusions.

Please protect your children, and help others protect their children.

Please homeschool.

Please choose a charter school instead of the local public school.

Please also consider donating money to charter schools that serve the poor. You will help others rescue their kids from those public schools that are often low-performing as well as indoctrination centers.

Thank you!

Michael Oswald

michael@msochartered.com

www.msochartered.com

Michael Oswald is a follower of Jesus who lives in Boise, Idaho. Unless otherwise specified, the opinions expressed in this article are his own.

Looking for Homeschooling Resources? Here Are Some.

In my 4/20/20 post titled Homeschool Your Kids? The Left Wants to Stop You., I sounded the alarm about efforts to strip parents of their God-given rights to direct their children’s education.

In this post, I want to share some resources from people I trust to help parents find material that will help them educate their children in ways that honor God.

Answers in Genesis (AIG).

In these blog posts The Authority of Scripture, The Inerrancy of Scripture, and Thinking and Communicating Foundationally I have highlighted how AIG has shown a decades-long commitment to stand on God’s word. They have an impressive array of publications and videos on just about any topic one could name. Their materials are well- researched and professionally-produced, because they know there are people hostile to the Gospel who will amplify any perceived error.

Here is a link to the homeschool tab on their education page. It is one of over a dozen such tabs on that page.

Alison Morrow (Lee Strobel’s Daughter).

Lee Strobel is the well-known Chicago crime reporter who set out to prove that the Gospel is false, followed the evidence, and became a follower of Jesus. Lee’s story is told beautifully in the movie The Case for Christ. The move is (in my opinion) a faithful re-telling of Lee’s autobiographical book of the same name.

Lee posted this on his Twitter feed today (4/28/20):

Go beyond “crisis schooling” and genuinely home school your child this fall. My awesome daughter Alison is a former classroom teacher & homeschooling expert who can help you! Her workshop is May 4. Watch her video below: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ke6sbv0y2AI

There was also a link to Alison’s website, https://goodschooling.net/

I watched the video. I then visited the GoodSchooling website, clicked on the Help Me Homeschool and Register for “Launch Your Homeschool” Free Workshop tabs. I now have access to their impressive library of free resources and am looking forward to the 5/4/20 workshop.

I encourage parents, grandparents, and anyone else who cares about the next generation to do so as well.

Thank you!

Michael Oswald

michael@msochartered.com

www.msochartered.com

Michael Oswald is a follower of Jesus who lives in Boise, Idaho. Unless otherwise specified, the opinions expressed in this article are his own.

Homeschool Your Kids? The Left Wants to Stop You.

Homeschool Your Kids? The Left Wants to Stop You.

Is Homeschooling So Dangerous It Should be Banned?

A recent edition of the Harvard Magazine contained an article by Erin O’Donnell in which law professor Elizabeth Bartholet described homeschooling as something so harmful it should be presumptively banned. The article, titled “The Risks of Homeschooling,” can be found here: https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/05/right-now-risks-homeschooling

This is the second paragraph of the article:

Yet Elizabeth Bartholet, Wasserstein public interest professor of law and faculty director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, sees risks for children—and society—in homeschooling, and recommends a presumptive ban on the practice. Homeschooling, she says, not only violates children’s right to a “meaningful education” and their right to be protected from potential child abuse, but may keep them from contributing positively to a democratic society.

Why Did I Write This Post?

I’m writing this to alert everyone who shares Thomas Jefferson’s view that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (emphasis mine).

Leftist governors such as Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan have displayed what I think can reasonably be described as a tyrannical impulse in the arbitrary restrictions contained in some of their shut-down orders. Forcing home improvement stores to rope off sections that the governor feels are “non-essential,” such as gardening, are hard to see as being genuinely necessary for public health.

Anyone who would abuse the power of government to ban “harmful” gardening will no doubt find a similar justification to ban homeschooling.

Four Excellent Organizations that can Help Us Defend Our Liberty.

Please make a note of the following organizations that provide pro bono legal advice in defense of our liberties:

Homeschool Legal Defense Association. hslda.org

Pacific Justice Institute. https://www.pacificjustice.org/

Alliance Defending Freedom. https://adflegal.org/

Center for American Liberty. https://libertycenter.org/

Stay Alert and Spread the Word.

If you or anyone you know is harassed by a government agent because you choose to homeschool, contact one of these public interest law firms for help defending your rights.

If you catch wind of legislation that smacks of a homeschooling ban, contact HSLDA.

HSLDA also has a variety of other resources for homeschooling families.

Please share this post with others who value liberty.

Thank you!

Michael Oswald

michael@msochartered.com

www.msochartered.com

Michael Oswald is a follower of Jesus who lives in Boise, Idaho. Unless otherwise specified, the opinions expressed in this article are his own.

The Church can Work to Eliminate Racism

How the Church can Work to Eliminate Racism

We, the Church, have an opportunity to work together to eliminate racism.

The Church (i.e., we who follow Jesus) can (1) proclaim the truth of Scripture that we are all one race; (2) expose the lies that enable racism; and (3) preach the Gospel as the ultimate cure for the sin of racism.

Racism is a Sin that Requires a Divine Cure

Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis thinks we would do away with racism if we all recognized that we are all brothers and sisters, and then treated each other accordingly.

“At the central core of racism, we find the sinful hearts of men living in a fallen world. This fundamental problem has no earthly cure. There is no speech that can be given, no law that can be passed, and no publicity campaign that can solve it. Only the truth of God’s Word combined with the strength of God’s Holy Spirit living within us can bring us victory over this sin.”

– Charles Ware; Ken Ham.
One Race One Blood, pp. 38

Yes, we are all One Race.

From the Evidence Bible’s daily post on 6/11/19:

“Science may have caught up with the Bible, which says that Adam and Eve are the ancestors of all humans alive today.”

Peter Underhill of Stanford University in California remarked on findings published in the November 2000 issue of the journal Nature Genetics…Geneticists have long agreed there is no genetic basis to race—only to ethnic and geographic groups. “People look at a very conspicuous trait like skin color and they say, ‘Well, this person’s so different’…but that’s only skin deep,” Underhill said. “When you look at the level of the Y chromosome you find that, gee, there is very little difference between them. And skin color differences are strictly a consequence of climate.”

“When the families scattered from Babel, they each took different combinations of genes with them. In such small populations, trivial differences (such as skin color) can arise quickly in only a few generations. Even evolutionists admit this is true. But different shades of skin and slightly different genetic traits are trivial and do not constitute different ‘races.’” Carl Kerby, Answers in Genesis

Acts 17:26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.”

See: We are all of the same race—the “human race.”

Here’s How to Treat Each Other as Brothers and Sisters:

Dr. Voddie Baucham, in his sermon title One Blood, explores how racism has roots in Evolutionary theory. He shows that it matters very much whether one accepts the One Blood hypothesis described in Genesis.

The basis of all the ethnic divisions we have seen is the denial of the One Blood, One Race hypothesis.

The solution, he says, is in taking literally what God’s Word says in Genesis. Adam and Eve were literal, not symbolic, people. Noah was a literal person from whom all humans are descended. The flood was a literal flood. It was through the sons of Noah that we derived the various types of people.

If we accept what the Bible says, what does that mean for how we (the Church) act?

We celebrate all are one in Adam and in Noah.

Also, we celebrate that we are one in Christ.

We refuse to allow faulty thinking about race to divide and separate us.

We recognize that all racism is a sin, even in ourselves.

We stop using race as a category. We can talk about ethnicity instead, and then use that point to open up opportunities to get into the Gospel.

We can acknowledge our culture but advance the Kingdom.

One Lord, one faith, one baptism. If we believe that, it should impact how we communicate “out there,” treat people “out there,” and what we expect from people “out there.”

– Dr. Voddie Baucham – One Blood – Sermon Library – 9/30/17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ5JZ9MUfKA

Conclusion

We have an opportunity to impact the culture. Let’s seize it!

Michael Oswald

michael@msochartered.com

www.msochartered.com

Michael Oswald is a follower of Jesus who lives in Boise, Idaho. Unless otherwise specified, the opinions expressed in this article are his own.

Objective Morality? Not Without God!

Many Atheists are also moral relativists who believe there is no objective standard of morality, i.e., right and wrong. There is a strong, logical case for the existence of objective morality. Once an Atheist recognizes that there is objective morality, he then grasps at any possible reason to continue denying God’s existence.

One argument they try is that the objective morality simply evolved in our DNA as humans themselves evolved.

Apologists Discuss the Atheistic Views About Objective Morality

I was prompted to ask some other Apologists about the validity of Atheists’ arguments.

Below is a thread from a private discussion group for graduates of the Cross-examined Instructors Academy on December 7 & 8, 2018, between Vada Hedgeman and yours truly.

1. (My first post): My son Ryan is an Apologist. He enjoys talking with his fellow Millennials who are Atheists. He gets push-back on his argument that the existence of the Moral Law is necessarily proof of God. What are some strong replies to the assertion that the Moral Law that is in each of us could have gotten there via evolution?

2. Vada Hedgeman (a fellow group member who lives in L.A.) replied: Well, in those topics I tend to listen to the Atheist’s position (whether they claim evolution or something else) because none of their answers explain why it’s not just a matter of opinion.

Every argument that I’ve ever heard, even the really good ones still leave me with this question “but why is it wrong if I were to disagree with that view and kill anyway? It’s still just a matter of opinion, correct?”

And it always is…. I was reading an article from an Atheist this week on this topic and it was pretty good but it just didn’t answer all of the questions. At the end of the day, it’s all just a matter of opinion in the Atheist view. Even if they say the strongest argument ever – it’s just their opinion at the end of the day unless we have a lawmaker who is telling us that murder/rape etc. is wrong.

Our very own Frank Turek (President of Cross-Examined) had a good interaction on this topic with Christopher Hitchens:

Here are a couple concise articles…. I got it from cross-examined because I like the way they concisely approach this topic

https://crossexamined.org/objections-objective-morality/

https://crossexamined.org/312/

3. (My reply to Vada): Thank you for your very thoughtful reply! Here’s a different objection from the Atheist: “OK, I agree there is a moral law that is part of our DNA. I just think that the moral law component of our DNA simply evolved and wasn’t put there by God.”

4. (From Vada): Well, my response would be that I didn’t say its part of our DNA… what makes them believe that moral law is part of our DNA?

Show me some proof of evidence that morality comes from DNA. And I’d hate to keep sending CrossExamined articles, but it just so happens I got a lot of info on this particular subject from CrossExamined. This article response to that exact objection, brother:

https://crossexamined.org/does-our-morality-come-from…/

5. (My reply to Vada) that DNA article was spot on! I think it will give Ryan exactly the response he needs. Bless you, my brother!

Can our Morality Come from Material (Our DNA)?

The article Vada sent to me was written by Neil Mammen, a circuit design engineer who lives in Silicon Valley. It does a good job of dismantling the argument that the moral law inherent in everyone could have come from material, i.e., our DNA. Here’s the coup de grace:

But here’s the problem I see with the DNA theory: If DNA is the source of our morality then can anyone really say that something is ACTUALLY wrong? Why is slavery wrong? After all, for most of the history of the human race, the majority of the human race and human cultures have felt and believed that slavery was acceptable (as long as THEY weren’t the slaves).

Please go read the full article.

Michael Oswald
michael@msochartered.com
http://www.msochartered.com
Michael Oswald is a follower of Jesus who lives in Boise, Idaho. Unless otherwise specified, the opinions expressed in this article are his own.

Biblical Justice

Sean McDowell and Thaddeus Williams are professors of Christian Apologetics and Theology, respectively, at Biola University. They recently discussed the vital question of how Christians should think about social justice. Below are the opening and closing portions of their conversation. Please join me in prayerfully considering how to apply this guidance in our daily lives.

(Bonus question: What does “Biola” mean? See the end of this post for the answer.)

“SEAN MCDOWELL: There has been significant focus on “social justice” within the Christian world over the past few years. What is the biblical call to justice?

THADDEUS WILLIAMS: If we take the Bible seriously then justice should be a big deal for us. God does not suggest, He commands that we “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed” (Jer. 22:3). Jesus declared his mission to “proclaim good news to the poor… liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18, quoting Isa. 61:1, 2). “Seek justice” (Isa. 1:17) is a clarion call of Scripture, and those who box their ears to that call are simply not living by the Book.

MCDOWELL: When have you seen that lived out well in church history?

WILLIAMS: There is a long, beautiful history of Christians who lived out the biblical call to justice. The early church proclaimed the Gospel in a way that subverted the mutual racism between 1^st century Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles. They brought reconciliation and real community where there had been hostility and division for centuries.

When Romans tossed their so called “blemished” babies away like garbage—often simply because they were female—our ancient brothers and sisters went to those human dumps, rescued, and raised society’s unwanted as their own cherished sons and daughters. They knew God had rescued and adopted them, so they did the same until the human dumps were no more.

When a plague ravaged the Roman Empire, most people ran for the hills away from the sick and dying. It was counterculture Christians who ran to the bedsides of the plagued (most of them non-Christians who didn’t abide by Christian ethics, sexual or otherwise) to treat them with dignity, getting sick and dying right along with them. (Contrast that with the church’s response to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s!) Then there was Wilberforce, John Newton and the Clapham sect in the UK, along with Fredrick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, and others is the US. Their own experiences of redemption from sin inspired them to abolish the dehumanizing slave-trade. Christians like Charles Octavius Boothe and Dietrich Bonhoeffer used good theology to combat white supremacy. You might not know it from today’s headlines, but this long and biblically propelled justice tradition continues today all over the world.”

“MCDOWELL: If we want to carry forward that biblical justice tradition, should we jump aboard the current “social justice” movement?

WILLIAMS: That’s a massively important question. Of course, it all comes down to what we mean by “social justice.” We should all seek a world forever purged of racism, where justice prevails and greed and tyranny are permanently replaced with compassion and love. But we have to be discerning. Not every movement waving the social justice banner promotes the kind of justice and shalom the Bible calls us to seek.

The problem is not with the quest for justice. The problem is what happens when that quest is undertaken from a framework that is not compatible with the Bible. And this is a very real problem, because the extent to which we unwittingly allow unbiblical worldview assumptions to shape our approach to justice is the extent to which we are inadvertently hurting the very people we seek to help.

A “culture war” model has taken over our culture. I see far more hope in the biblical insight that Jesus destroyed the wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile to make for Himself “one man,” uniting people from every tongue tribe, and nation and making them ambassadors of reconciliation. Family and reconciliation, not inter-group warfare, is the Bible’s model for justice. The church needs to step up and live that out in an obvious and compelling way, to show the watching world the beautiful alternative to mutual destruction.

If we really care about justice—which should be all of us who take the Bible seriously—then, no, we shouldn’t go along with ideologies that promise liberation and peace and only bring more bondage and strife. Instead we should love the oppressed (and love the God who loves the oppressed!) by carrying on the beautiful, biblical justice tradition of the Wilberforces and Tubmans and Boothes of history.”

Please read the whole interview here: http://seanmcdowell.org/blog/how-should-christians-think-about-social-justice

Answer: Bible Institute of Los Angeles. See https://www.biola.edu/about/history