A few weeks ago, the United States Supreme Court declined to consider a case on appeal from Washington State. As a result, a family pharmacy run by the Stormans for generations must choose between conscience and compliance.
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Episode 25 of The FaithWalkers Podcast addresses a recent attempt to force Christians to put their faith in a box.
I bring you up to speed on the recent ruling and why it matters, then share an exclusive interview from last year in which I spoke to Kevin Stormans, an owner of Ralph’s Thriftway in Washington state.
He is joined by his legal counsel, Kristen Waggoner, senior vice president of legal services for Alliance Defending Freedom.
It is one of the most chilling religious liberty cases out there because it is unthinkable that anyone could be forced to participate in what they believe to be murder.
If you are like a lot of Christians—or even conservative folks, you’re blown away by how quickly marriage and religious liberty have seemed to crumble in recent years. What are we to make of it all in light of the seemingly constant pressure to be made to care?
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In this episode I share a conversation with Andrew T. Walker of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is also the co-author of the book Marriage Is in which he argues marriage is not up for debate.
Who hasn’t heard a married person say, “I didn’t realize my wife was so….” Or “If I would have know that about him….” The truth is we never truly know the person we think God wants us to mary until after we’re married. But we can see some of the problems coming if we’re willing to ask the tough questions before we say “I do.”
In our own relationship, my wife and I talked through a lot of issues prior to getting married. Church and doctrine, parenting philosophy, the place of Scriptures in our decision-making, and a host of other issues.
We even went through a money-management course (which her father wisely insisted we take) so we had at least started the conversation about that potentially divisive issue prior to tying the knot.
But a lot of couples don’t talk about these and other significant life issues–and then they wonder what happened when those real-life issues hit them upside the head.
In spite of recent events and rulings by the United States Supreme Court, truth still matters for those seeking to live authentic lives of abundant faith. When our beliefs are focused rightly, faith can move us to live a story worth telling. But when our faith falls for propaganda, our story inevitably suffers for it.
Os Guinness, author of A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future
, says this about attempts to find freedom apart from truth:
The sad fact is that without truth and virtue, those who proclaim freedom and set out to do what they like often end up not liking what they have done.
Truth causes faith to thrive, while propaganda always destroys in spite of false hope, good feelings, and the best of intentions.
Yet how often do we engage the source of truth? Jesus himself said that the Word is truth. It claims to have all we need to equip us while out on the trail following Him. But do we use it?
Sacrifice. It’s not a popular word. It never has been and probably never will be. But to those who desire an authentic life, the kind of life that produces a story worth telling, sacrifice must become a way of life. Faith is the stuff heroes are made of.
This past weekend in America, we celebrated Memorial Day. We set aside a day to remember the fallen, those brave men and woman who served in our Armed Forces and gave their last measure of full devotion — but why did they do it?
I would suggest most did it because of what they believed to be true, most definitely in spite of what they saw, sensed, or felt. For readers of my new book A Story Worth Telling, that explanation should sound familiar — it is the very definition of faith.
We often contrast ‘believers’ to ‘nonbelievers,’ but that can be misleading. Everyone believes something, in the sense that they must assume some principle as fundamentally true. Atheist often fail to recognize that they are in the same boat as everyone else. A common mantra of atheist websites goes like this: ‘Atheism is not a belief. Atheism is merely a lack of belief in God or gods.’
But it is impossible to think without some starting point. If you do not start with God, you must start somewhere else. You must propose something else as the ultimate, eternal, uncreated reality that is the cause and source of everything else.
The important question is not which starting points are religious or secular, but which claims stand up to testing.
Character is the bridge that provides the point of trust that links leaders with followers.
