An Open Window

The humanistic worldview has increasingly controlled our society for the past seventy years or so. I wonder how many Christians are aware of the cases that the churches have faced in the last century. The things that have been brought into the courts of law should make our hair stand on end.

Robert L. Toms, an attorney-at-law, lists the issues pending in 1981 and which are up for final adjudication during the coming decade before the United State's courts, administrative bodies, executive departments, and legislatures:

1. Is a minister of the gospel liable for malpractice to a counselee for using spiritual guidance rather than psychological or medical techniques?
2. Can a Christian residence house in a college have the same standing as a fraternity and sorority house for purposes of off-campus residency rules?
3. Can Christian high school students assemble on the public school campus for religious discussion?
4. Can Christian teachers in public schools meet before class for prayer?
5. Can Christian college students meet in groups on the state university campus?
6. Can HEW require a Bible college to admit drug addicts and alcoholics as "handicapped persons"?
7. Can a church build a religious school or a day-care centre in an area zoned residential?
8. Can parents who send their children to religious schools not approved by a state board of education be prosecuted under the truancy laws?
9. Is an independent, wholly religious school entitled to an exemption from unemployment taxes as are church owned schools?
10. Will the State enforce anti-employment discrimination laws against a church which in accordance with its stated religious beliefs fires a practising homosexual staff member?
11. Can seminary trustees refuse to graduate a practising homosexual?
12. Can a city continue its forty-year practice of having a nativity scene in front of the city hall?
13. Can zoning laws be used to prevent small group Bible studies from meeting in homes?
14. Can a court decide which doctrinal group in a church split gets the sanctuary?
15. Must a religious school accept as a teacher an otherwise qualified practising homosexual?
16. Can a church be fined by a court for exuberant noise in worship?
17. Can a state department of health close a church-run juvenile home for policies that include spanking?
18. Can religious solicitation in public places be confined to official booths?
19. Is an unborn foetus a "person" and entitled to Constitutional protection?
20. Can The Ten Commandments be posted in a public classroom?
21. Can students in public education have a period of silent medication and prayer?
22. Can Christmas carols be sung in the public schools?
23. Must an employee who believes he should worship on Saturday be permitted a work holiday on that day in order to worship?
24. Can the graduation ceremony of a public high school be held in a church?
25. Can a State official seize a church on allegations of misconduct by dissident members and run the church through a court-appointed receiver?
26. Can the Sate set minimum standards for private religious school curricula?
27. Is religious tax exemption a right or privilege, and, if it is a privilege, are the exemptions an unwarranted support of religion by the State?
28. Should churches be taxed like any other part of society?
29. Can Federal labour laws be used to enforce collective bargaining rights and unionization in religious enterprises?
30. Can the State require a license before a religious ministry may solicit funds for its work?
31. Are hospitals, schools, counselling groups, half-way houses, famine-relief organizations, youth organizations, homes for unwed mothers, orphanages, etc., run with religious motivations or are they secular and subject to all controls secular organizations are subject to?

He further says:

". . . two U.S. trial courts have recently ruled that a group of college students who wish to discuss religion could not meet int he context of a public state university, that religious speech must go on elsewhere since it might "establish religion" on the campus. . . . The State must screen our religious speech from the otherwise free speech practiced on a university campus."

Reference: Theology, News, and Notes (December 1980), A Christian Manifesto by Francis A. Schaeffer.