One of the strangest laws on the books in Texas has been a statute forbidding any person or organization from operating an educational institution referring to itself as a seminary or awarding theological degrees without licensure and supervision by the State of Texas. It seemed out of place, for the teaching of theology and the determination of the qualifications of those who have a theological education for a degree has always seemed to be decidedly a matter for churches, not the state.

Today, the Texas Supreme Court agreed.

The Texas Supreme Court reversed lower court decisions today and ruled that state restrictions on what unaccredited religious institutions can call themselves and their education training violate the First Amendment.

The court said banning an institution like the Tyndale Theological Seminary in Fort Worth from using the term "seminary" in its name violates the Constitution.

Three religious organizations waged the legal fight. Tyndale, one of the schools, was cited in 1998 for violating a law that requires seminaries to be accredited and prevents unaccredited institutions from awarding degrees. It was fined $173,000 by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute represented the schools and argued before the court in 2005 that the state has no business regulating how pastors are trained.

State law requires institutions to meet certain standards if they call themselves a college, university or seminary. The court ruled that the law as it pertains to seminaries intrudes upon religious freedom.

"This decision is a huge victory for all seminaries not only in Texas but nationwide," said Kelly Shackelford, the institute chief counsel. "Seminaries are going to now be free to be seminaries ... The shackles are off."

The case is not about secular teaching and degrees, but about purely theological education, he said. Shackelford said the ruling means the plaintiffs can try to recover attorneys' fees incurred in the case.

Ultimately, the statute had the state (either directly or through a private organization) determining the qualifications of teachers of theology and the structure and content of that education if a school wished to award academic degrees. Indeed, there was potential here for the state to deny a religious body the ability to credential its own clergy -- especially given the fact that the state recognized only one body for accrediting schools of religion, meaning that a group with unorthodox beliefs might be denied due to doctrinal and ecclesiastical governance issues. with which it was at odds with the organization granted a monopoly on recognizing such programs by the state.

Freedom of religion means nothing if the teaching of religion by religious organizations can be regulated and restricted by the state.

Posted by: Greg at 12:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Not, mind you, that the station doesn't have the right to do as its choosing with its schedule. However, the reason for that change is quite troubling.

A Christian televangelist who harshly criticizes Islam and other religions said Friday that his late-night program is being pulled off the air because of pressure from a Muslim group.

Earlier this month, officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations wrote a letter to the TV station's owners asking for an investigation of the show it broadcasts, "Live Prayer with Bill Keller."

In a May 2 broadcast, the televangelist said Islam was a "1,400-year-old lie from the pits of hell" and called the Prophet Muhammad a "murdering pedophile." He also called the Quran a "book of fables and a book of lies."

Council officials asked for equal air time for Florida Muslims to counter Keller's comments, but never got the chance.

The hourlong show, which airs nightly at 1 a.m., is broadcast on WTOG-TV, a CBS-owned station that airs the CW network locally. WTOG station manager Laura Caruso said the decision to end Keller's contract was a programming one, made by station executives and the televangelist.

But after speaking with CBS executives, the Islamic group claimed credit for Keller's demise. His last broadcast will be Aug. 31.

"They really based their decision upon our letter," said Ramzy Kilic, the group's civil rights coordinator. "They really did not know that Bill Keller was involved with this kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric."

Let's see -- Keller says they yanked the show because of Muslim complaints. The terrorist-affiliated Muslim group indicates that its protests got Keller off the air. The station, on the other hand, says that the complaints had nothing to do with it and that Keller agreed to the change. Is it just me, or does it appear that someone -- likely the CBS affiliate -- is lying here?

Mind you, I don't necessarily agree with all of Keller's theology, or even all of his comments about Islam. But he is accurate in his initial premise that Islam and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible -- and that since Jesus is THE Way, THE Truth and THE Light, an incompatible faith explicitly states that Jesus was not divine and was not crucified and resurrected clearly does constitute a danger to one's eternal soul. A book (such as the Quran) which purports to be divinely revealed and teaches falsely about Jesus is, in fact, a "book of fables and a book of lies." And while one can argue the Mohammad was not a pedophile based on certain cultural and social norms that prevailed in seventh century Arabia, it is clear that he and his successors over the next 1400 years often engaged in murder to advance their religion and to prevent the exercise of the human right to freely practice the faith of one's choosing.

In America, respect for the religious beliefs and sensitivities of others is not required. Indeed, WTOG-TV and CBS regularly broadcast material which is insensitive and insulting towards the religious beliefs of Christians and other religious groups. Only Islam seems to get this sort of hyper-sensitive treatment.

Could it be that the tendency of Muslims world wide to riot and murder when confronted with opposing voices is the reason for this disparity? And if it is, isn't such barbaric behavior sufficient reason in and of itself to denounce ridicule and belittle the Religion of Behead-The-Infidel and those who practice it?

H/T Stop the ACLU, Weasel Zippers

And on a related note, bravo to Salon.com for having the courage to host two weeks of Berkley Breathed's "Opus" which have been withheld from publication by many newspapers for mocking Islamism.

Posted by: Greg at 08:17 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It seems this guy's message has taken root in Great Britain.

After all, the police took action to ban this humorous entry in a carnival parade.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Stuck for inspiration about what to wear at their village carnival, one group made a last-minute decision to dress up in mock Muslim burkas.

Calling themselves the "Page Three Beauties from the Ramalama Ding-Dong Times", the 17 men and women carried placards with made-up names such as "Miss Hairyarmpitsbad", "Miss Slackistan", "Miss Notbadinbedabad" and "Miss Reallyamanistan".

As they walked the one-mile parade route, the group knelt down in mock prayer and used fake compasses to try to find Mecca.

Their routine impressed carnival judges - a mayor, two district councillors and a parish councillor - and they were shortlisted for the "best entry" prize.

But before any awards were handed out, police told the group to leave after complaints about racism.

And all it took was six unidentified "students from out of the area" to complain and get the group hustled out of the area.

I somehow doubt that a group mocking priests or nuns or Hare Krishnas would have received similar treatment.

But then again, those folks don't threaten you with death for mocking them.

H/T LGF, Jawa Report

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I have a difficult time imagining the city of San Francisco allowing a Christian school to operate on city land -- especially not one that hews to orthodox Christian teachings. And I certainly cannot imagine the city doing so if the group operating it were one with a long and well-documented history of racist and anti-Semitic teachings coming out of its top leadership.

But that is happening in San Francisco right now. Except the religious school in question is operated by the racist, anti-Semitic Nation of Islam -- and it has been allowed to operate on city land RENT FREE for five years.

The Nation of Islam school in San Francisco's Hunters Point, now at the center of a controversy over whether asbestos-laden dust from a neighboring development is sickening residents, has quite a history - not to mention a curious lease arrangement with the city.

It sits on city land, and the school was supposed to pay rent - but in the five years since it opened, it hasn't been billed a dime.

It's a classic example of how the patronage politics that defined the Willie Brown era at San Francisco City Hall still rattle around to this day.

Read the rest of the story -- it is sickening.

Oh, and by the way -- it appears that the organization's mosque may also have been paid for with city and federal state tax dollars. I wonder if San Francisco would cut such a deal for a Baptist Church in the city's Castro District?

Seems to me that the Nation of Islam has become the officially established religion of San Francisco -- without a word of outcry from the ACLU or others that these mosque-itos have been sucking the taxpayers dry for years.

Posted by: Greg at 07:15 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- can justify this sort of vandalism and violence against any place of worship. Period.

Police in Arizona said two unidentified men tossed a bottle filled with acid at a Phoenix area mosque early on Monday, splashing a caustic chemical near a Muslim cleric involved in a high-profile discrimination suit.

A Glendale Police Department spokesman said two men driving in a red car threw a soda bottle filled with acid and a reactant at the Albanian American Islamic Center of Arizona, in Glendale, west of Phoenix, around 1 a.m. (O800 GMT) on Monday.

The bottle, which contained pool cleaner and strips of tin foil, burst some 20-25 feet away from Imam Didmar Faja and another mosque official, although neither man was injured, sergeant Jim Toomey said.

"The bottle ruptured in front of them and they smelled a strong chemical smell when it went off," Toomey said.

"We are treating it as a hate crime. We are taking it very seriously," he added.

This is not how real Americans do things -- and those responsible do not merit the dignity and high honor that goes with being an American citizen.

On the other hand, I can't wait to see Faza's lawsuit thrown out on its merits.

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Michael Gerson makes an excellent point in the Washington Post on what is significant about Mitt Romney's Mormonism -- and how it should unite him with, rather than divide him from, religious conservatives.

Many Christians have serious problems with Mormon theology on personal salvation and the nature of history -- disputes that go much deeper than those between, say, Baptists and Presbyterians. These disagreements are theologically important. But they are not politically important, because they are unrelated to governing.

Romney, however, should not make Kennedy's mistake and assert that all religious beliefs are unrelated to politics. What Mormonism shares with other religious traditions is a strong commitment to the value and dignity of human beings, including the unborn, the disabled and the poor. This conviction is unavoidably political, because it leads men and women to act in the cause of justice, not in order to impose their religion, but to protect the weak.

Given this common ground, evangelicals and other religious conservatives should not disqualify Romney from the outset. There may be other reasons to oppose him for president, but his belief about the destiny of the soul is not one of them.

Indeed, that point is critical -- and it is important to avoid the Kennedy trap of trivializing the importance of religious beliefs in the lives of religious believers.

Posted by: Greg at 02:52 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I love the Harry Potter books since I picked up the first one several years ago, just to understand what had my students so excited. I certainly noted some Christian symbolism -- but not anywhere near as much as this column explains.

Next I tried the more recognizable Christian material. In Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, Harry confronts Voldemort (whose name means “will to death”) by traveling down into a great cavern where he slays a serpent to win an (eventual) bride. He fatally wounds the serpent in the head. He’s rescued by a bird who descends upon him and the bride, a kind of bird whose “tears have healing powers, and who are able to bear immense loads.” The bird bears them up out of the cavern. “There, how’s that?” I thought. The problem is that very few Christians seem to be aware of descendit ad infernum, the descent into hell. Don’t the schools teach Dante? Don’t the Churches teach the Apostle’s Creed? Well, as a matter of fact, no, they generally do not. The Proto Evangelium, the first gospel in which God told Adam and Eve that He would send Someone who would rescue their descendents by crushing the head of the serpent doesn’t seem to get a lot of play either.

I could go on for page after page: snippets from ancient hymns and creeds for instance. The most powerful spell in Harry’s world is the Patronus, in which the wizard forcefully says “Expecto Patronum”. That’s Christian Latin for “I look for the Savior”. Expecto is used in the Nicene Creed, and Patronum is used in the medieval Dies Irae as the Savior that we look for in the day of judgment. Harry uses the spell when ghastly evil spiritual beings called DEMENtors (caps mine) attack him and another innocent man near a lake. A stag (which just happens to function as a common Christ figure in medieval art) walks across the water dispelling the vile soul-destroying creatures. What’s it take, a 2 by 4 across the forehead? This is Christian stuff!

I have only one word for this column -- FASCINATING!

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