Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 1:45:35 PM
The radicals, whether they are leftists or Islamics, have this in common; they both think it necessary to suppress free speech.
They must advance themselves by invoking the aid of the secular power to condemn and punish those who dissent. Their ideology is assumed because they pride themselves as the advocates and defenders of truth. Their way must be forced on the culture because it’s for our good, whether we like it or not.
Now think who it was that gave us the first amendment. It was those radical Christians who suffered as the advocates of freedom of conscience in the matter of religion.
Though they believed that the Gospel of Christ was the infallible truth of God, the Scriptures taught them to abandon the use of carnal weapons for its propagation; the Bible also admonished them not to condemn those who differ. Based on Christ’s doctrine of God’s sovereignty over the conscience, the apostle reminds us who causes men to differ…
‘For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?’ [1 Corinthians 4:7 KJ]
The knowledge of truth is a matter of sovereign grace, not the coercion of men.
Freedom of religion is the foundation of all other freedoms. For it to exist men must understand that a man’s conscience is his most sacred property. Once conscience is violated then liberty will be overrun by tyranny.