A recent promotional e-mail from Jay Sekulow’s American Center for Law and Justice informs us that “a Justice Souter replacement [on the U. S. Supreme Court] will more than likely maintain a strict view of church-state separation, will apply international precedence to the U.S. Constitution, and will be strongly in favor of abortion rights.” This is no doubt an accurate assessment, but it is interesting to observe that among the future evils sure to accompany a liberal judicial appointment Sekulow includes the indictment we have italicized: the importation of international (i.e., non-American) legal notions into the American legal scene.

This is a common criticism among conservative American, and especially evangelical, jurisprudents. In line with traditional American isolationism, we are told in effect that American law is always best, and is invariably contaminated by notions deriving from other legal systems and especially by international law. “Stay away from the foreigners,” is the byword. “Above all, do not ratify international conventions and treaties.” “Do not allow foreign law to serve as precedents in American legislation or judicial decision-making.” The justification? An assumption that American law is, by definition, more in line with revelational, i.e., biblical, law than is the law of any other nation—and certainly more so than any international law could be.

May we go on record as opposing, root and branch, this philosophy? Not because we live in Europe (or because we love French cuisine more than hominy grits) but on strictly scriptural and factual grounds.

First: no human legal system or constitution is divinely inspired; only Holy Writ offers an inerrant revelation of the Divine Will. The U. S. Constitution, though it reflects the morality of Scripture in many wonderful ways, never mentions Jesus Christ, atonement, redemption, the proper distinction between law and gospel, or the central, salvatory message of the Bible. The reason, of course, is that the leading “Founding Fathers” (Jefferson and Franklin, as egregious examples) were in no sense believing Christians: they represented the Deism of the 18th century, so-called “Enlightenment,” which held that—in the words of Thomas Paine—the “Book of Scripture” needs to be replaced by the “Book of Nature”—both individually and societally. (Cf. Montgomery, The Shaping of America [Minneapolis: Bethany, 1976]; available from www.ciltpp.com).

It follows that there is no guarantee of infallibility for American law or the American legal system. Scriptural principles must stand in judgment over our legal activities in exactly the same way as they do over the legal actions of other countries operating nationally or internationally.

If the reader doubts the fallibility of American legal institutions, consider a couple of legislative examples which I cite in my book, The Law Above the Law (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1975; available from www.ciltpp.com): “One thinks of a Kansas statute that changed the meaning of p from 3.1416 to an even 3, and another that declared: ‘When two trains approach each other at a crossing, they shall both come to a full stop, and neither shall start up until the other has gone.’” Far less humorous and far more damnable is the U. S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which has created abortion-on-demand (cf. Montgomery, Slaughter of the Innocents [Westchester, Il: Crossway, 1981], available from www.ciltpp.com; and “The Rights of Unborn Children, Simon Greenleaf Law Review, Vol. 5 [1985-1986]).

But is it possible that foreign legal systems or international law could ever improve on American law? Certainly—since original sin, being uniformly spread around ever since the Fall of Man, impacts the American legal scene, not just other geographical areas! Here are just a few thought-provoking examples:

In the United Kingdom: The Abortion Act 1967 requires, for an abortion to be legal and not subject to criminal penalties, that two physicians give their approval and that the abortion be performed in an approved hospital or facility (the approval of one physician suffices and the hospital requirement is waived only if the physician “is of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the termination is immediately necessary to save the life or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman”). This is, to be sure, no bar to abortions in general, but it affords far more protection to the unborn than does American law, where, during the first trimester, abortion on demand is an absolute right of the pregnant woman.

In France: The French Code pénal (1994) includes severe criminal penalties for “non-assistance to a person in danger” Art. 223-6). This means that if I have the capacity to help another in such a situation and do not do so, my non-action is prosecutable criminally. The Anglo-American common law contains no such requirement. In 1964, thirty-eight New Yorkers watched for half an hour as one of their neighbours, Kitty Genovese, was being murdered in the street; no one called the police or did anything to help her; not a single one of these people were prosecuted, or could be prosecuted, for allowing the girl to die. If I watch a child drown and do nothing, I perform no illegal act under American common law. True, if I start to help and then walk away, I can be liable for my neglect; but only where statute has modified the common law am I guilty before the law if I simply do nothing at all. It should be all too obvious that the French law, unlike the Anglo-American common law, far better fulfills the biblical principle of being “my brother’s keeper.”[1]

Also in France: The French Code civil (art. 144), unlike the American Constitution, defines the nature of legal marriage: it is the union of a “male” and a “female.” Thus, a few years ago, the mayor of a Bordeaux suburb was suspended from his duties for performing a “marriage” between two homosexuals (which, of course, under French law was a legal nullity). This is in complete contrast to the American scene, where any State can, if it wishes, legalise same-sex marriage—and States such as New Hampshire have in fact done so.

Moreover, the French Civil Code (art. 205), unlike American law, makes it a criminal offense for a child not to support his mother and father if they are incapable of supporting themselves. This principle is directly justified by the biblical command to honour father and mother. And Art. 909 of the Code civil prohibits physicians from receiving any gifts from terminal patients they are treating: a fine recognition of the potential effects of original sin on the medical profession!

Most important of all, the French Civil Code expressly prohibits judges from “making law” in the American fashion—as the U.S. Supreme Court did in its Roe v. Wade abortion decision. The Code states in no uncertain terms that no French magistrate may “make general, regulatory pronouncements” (art. 5) and that “a judicial decision is authoritative only for the specific matter being decided” (art. 1351). This is to stop judges in their tracks from substituting themselves for the elected members of the legislature—who alone have legitimate law-making power, since they, unlike judges, are the people’s representatives.

Finally, international law (yes, international law!). Article 4 of the American Convention [i.e., Treaty] on Human Rights, ratified by most American nations (but not the U. S., for fear of being dragged before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights because of Roe v. Wade), protects human life “in general, from the moment of conception.” This means that abortion on demand, as practiced in the United States, is contrary to the international law of the Americas. (See Montgomery, Human Rights and Human Dignity [Calgary, Alberta: Canadian Institute, 1995], available from www.ciltpp.com).

But what about the current flap over children’s rights? Is it not true that international conventions give rights to the child which could potentially fly in the face of parental rights (home schooling, etc.) as we understand them? It may well be that the interpretation of international law in the children’s rights area goes too far. But the fundamental principle of chldren’s rights—as concretized in England’s Children Act 1989 through the efforts of former Lord Chancellor (and President of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship!) Lord Mackay—has bright-line scriptural justification: “of such little ones,” declared our Lord, “is the Kingdom of heaven.” Untrammeled and unrestricted parental rights over children can result in Jehovah’s Witnesses’ and Christian Scientists’ refusing critical medical treatment to their children and Satanists’ educating their children in the ways of damnation. The issue is not the alleged evils of international law, but the de facto content of biblical standards, which may–or may not—be bettered reflected in one legal system over against another, or in domestic law over against international legislation.

We are hardly arguing that foreign law or international law is always better than U. S. law. But we are arguing that U. S. law is not always better than foreign or international law. The point here is that Holy Scripture should be used as the judge of all human law—not just of law different from our own. Let’s admit it, difficult as it may be for our chauvinistic nature as a nation: we, too, are sinners, and the revelation of our Lord needs to judge us as well as others. And it is always possible that we might learn something from legal systems elsewhere, if we would but exercise the humility to listen.

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In September, 2009, your editor co-chaired a session at the 24th World Congress of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, held in Beijing, China, and delivered a paper which will be included in a later issue of the Global Journal. At another session of the Congress, a remarkable essay was presented by Vaidotas A. Vaièaitis, Associate Professor in the Department of Public Law at Vilnius University, Lithuania. It dealt with “The Concept of Law in Biblical Narrative,” and we are particularly fortunate to have obtained the author’s permission to publish it in this issue, particularly since virtually all of Professor Vaièaitis’s writings are otherwise available only in Lithuanian. We would have introduced into the discussion Genesis 3:15 as protoevangelion, and we worry a bit about seeing the serpent in that chapter as modeling what lawyers and judges would do in subsequent history! But the Professor’s essay covers important ground not treated elsewhere and readers will find it fascinating.

The Global Journal provides, from time to time, the opportunity for student contributions–when they are in every sense on the level of the professional scholarly article. This issue contains two such papers: one dealing with the thought of deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida and the other with the apologetic of “Reformed epistemologist” Alvin Plantinga. The latter paper will identify problems in Plantinga’s thought of a considerably different nature from those discussed from a presuppositionalist standpoint in K. Scott Oliphint’s review essays, “Plantinga on Warrant” and “Epistemology and Christian Belief,” in the Westminster Theological Journal, 57/2 (1995) and 63/1 (2001).

— John Warwick Montgomery

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[1] At least “fifteen countries, all but one on the European continent, now recognize such a legal duty”—Aleksander W. Rudzinski, “The Duty to Rescue: A Comparative Analysis,” in The Good Samaritan and the Law, ed. James M. Ratcliffe (reprint ed.; Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1981), p. 92.

On 3 November 2009, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg dropped a political/religious bombshell. In Lautsi v. Italy, Case No. 30814/06, the Court ruled that the Italian law requiring the display of crucifixes in public school classrooms throughout the country was incompatible with Article 9 (freedom of religion) and of Protocol 1, Article 2 (parental rights in the education of their children) of the European Convention [Treaty] of Human Rights.

To say that the decision has created a flap would be a vast understatement. Politicians, churchmen–and the Pope–have been outraged. Since the Court’s decision has been published only in French, and is therefore inaccessible to most of our readers, we shall comment briefly on it. Its relevance goes far beyond the boot of Italy.

The Italian crucifix law originated in 1860, and crucifixes have been a fixture in Italy’s public school classrooms ever since. But a Finnish woman, one Soile Lautsi, a non-believer married to an Italian, objected to the fact that her two children were subjected to this religious symbol. She sued, and her case went through the Italian courts without success. Having “exhausted domestic [i.e., national] remedies,” she took the case to Strasbourg, and the Court agreed with her. In immediate reaction to the decision, the Italian foreign minister declared: “This is a death blow for a Europe of values and rights.” The Vatican questioned the right of the European Court to interfere in a central matter of Italian belief and practice, calling the ruling “wrong and myopic.”

The Italian government’s lawyers had argued that the crucifix, as a national symbol, should not be removed from classrooms since it simply reflected the fact that Europe in general and Italy in particular have been deeply influenced by the tradition represented by the crucifix. So what was the Court’s rationale for barring the crucifix?

First, the Court noted that in 1948, when Italy adopted its present republican constitution, it explicitly separated the state from the Catholic Church; and in 2000 the Italian Constitutional Court interpreted this as meaning that the state had to remain “equidistant and impartial” in relation to all religious and philosophical beliefs held by the citizenry. Secondly, the European Court of Human Rights, whilst agreeing that the crucifix is a multifaceted symbol, pointed out the obvious: that its predominant reference is religious, and specifically Christian. Therefore to display it in public school classrooms is to give a special, privileged position to one particular religion. Finally, the Court observed that school children are especially impressionable–vulnerable to influence, owing to their youth and inexperience.

Why should this case be of interest to those outside Italy–and particularly to evangelical Christian believers in America? Because the Lautsi case almost exactly parallels the cases brought to the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts which have resulted in the removal of prayers from public schools and biblical symbols, such as the Ten Commandments and nativity scenes, from public property. After my late protagonist Madalyn Murray O’Hair succeeded in her fight to remove mandatory prayer and Bible reading from American public schools (Engel v. Vitale, 1962, Abington School District v. Schempp, 1963, and Murray v. Curlett, 1963), the evangelical community was appalled, arguing, as the Italian government was to do in Lautsi, that this was the end of “Christian America” and that, after all, the symbols involved need not be taken as primarily religious in nature but can be treated as simply part of the general cultural tradition.

This line of argumentation, however, is fundamentally flawed–and is as hurtful to Christian faith as it is to the political order. In both the U.S. and Italy, there is constitutional separation of church and state. It is simply wrong for citizens to be compelled to support a religion which does not reflect their personal beliefs. (Indeed, the crucifix itself can be an offense to some Christians, for example, very conservative Protestants who see in it a “graven image” contrary to the Second Commandment!) No one forced Italy to separate church and state in 1948; they could have continued as before and retained crucifixes–as does England, with the establishment of “the Reformed branch of the Holy Catholic Church” (the Anglican Church)–and where, consequently, Christian symbols cannot be removed from public schools or public property. But, politically, one cannot have one’s cake and eat it too!

Even more importantly, the arguments of pro-crucifix and pro-nativity scene advocates demean Christian faith by trying to maintain these symbols by saying that they really are no longer specifically Christian–that they have become merely cultural or national in character! This is dreadful, for it is a denial of the saving message they convey. And prayers in the public schools will be either, if genuinely Christian–in the name of Jesus–offensive to non-believers, whose tax money also supports those schools, or, if merely general in nature (directed to an undefined Deity–the Great Puff of Smoke?), contrary to the biblical mandate that all prayer should be “in Jesus’ name” and therefore unable to be prayed by Christians!

The great advantage of separating church and state is that a level playing field is created for all religious and philosophical positions, and on that field historic Christianity can triumph–and will triumph if the biblical gospel is effectively preached and the powerful apologetic evidence for its truth conveyed. Why? because only the Christian faith (not the other world’s religions, not the cults and sects, not the philosophers’ speculations) can marshall the “many infallible proofs” supporting the truth of the written and the living Word (Acts 1:3).[1]

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“Here comes the Judge”! We are privileged in this issue of the Global Journal to feature contributions from two distinguished Christian members of the judiciary. Both serve on the bench in the British Commonwealth: Australia (Ken Handley) and Canada (Dallas Miller). For the non-cognoscenti, this means that they operate in a common-law context, as is the case with virtually all the courts of the United States (exception: Louisiana, which is nonetheless subject to common-law federal jurisdiction). The law of evidence is much more fully developed in common law contexts than in European civil law countries, so our judges’ concern to apply legal standards of proof to issues of Christian apologetics should be of high interest to Global Journal readers.

Since Old Testament prophecy is so important to the biblical apologetic, Vol. 7, No. 3, also features an article by Joseph Rhodes on the prophetic book of Daniel. The article concludes: Daniel’s “incredible forecasts of world-history in Greek Roman times . . . and his profound depiction of the ‘days of the end’ indicate the supernatural integrity of his visions.”

To round off this issue — maintaining its primarily juridical flavour — there is a full-scale analysis of the legal philosophy of one of the most influential secular American judges of our time, Richard Posner. And, to benefit from all this, readers will not even receive a bill for legal services rendered!

— John Warwick Montgomery

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1. On 18 March 2011, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, by a vote of 15 to 2, overruled the earlier Italian crucifix judgment rendered unanimously by its Second Section, so as to permit the display of crucifixes in Italian public schools. It is clear that tremendous political pressure had been applied to reverse the original decision. The Court’s reasoning–e.g., “a crucifix on a wall is an essentially passive symbol” (para. 72)–is based essentially on the view that the crucifix has lost any active evangelistic force and become (as the Italian State had to argue) merely a cultural symbol. As believing Christians, do we want to support that kind of interpretation in order to justify secular governmental support of our beliefs?

When I held a professorship at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois (1964-1974), I organised a conference at which Roland H. Bainton of Yale spoke. Bainton, a Quaker, was probably best known for his wonderful biography of Luther: Here I Stand. But the weekend conference was sheer agony for me, owing to Bainton’s somehow learning that I am bilingual. He insisted on speaking nothing but French with me, and his accent was perfectly terrible. I thought that I would end up with permanent brain damage.

Recently, in my bibliophilistic (bibliomaniacal?) wanderings, I came across Bainton’s history of the Yale Divinity School: Yale and the Ministry (2d [posthumous] ed.; San Francisco: Harper, 1985). It recounts the Yale story from the founding of the College in 1701 to l957, when the first edition of Bainton’s book was published. There is a powerful lesson to be learned from this history, though it is hardly the lesson Bainton’s commemorative volume presents

In the early 19th century, Yale’s theological perspective was concretised by its great President Timothy Dwight, who supported massive revival at the College during the second Great Awakening. Here is Bainton’s accurate description of Dwight’s perspective and approach:

“Infidelity was rife. . . . Dwight’s method in the College was a head-on attack. . . . In addresses and college sermons he smote the English and the French Deists with whom he had a firsthand acquaintance. He was not unfair to their arguments and when Tom Paine scoffed that if Satan had shown Jesus all the kingdoms of this world he ought to have discovered America, Dwight replied that the word in Greek used for world comprised only the four tetrarchies of Palestine. And equally with Hume on miracles” (p. 76). Dwight’s appeals to the College left no ambiguity: “Will you enthrone a Goddess of Reason before the table of Christ? Will you burn your Bibles? Will you crucify anew your Redeemer? Will you deny your God?” (p. 77).

By the 20th century, the Yale Divinity School was hardly the same place. One of its leading and most influential systematic theologians was Douglas C. Macintosh. Here are a few of Bainton’s comments on his approach: “He was fully abreast of that radical Biblical criticism in which the humanist science of historiography had issued. . . . Macintosh maintained that Biblical scholars must be absolutely unimpeded, even should they come out with a demonstration that Jesus had never lived at all. . . . Faith, therefore, must be emancipated from history” (p. 228). Quoting Macintosh directly: “It is the systematic thinker’s task to lead faith to a sure foundation, independent of the uncertainties of historical investigation” (p. 229).

This reminds one of Paul Tillich, who, a generation later, tried to create an “ontological” foundation for Christian theology–a foundation which would survive even if the Jesus of history turned out never to have existed (cf. “Tillich’s Philosophy of History,” in Montgomery, Where Is History Going?). Indeed, this sidelining of biblical history is little more than a revival of Enlightenment philosopher Lessing’s “ditch”: the allegedly impassible gulf between historical knowledge and “the necessary truths of reason.” Paine’s 18th century “Age of Reason” déjà vu!

But, as I have argued in my Tractatus Logico-Theologicus: “To assume, on the basis of such a ‘ditch,’ or by way of the similar, more classical principle, finitum non est capax infiniti, that history cannot reveal eternity, is to make a grandiose, gratuitous and unprovable metaphysical assumption–for how could one know that God is incapable of using history to reveal himself?” (para. 3.1183). Moreover, as the analytical philosophers have shown, all factual knowledge is probabilistic, and we must rely on it every day to survive in this world; thus we have no legitimate complaint against the use of historical knowledge to reveal God’s appearance in human history for our salvation.

So how does a great institution pass from biblical orthodoxy to rationalistic secularism? One can look at Yale–or at any number of other great and powerful American academic institutions for the answer (e.g., the Princeton Theological Seminary). Answer: through indifference or hesitation on the part of the administration to enforce doctrinal fidelity. Academic administrators, by worshipping the golden calf of notoriety and prestige, become so enamored of the scholarship–or the impressive personalities–of faculty and potential faculty that nothing is done to prevent heresy from replacing orthodoxy.

We are most fortunate at Patrick Henry College to have an administration well aware of this danger and of the tragic consequences elsewhere of neglecting to maintain “the faith once delivered to the saints.” May this vigilant perspective remain our institution’s defining mark.

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The Global Journal unapologetically features apologetics. In our secular age, the defense of the faith is not an option—in spite of the remarkable ability of many evangelical believers and churches to avoid the force of the Petrine command “to be ready always to give an answer [Gk., apologia] for the hope within.” This issue provides relevant examples of how to follow the Apostolic example in contending for the truth of the scriptural gospel.

Dr. Angus Menuge of Concordia University Wisconsin, who seconded the Editor in our recent and successful God debate at University College Dublin, shows how Oxford University’s Socratic Club, under C. S. Lewis’ presidency, offers a model for effective apologetic witness. Then the Editor provides his write-up of the Dublin debate. Finally, Ph.D. student Craig Miles deals a body blow to the strange Mormon notion of the star Kolob—thereby reminding us of the stark difference between historic Christianity, supported by “many infallible proofs,” and the cults and isms of our day, whose beliefs so often fall into the abysm of technical meaninglessness, having no capacity for the proof (or even the disproof) of their claims.

— John Warwick Montgomery

As is well known, your Editor is an internationalist, and, in his capacity as an English barrister and member of the Paris bar, tends to defend the values of the great European legal systems (as well as classical French cuisine).

There are, however, times when it is important to stress the superiority of American law at its point of greatest strength: the defence of civil liberties. Our nation was founded very largely out of a concern that the citizen should be able to speak his or her mind and not be persecuted because of political, religious, or other opinions potentially or actually offensive to others. Interestingly enough, the separation of church and state, which occurred in France at the beginning of the 20th century, was based on the desire to keep the church out of the political realm; the American separation of church and state in the 18th century, by way of the Virginia Bill of Rights and the 1st Amendment to the Federal Constitution, had the reverse motivation: to keep the state from meddling in religious matters, especially in attempting to control the free expression and practice of believers.

In America, unless a belief or opinion poses an immediate danger—unless it is likely to cause a breach of the peace—it can receive public expression. (The breach-of-the-peace qualification parallels the adage, “Free speech does not give one the right to cry Fire! in a crowded theatre.”) Even when the particular opinion or belief is obnoxious or patently false, the right to manifest it orally or in writing remains. Thus, in l978, U.S. Federal Court upheld the right of a neo-Nazi organisation to express its beliefs by marching through Skokie, Illinois, even though that Chicago suburb was a predominantly Jewish area. The American principle is that a civilised populace should be mature enough to put up with what they find obnoxious, and the way to deal with false or absurd ideas is to show them to be such in the same public sphere where they are being presented. To repress such expressions of belief or opinion is merely to drive them underground and to suggest that they may, after all, have genuine credibility.

The European approach, however—at least following the racial atrocities of the Second World War—has been very different. In the contemporary law of most European countries, “incitement to hatred” statutes have criminalised a wide range of opinion statements which in the United States would be regarded as within the protected ambit of free speech. I limit myself to the French context, but close parallels can be found in most continental European legislation and practice.

In 1951, the great French Freedom of the Press Act of 29 July 1881 was amended to criminalise, with a penalty of 5 years imprisonment and a 45,000 Euro fine (roughly, $67,500 today) anyone who intentionally publishes a defence or apology for “war crimes or crimes against humanity or serious criminal acts involving collaboration with the enemy.” In 1972, a further revision was passed: Article 24 now also punishes with a year of imprisonment and/or a fine of 45,000 Euros “those who shall have provoked discrimination, hatred, or violence toward a person or a group owing to that person’s or group’s origin or to their connection or non-affiliation with a specific nation, race, or religion .” At the end of December, 2004, a further clause was added to law, criminalising in the same terms any discrimination or provocation to hatred or violence directed against “a person or a group by reason of their sex, sexual orientation, or handicap.” Even if the incitement to hatred is not published, but only uttered to the person himself or herself, it falls within the class of the most serious minor infractions (5th class contraventions), with a fine which can reach 1,500 Euros (double that if the offense is repeated).

To be sure, intent to harm must be shown, and vague allegations are not prosecutable. But since anti-discrimination organisations have standing to sue (as parties civiles) in these matters, there have been a fair number of cases against those who have allegedly incited anti-Jewish hatred by denying the Holocaust or the extent of it. Indeed, the 1951 addition to the law makes it a criminal act merely to attempt to justify “crimes against humanity” even if no provocation to racial hatred is involved.

Just a single, recent example, occurring in our home area of the Alsace. In a news report of June 26, 2008, it was reported that the Court of Appeals in Colmar¨ not only upheld a lower court conviction of a year’s imprisonment but at the same time doubled the fine to 20,000 Euros in a case involving a Holocaust revisionist. The defendant, a Belgian resident, had written a pamphlet titled, Holocauste? Ce que l’on vous cache (“Holocaust? What They Are Hiding From You”), which was published in Saverne (an Alsatian city) and then throughout France.

Now, for the record, I am the last person to deny the existence or the horrors of the Holocaust. And I fully appreciate that fact that it occurred in Europe, so that Europeans have every right to be more incensed than Americans (or Australians or Chinese) by the cavalier treatment of it. But the answer to those who deny or minimize racial atrocities—or atrocities of any kind, for that matter—is to disprove their allegations in the public forum of ideas—not create martyrs to their cause by jailing them.

I have a dreadful time quoting Voltaire positively, since his deistic theology was and is an abomination—but he was right on target when he declared: “I disagree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.”

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The present issue of the Global Journal continues the philosophy that has governed the periodical since its inception: solid theology and unquestionable relevance. We are all concerned with the Islamic threat to western values and Muslim opposition to classic Christian affirmations; thus our lead article deals with “An Examination of the Qur’anic Denial of Jesus’ Crucifixion in Light of Historical Evidences.” Its author, Mark Pierson, submitted this essay as part of his work at the July, 2007, session of Patrick Henry’s International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism and Human Rights, held annually in Strasbourg, France; the essay should serve as an indicator of the high quality of the Academy programmes and encourage other participants to submit their magna opera for possible publication.
Dr Harold F. Carl has provided fine contributions to the pages of our on-line journal in past and does so again in this issue. His essay, “Did the Son Always Exist?” is particularly apropos in light of the unjust criticisms of Tertullian and of the patristic formulation of Trinitarian doctrine and the eternal Sonship of Christ as popularised by Elaine Pagels and her ilk.
Finally, in line with Patrick Henry’s concerns not only with historic Christian faith but also with its application to political theory and government, Ph.D. candidate Robert Arnold of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary asks–and offers a thought-provoking answer to–the question, “Was Samuel Rutherford a Source for John Locke’s Political Theories?”

— John Warwick Montgomery

(1) A delightful city south of Strasbourg; the birthplace of Bartholdi, the architect of the Statue of Liberty; we visit its wonderful Unterlinden Museum each summer during Patrick Henry’s International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism and Human Rights. Sign up today (www.apologeticsacademy.eu)!