Category: Government

Civil Rights Legislation in the US

sculpture of martin luther king jr memorial in gray concrete wall
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Despite mountains of paper, oceans of ink, and general support for civil rights, civil rights legislation remains controversial. This article summarizes the key parts of the current US civil rights legislation, including the Constitutional basis and disparate impact. It touches on the relationship between morality, religion, and rights. Finally, the article addresses some key ideas in the Bible about civil rights and their source.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

What are civil rights?

A common definition is “Civil rights refer to the fundamental rights and freedoms granted to individuals by a government and are protected by law.”[1] This definition invites several questions.

  1. What are rights? Things that people are allowed to do? Things that people are allowed to abstain from doing? How do rights interact between individuals and groups?
  2. What rights are fundamental? The US Declaration of Independence includes the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Are there others? The US Supreme Court and International Courts have interpreted fundamental rights broadly. For example, the term civil rights now includes a right to privacy, which was never mentioned in any of the founding documents but came from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976).
  3. What are freedoms? The ability to do whatever you want? The ability to do whatever God created you to do? Who decides, the individual, the society, or someone or something else?
  4. Who “grants” civil rights? God? The king? In a government of, by, and for the people, wouldn’t the people be “granting” such rights to themselves?
  5. What is “government?” Definitionally, it is “the action or manner of controlling or regulating a nation, organization, or people.” What are the jurisdictional limitations? Does the US government “grant” civil rights to residents of Mauritania? Is the United Nations a government, and does it grant civil rights?
  6. Who are individuals? Citizens? Visitors? Men? Women? Members of a certain race or socioeconomic class? No civilization in history has granted equal rights to every member of society. No society in history has ever held that every person should have exactly equal civil rights (criminals and the physically incompetent often have their rights limited by governments). Ancient civilizations from Rome to Xian to Tenochtitlan have held the emperor to be divine, thereby exercising rights far beyond anyone else. In Hammurabi’s Babylon, the Amelia (elites) had far greater protections than the Mushkenum (freemen) and the Ardu (slaves).
  7. Which law protects civil rights? English common law? Muslim Sharia law? Christian canon law? Hindu Manu Smriti? Buddhist Sangha regulations? Something else?
  8. Should certain groups be protected? If so, which ones? How do you define these groups? Under Sharia, Christians and Jews are dhimmi, not enjoying the same rights and liberties as Muslims. Under the Hindu caste law, each caste has more rights than those below.
  9. What is the relationship between civil rights law and other categories of law, such as civil liberties law? Does a statute or regulation requiring people to use preferred pronouns in addressing a transgender individual violate the US Constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech?

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Avoiding Putin’s Trap

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President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to stop the Russian war on Ukraine. While he possesses a strong personality, Trump’s personality alone is not likely to stop the T-80s from rolling into Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia. Stopping the war is a worthy goal, but Trump and his team need to ensure that they do not lose the peace. The following article illuminates how to get a fair deal.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Background

Ukraine is renowned for its fertile, black soil, and Ukrainian agriculture ranks among the most productive in the world. Fifty-five percent of Ukraine’s land is arable, mostly in the western and central regions, and 14% of Ukrainians work in agriculture.[1] Equally important, Ukraine has historically had several excellent ports on the Black Sea to safely and cheaply get its crops to market. These ports include Odessa, Chernomorsk, Yuzhny, Berdyansk, Mariupol, and Sevastopol.

Situated to the north and east, Russia lacks Ukraine’s vast swathes of rich farmland. For centuries, Russians moving to Ukraine to find a better life had few opportunities to settle in the western and central regions since native Ukrainians were there. The Donetsk and Luhansk regions along the Dnieper River in the east lacked such productive soil but, as the Industrial Revolution began in the 19th century, these regions had something even more valuable. Eastern Ukraine is flush with coal and iron and has a major river to move the coal and iron to market. In the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries, Russian settlers flocked to these regions, together known as the Donbas. Nationwide, Ukrainians account for 77.8% of the people in the Ukraine and Russians account for 17.3%, but the Russian population percentage is much higher in the Donbas and in the Crimean Peninsula.[2]

Prelude to War

Putin had what he considered to be good reasons to attack Ukraine. He argued that the West had invaded Russia six times in the past two centuries, while Russia had not initiated hostilities against the West.[3] He cited NATO encroachment as a threat to Russia. Putin styled himself as a modern Russian savior along the lines of Peter the Great.

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Gender – A Biblical View

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A lava flow of anger, resentment, bitterness, and lies covers the landscape on issues of gender and sexual identity in Western culture in the 21st century. Some people believe in multiple, self-directed genders unrelated to biology while others believe in two genders, male and female, fixed by biology, culture, and ultimately God. What does the Bible say?

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Sexual practices and gender identity have become hot issues in the United States and elsewhere. The “culture wars” pit those holding to traditional social norms against those who believe that such norms are oppressive. Followers of Jesus Christ need to know what God says about gender from both sources of revelation, Creation and the Bible. Finally, Christians must do what He commands, both in their own lives and in dealing with and teaching others.

Sex as an act or as an identity

For every culture in most of human history, sex was an identity conferred by one’s immutable biology and confirmed by one’s culture. The word “gender” was rarely used concerning people until the mid-20th century. The day-to-day living out of one’s sex was called sex because biology was so closely tied to identity and activity. Gender was primarily used in language studies. Only in the past several decades has the word gender been applied to sexual identity in opposition to sex.

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Praying for the USA – National Day of Prayer, 2 May 2024

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On America’s National Day of Prayer, Christians’ thoughts and prayers turn to our nation. We see a mighty and beautiful nation with a heroic history, high ideals, and trouble living up to those ideals. Few other peoples have matched our hopes for goodness, and no peoples with such hopes have ever perfectly met them. Christians lament our national sins and our personal sins, and by the grace of God, strive to improve. In this time of self-doubt, weakness, confusion, and division, how do we pray for the USA?

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Planning and Executing Medical Missions Trips and Telemedicine

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Planning a medical missions trip to another country? Unsure which medications to put on the formulary? Concerned about how to handle malpractice and other regulatory requirements? Looking for inexpensive medication, equipment, and supplies? Need to know what other services would be useful to make available? Wanting to integrate telemedicine?

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Christ told His disciples to go into all the earth and make disciples of all nations. For millennia, medical care has been a reliable and fruitful way that Christians have obeyed His commands. Medical missions, however, are increasingly fraught with difficulties. Can we make the standard of care in the developing world the same as the developed world? Will we undermine the local medical system and economy by providing treatment that the locals would have otherwise done? What if the locals cannot provide the same standard of care that foreigners can? How can our doctors, often US-based, practice medicine on patients they cannot understand in countries in which they are not licensed?

Sample Formulary

Medications are a large part of clinical medicine. Health care providers do more with medications than just about any other intervention. Patients often expect medication when they walk out. This sample formulary should be modified to meet the needs of the people at the trip location.

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Taxes in the Bible

Taxes in the Bible
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The Bible has much to say about, and many examples of, taxes. God’s plan for taxation in ancient Israel was compassionate, effective, and limited. Modern thinkers, policy makers, and voters would do well to move American, Western, and world tax and government policies closer to what our ancestors would recognize, the taxes in the Bible.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Governments, like people, have always tried to procure as many resources as possible from everywhere they could. Resources ranged from beautiful things (seashells, beads, precious metals, precious stones) to products (grain, wine, cotton) to labor (forced labor, slavery). Taxation is, by definition, involuntary. Freewill offerings, such as what the Hebrews gave to build the tabernacle (Exodus 35:20-35), are not included in this discussion.

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