Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
What Apple’s Encryption Fight Has to Do with Religious Freedom
What Apple’s Encryption Fight Has to Do with Religious Freedom
Dec 22, 2025 4:58 PM

The early church father Tertullian once asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” by which he meant “What has Greek thought and philosophy to do with Christianity and its Biblical heritage?”

Today we might ask a similar question, “What has Apple to do with Hobby Lobby?” or “What does the conflict between Apple and the federal government over encryption have to do with Hobby Lobby’s struggle with the government over religious liberty?”

The answer is: More than you might think. As Chelsea Langston argues, the tech giant and the craft store share a defense of constitutional protections for institutions:

The continued media coverage of Apple’s case offers an opportunity for religious freedom advocates. Its example reminds us of the broad importance of protecting organizations—both secular and religious, for-profit and pulsion to act against their most foundational values. parison between the Apple case and the Hobby Lobby case is not exact, but the two are closer than we may realize.

Read more . . .

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
NAACP Should Bury More Than The “N-Word”
The NAACP held a mock funeral yesterday for the N-word. That’s nice. Many would argue that it’s a horrible word and should never be used under any circumstance. “Today, we’re not just burying the N-word, we are taking it out of our spirit, we are taking it out of our minds,” Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said to a crowd gathered at the city’s riverfront Hart Plaza. “To bury the N-word, we’ve got to bury the pimps and the hos and...
UAW v. MoveOn.org, CAFE v. Cap-and-Trade
It happened last week. In response to Rep. John Dingell’s decision to hold of off consideration of an energy bill that would include new corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards, instead favoring directly targeting greenhouse gas emissions: “That brought a warm response from MoveOn.org, the liberal group that picketed Dingell’s office Wednesday over his stance on global warming and fuel economy standards. At Dingell’s Ypsilanti office, about half a dozen MoveOn supporters received an unexpected e from roughly 60...
Cyprian of Carthage, On Works and Alms
Readings in Social Ethics: Cyprian of Carthage, On Works and Alms. Perseverance a work of divine providence: “But, moreover, what is that providence, and how great the clemency, that by a plan of salvation it is provided for us, that more abundant care should be taken for preserving man after he is already redeemed! (1).”The order or law of life for the believer: “For when the Lord at His advent had cured those wounds which Adam had borne, and had...
The Ultimate Live Earth Global Environmental Impact Assessment
e to the pilation of Live Earth links mentary on the Web!* Click on the "read more" and scroll on down for dozens of links on individual venues, news, great quotes, reports, religiously-related stuff, and Goregasms. Check here for updates over the next couple of days. Well, they may have gotten numbers on the web (good for the planet, no?), but the concert venues were a disaster except for London and Jersey and Rio. Can they blame it on the...
Miller on the Milk Wars
Henry I. Miller, a doctor and fellow at the Hoover Institution, author of The Frankenfood Myth, weighs in on the milks wars over the artificial hormone rBST. In “Don’t Cry Over rBST Milk,” Miller writes, “Bad-faith efforts by biotechnology opponents to portray rBST as untested or harmful, and to discourage its use, keep society from taking full advantage of a safe and useful product.” Whether or not scientific studies show that the use of rBST is as safe as not...
Ray Nothstine Joins Acton Institute
With a background in ministry and journalism (complementary vocations?), Ray Nothstine joins the Acton Institute this week as Associate Editor. He will be working on Acton’s Religion & Liberty (new issue just out) and shepherding the monthly Acton Notes publication. And, of course, weighing in on the PowerBlog. Ray Nothstine (pronounced NOTE-stine) holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Mississippi and a Master of Divinity degree from Asbury Theological Seminary, which he received in 2005. He gained...
Government Gambling on the Poor
The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) has published a paper titled, “Taxing the Poor: A Report on Tobacco, Alcohol, Gambling, and Other Taxes and Fees That Disproportionately Burden e Families” (PDF). The paper highlights state lotteries as particularly regressive taxes: “The dollar amount spent on the lottery by the e individuals (earning less than $10,000 annually) is twice as much as the highest earners (earning more than $100,000 annually).” I wrote a piece reacting to a poll with a...
Global Warming Consensus Alert: Hips Don’t Lie!
Well, I just got back from the Transformers movie (mini-review: pletely ridiculous, but it has Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime and lots of stuff blowing up, so it’s worth at least the matinee price, if you’re into that kind of thing), mowed the lawn (sorry – not carbon-neutral), and now I’ve stumbled upon the broadcast of Live Earth on Bravo. According to Al Gore, the concerts are not about fundraising, but are occurring simply to “raise awareness”...
Why Christian Education?
From Luther’s exposition of the mandment in his Treatise on Good Works (1520), alluding to King Manasseh’s actions in II Kings 21: What else is it but to sacrifice one’s own child to an idol and burn it when parents train their children more in the love of the world than in the love of God, and let their children go their own way and get burned up in worldly pleasure, love, enjoyment, lust, goods, and honor, but let God’s...
FDR’s Domestic Legacy
In yesterday’s WaPo, George F. Will assesses FDR’s domestic legacy, “Declaration of Dependence.” It’s not a pretty tale: “The war, not the New Deal, defeated the Depression. Franklin Roosevelt’s success was in altering the practice of American politics. This transformation was actually assisted by the misguided policies — including government-created uncertainties that paralyzed investors — that prolonged the Depression. This seemed to validate the notion that the crisis was permanent, so government must be forever hyperactive.” In a previous issue...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved