Well, good evening. I'm glad you all came back. It is a great privilege. For those of you who weren't here last week, my name is Mike Ferris. For those of you who were here last week, it's the same. I don't know why people say that. I have the privilege of being a part of this church. I'm on the elder board, but Pastor Gary asked me to give this

series because of my background in law, religious freedom, the Bible, right to life. I'm the

President of Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the largest conservative Christian legal

organization in the world. We have over 400 staff, 4,400 allied

attorneys, and we do cases all over the world. There's going to be an information booth.

Information table in the forer tonight. And some of our ambassadors,

all people that are part of Cornerstone Chapel,

will be out there, Brooke Brown, and Susie Battle,

and Andrea Vaughn will be out there.

And so they can tell you more about ADF

and more about our ambassador program

if you're interested in any of those things.

So with that, let's get started. Tonight,

we're going to talk about religious freedom. And there are three main parts of the lesson

tonight. First, we're going to talk about history, the history of religious persecution and the

battle for religious freedom, and particularly

focusing on the biblical principles that actually led to religious freedom. So my suggestion

to us is why we should believe in religious freedom by looking at the Word of God. I give you

the same verses and the same arguments that actually led to the advent of religious freedom.

And so we'll be looking at that.

Second, we're going to be looking at current law regarding the establishment of religion.

And then third, we will consider the current law regarding the free exercise of religion.

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