While millions of Americans fought the Nazis, liberty was under attack at home with the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses who were intimidated and even imprisoned for refusing to salute the flag or serve in the armed forces. This study explores their defence of their First Amendment rights.

While millions of Americans were defending liberty against the Nazis, liberty was under vicious attack at home. One of the worst outbreaks of religious persecution in U.S. history occurred during World War II when Jehovah's Witnesses were intimidated, beaten, and even imprisoned for refusing to salute the flag or serve in the armed forces. Determined to claim their First Amendment rights, Jehovah's Witnesses waged a tenacious legal campaign that led to twenty-three Supreme Court rulings between 1938 and 1946. Now Shawn Peters has written the first complete account of the personalities, events, and institutions behind those cases, showing that they were more than vindication for unpopular beliefs-they were also a turning point in the nation's constitutional commitment to individual rights. Peters begins with the story of William Gobitas, a Jehovah's Witness whose children refused to salute the flag at school. He follows this famous case to the Supreme Court, where he captures the intellectual sparring between Justices Frankfurter and Stone over individual liberties; then he describes the aftermath of the Court's ruling against Gobitas, when angry mobs savagely assaulted Jehovah's Witnesses in hundreds of communities across America. Judging Jehovah's Witnesses tells how persecution-much of it directed by members of patriotic organizations like the American Legion-touched the lives of Witnesses of all ages; why the Justice Department and state officials ignored the Witnesses' pleas for relief; and how the ACLU and liberal clergymen finally stepped forward to help them. Drawing on interviews with Witnesses and extensive research in ACLU archives, he examines the strategies that beleaguered Witnesses used to combat discrimination and goes beyond the familiar Supreme Court rulings by analyzing more obscure lower court decisions as well. By vigorously pursuing their cause, the Witnesses helped to inaugurate an era in which individual and minority rights emerged as matters of concern for the Supreme Court and foreshadowed events in the civil rights movement. Like the classics Gideon's Trumpet and Simple Justice, Judging Jehovah's Witnesses vividly narrates a moving human drama while reminding us of the true meaning of our Constitution and the rights it protects.

Truth in Translation is a critical study of Biblical translation, assessing the accuracy of nine English versions of the New Testament in wide use today. By looking at passages where theological investment is at a premium, the author demonstrates that many versions deviate from accurate translation under the pressure of theological bias.

The sin of judging and the error of legalism cause many of the interpersonal conflicts we experience as believers. Plaguing many of our Christian institutions, from churches to schools to families, these problems sap our spiritual strength and weaken the work of God in our midst.This helpful book defines judging and legalism in a biblical manner and discusses two often-overlooked biblical commands: do not pass judgment before the time and do not exceed what is written (1 Cor. 4:5-6). Learning to identify and avoid these problems will help promote peace and joy in the body of Christ and release believers to serve God in the freedom of his grace! All Christians have, at one time or another, borne the brunt of inappropriate judging and the burden of legalism and will welcome this book.

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Privatization the transfer of responsibility for public services from the public to the private sector currently evokes intense interest from policy makers. To its advocates, privatization conjures up visions of a lean, streamlined public sector reliant upon the private marketplace for the delivery of public services. To opponents, it conjures up visions of a beleaguered government bureaucracy ceding vital public services to unreliable entrepreneurs. At best, privatization can reduce the costs of government and introduce new possibilities for the better delivery of services. At worst, it may undermine equity, quality, and accountability. In Privatization and Its Alternatives distinguished scholars from several social science disciplines evaluate privatization efforts in the United States and abroad, and at different levels of government: federal, state, and local. They look primarily at three important policy areas education, housing, and law enforcement that sharply illustrate the dilemmas facing policy makers as the debate about privatization shifts from the delivery of hard services, such as refuse collection, to human services. Contributors have very different perspectives: some are enthusiastic about privatization, others are very skeptical indeed. None of these papers has been published elsewhere; the volume developed from a 1987 conference on privatization sponsored by the La Follette Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin Madison. A particular strength of this collection lies in its consideration of alternative forms of service delivery. The privatization of public housing, for instance, may involve subsidies to the poor (vouchers), tenant management (a hybrid form of privatization), or outright sale. How, and how well, have such policies worked? Examples from other countries may prove especially enlightening: the English sale of public housing to tenants is one of the largest asset sales in the entire privatization movement; Australia has experimented with public subsidies to private schools; and Japan has experimented with the privatization of law enforcement and corrections. These issues are the subject of lively public debate in the United States today and are discussed at length in this volume. Thus Privatization and Its Alternatives speaks not only to scholars of public policy but also to a wide range of practitioner who must decide whether or how to privatize."