Free Republic

Hi Everyone: A cross honoring the fallen of World War I was placed on a mountain top by a private citizen in 1934. President Clinton issued an order incorporating the site into the Mojave National Preserve and in 2000; the ACLU filed a Federal Suit. It is a simple cross consisting of two pipes tied together but now it is covered and will have to be removed or destroyed. In my opinion, the ACLU has now become THE most dangerous threat to our way of life this country has ever seen. By tearing down our values they are attempting to...

Dear Editor of the Columbia Tribune: I was sitting at home the other evening when there was a knock on my door. When I answered, I found two young men, dressed alarmingly like Nazi Youth members, standing at my door. I saw their name tags and the identification of a Christian church. I informed them, immediately, that mine was not a Christian home and that they should leave. Ah, but that was not enough. They demanded my name and an explanation; they simply could not accept that not everyone in the world is a Christian. I gave them an explanation....

Twenty masked special and plain clothes police raided an evening seminar at a church in Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurtia autonomous republic in Russia. According to the Forum 18 News Service, police forced about 70 people outside the Work of Faith church April 14, calling them "sectarians" and "prostitutes," while they searched the building. Nearly 50 church members were held for five hours at the police station and fingerprinted. Udmurtia's interior ministry claimed the Pentecostals had "distorted" details of the raid.

Campus approves Christian group after publicity Had refused recognition because bylaws forbid homosexual behavior After an activist group publicized the case, an engineering school backed off from its refusal to recognize a Christian student group that barred voting members from practicing acts forbidden by the Bible, such as homosexual behavior. The student government of the Milwaukee School of Engineering, or MSOE, decided to grant full recognition to the ReJOYce in Jesus Campus Fellowship student group April 18. The decision came after the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, intervened upon learning the student government had denied RJCF full...

Atheists should welcome the election of Pope Benedict XVI. For this aged, scholarly, conservative, uncharismatic Bavarian theologian will surely hasten precisely the de-Christianisation of Europe that he aims to reverse. At the end of his papacy, Europe may again be as un-Christian as it was when St Benedict, one of the patron saints of Europe, founded his pioneering monastic order, the Benedictines, 15 centuries ago. Christian Europe: from Benedict to Benedict. RIP. Europe is now the most secular continent on earth. The phenomenon of the last pope masked the underlying trend. We saw the great crowds of enthusiastic young people...

Tuesday's Volunteer Center of Collin County lunch was not the appropriate place for former longtime local TV news anchor John Criswell to make statements about personal religious beliefs, the center's executive director said. *** [Criswell] spoke primarily about the benefits of faith and how he believes today's news media is biased against religious people. *** The agency received one complaint call on Tuesday afternoon.

A federal judge in Riverside, Calif., has issued orders for the destruction of the solitary Roman cross at the Mojave Desert World War I Veterans Memorial. The court ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union to nullify an act of Congress last year sponsored by Congressman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., which authorized a land exchange which would place the cross site on private land and in private hands in a land exchange. The ACLU contended the land exchange was a "sham" to evade the court's injunctive order to destroy the cross, first issued in 2002. The court has so...

Why does the ACLU hate the Ten Commandments? Why does the ACLU despise American culture, and are they actually right? These are some of the questions that Americans must answer in the future. Mississippi last week became the latest state to permit the display of the Ten Commandments on public property. This comes as Americans wait for a decision from the Supreme Court on the display of the Ten Commandments. If the Supreme Court rules against them, then the entire debate on the Ten Commandments will have no bearing. However, there are certain reasons that I believe should prompt a...

George Weigel is best known for his official biography of John Paul II, "Witness to Hope," and as a commentator on the Vatican for NBC News. … -snip- Mr. Weigel's critique of Europe subtly distinguishes between the gradual process of secularization and a newly aggressive, official hostility toward religion. He believes that this Christophobia underlies a number of disturbing phenomena: European appeasement of Nazism, communism, and terrorism; anti-Americanism; a naive belief in the ability of international organizations to solve the world's problems; a preference for bureaucracy over democracy; declining productivity; and a "depoliticization" that avoids tough decisions. -snip- Mr. Weigel's...

Flag shouldn't be lowered for pope, group says By Matt Pommer April 6, 2005 An anti-religion group is denouncing Gov. Jim Doyle's executive order to lower flags to mark the death of Pope John Paul II. Doyle's directive appears like "an endorsement of Roman Catholicism over other religious viewpoints," according to the Freedom From Religion Foundation. On Saturday, the governor praised the pope as both an inspiration spiritual leader and a man who has made "a significant impact on social justice." Doyle cited the pope's fight against communism, his opening of dialogue with other faiths, and his fight for peace...

Churches meet in schools all across our nation. In fact, another minister and I have teamed up to start a church in a public school here in Loxahatchee, Florida. So I was understandably interested when I discovered that New York City is trying to throw churches out of their public schools. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." The New York City School District is interpreting this principle as requiring that their facilities to be religion-free zones. But the Constitution requires schools to be neutral regarding religion. They can...

To avoid "potential harm" to eight people who have joined avowed atheist Michael Newdow in a quest to strike "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, a federal judge agreed Tuesday to allow them to remain anonymous during what is sure to be a closely-watched legal fight over highly-charged issue. Newdow, who filed the lawsuit using pseudonyms for all the plaintiffs except himself, proposed in a motion to keep anonymous the names of the parents and students in Sacramento County and San Joaquin County school districts. Attorneys for the defendants - Congress, the federal government, California, and five school districts...

DENVER (AP) - The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday threw out the death penalty in a rape-and-murder case because jurors had studied Bible verses such as ``eye for eye, tooth for tooth'' during deliberations. On a 3-2 vote, justices ordered Robert Harlan to serve life in prison without parole for kidnapping 25-year-old cocktail waitress Rhonda Maloney in 1994 and raping her at gunpoint for two hours. The jurors in Harlan's 1995 trial sentenced him to die, but defense lawyers discovered five of them had looked up Bible verses, copied them down and talked about them while deliberating a sentence behind...

The real heart of our national identity is the constant remaking of who and what we are by the countless immigrants who have enriched our culture. One of the core controversies that is engulfing the United States today concerns the very definition of America itself; in particular, the role of religion in public life has engendered intense definition-mongering. Religious conservatives insist that America is "one nation under God," which is often interpreted to mean "a Christian nation." They hold that religion and patriotism go hand in hand and that America has a divine destiny. The Republican Party has virtually...

ANTI-CHRISTIAN JIHAD Left-wing intellectuals will conduct a major academic conference at the City University of New York (CUNY) April 29-30 titled "Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right." The event is co-sponsored by tax-supported CUNY and the New York Open Center. Skipp Porteous, a former Pentecostal minister, is scheduled to lecture on the "Christian Jihad." He has written online: "Have I rejected God? No. Man created God in his own image. I reject that image." Other lectures listed include, "Religion and Secrecy in the Bush Administration," "On the Psychology and Theocracy of George W. Bush: Reflections in a...

PHILADELPHIA - It was a good Friday - with a small "g" - for Lori Lynner, 39, who chatted with another member of the American Atheists group inside the Hyatt Regency at Penn's Landing. The slight singer-songwriter, for once, felt at ease talking about her conviction that God is a myth. "I'm usually quiet about my beliefs," said Lynner, who had flown from Los Angeles to attend her first American Atheists convention since becoming a member in 2001. Outside, it was far from quiet, with a dozen members of Repent America, a Philadelphia-based Christian group, holding a sidewalk vigil with...

There was a time when "fear of God" meant piety, or at least conscience. Today, it more accurately describes the worldview of secular liberals who get itchy and twitchy at any reminder of our religious roots as a nation. Thus, we are currently treated to the spectacle of the American Civil Liberties Union dragging the state of Texas into court for the offense of displaying the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state capitol in Austin. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide in June whether a display of the Decalogue violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. This...

For those of you who thought the day would never come in America when a Christian cross would be torn down from a veteran’s memorial, you’re in for a shock. On, March 8, 2005, the San Diego City Counsel voted 5 to 3 to tear down a 43 foot concrete cross from the Mt. Soledad Veteran’s Memorial in San Diego, California. This cross has stood since 1954 and was originally dedicated to veterans of the Korean War. The Mt. Soledad cross is surrounded by over 1,600 granite plaques commemorating American veterans of all wars, and has served as a gathering...

There was a time when "fear of G-d" meant piety, or at least conscience. Today, it more accurately describes the worldview of secular liberals who get itchy and twitchy at any reminder of our religious roots as a nation. Thus, we are currently treated to the spectacle of the American Civil Liberties Union dragging the state of Texas into court for the offense of displaying the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state capitol in Austin. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide in June whether a display of the Decalogue violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. This...

In the first class of the semester, a Georgetown professor called the crucifixes that hang upon the walls in every classroom “weaknesses that look down upon us.” He said this during class, before all his students. No one said a word to him, not even after class. All were silent as Christ was mocked and Christianity denigrated. Crucifixes are not “weaknesses.” The crucifixion is a sign of strength. For a man to stand up for what he believes, even to the point of a brutal death, is remarkable and deserving of the highest praise. Professors can very easily get up...