Free Republic

“Have you been born again, my friend?” Thousands of Catholics have been asked this question by well-meaning Fundamentalists or Evangelicals. Of course, by “born again” the Protestant usually means: “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior through the recitation of ‘the sinner’s prayer?”” How is a Catholic to respond? The simple Catholic response is: “Yes, I have been born again—when I was baptized.” In fact, Jesus’ famous “born again” discourse of John 3:3-5, which is where we find the words “born again” in Scripture, teaches us about the essential nature of baptism: Jesus answered him, "Truly,...

Americans support women in the pulpit and in senior leadership positions within the church. But they are more hesitant when it comes to supporting openly gay and lesbian religious leaders. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 60% of American Adults favor women in the pulpit, while just 16% are opposed. Twenty-five percent (25%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Even more (74%) support women in leadership positions in their respective faiths. Just nine percent (9%) are opposed, with 17% undecided. Just 43% of Americans favor openly gay and lesbian individuals in the pulpit. Thirty-eight...

Matthew 25 includes a call for more entitlement spending and provides biblical justification for Obamacare, or so says Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Promoting Obamacare in South Dakota, Montana and several national interviews last week, Kasich touted the Bible chapter’s depiction of judgment based on individual charity as a sweeping endorsement of government programs for the poor. Kasich, a Republican, campaigned against Obamacare in 2010, saying the law’s Medicaid expansion would “stick states with large and unsustainable costs.” He unilaterally implemented the Obamacare Medicaid expansion in 2013. The Obamacare expansion puts able-bodied, working-age adults with no dependent children on Medicaid at...

Neal and Danette Childs knew they were in danger.From their compound in Niger’s capital city they could see three churches burning. The smoke was filling their home.“We immediately started packing a trunk, putting in our valuables, our documents, and we loaded up the car,” Neal told me. “There were concerns our family would be targeted.”“Our immediate response — there is that little bit of panic,” he said during a telephone conversation from the West African nation of Niger. “We were ready. We were on guard.”It was Jan. 16 and by the week’s end Muslims had set fire to at least...

Presbyterian Church and Palestinian Liberal Christians Rewriting the Bible to Remove References to Israel By Julio Severo Sabeel (Palestinian Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center) has partnered with the Presbyterian Church (USA) to produce a new Bible version that changes God’s Word. The new version has no mention of Israel as Jewish and no mention of Jesus as a Jew. In fact, Jesus (Yeshua) is changed from being Jewish to being a Palestinian Arab, according to Geri Ungurean in NowTheEndBegins. Sabeel (Arabic ‘the way’ and also ‘a channel’ or ‘spring’) is a Christian liberation theology organization based in Jerusalem. It was founded...

As I write this article, the ancient city of Sodom is being excavated on the northeast tip of the Dead Sea in Jordan. The Site is called the Tell el-Hammam Excavation Project, led by Dr. Steven Collins of Trinity Southwest University, College of Archaeology. Dr Steven Collins presents the results of his excavation of Sodom (Tell El Hammam) The excavation project has uncovered evidence of an advanced society with Greek architecture, art, and an advanced economy. There is also evidence of a cataclysmic event, similar to a nuclear type explosion, that leveled the city at one point in its history....

Encore Presentation of Patterns of Evidence: Exodus by Jake Hebert, Ph.D. * The Exodus is one of the best-known narratives in the Bible. It details the Israelites' escape from Egypt after centuries of slavery, Moses' rise to leadership, the devastating plagues on Egypt, and the miraculous Red Sea crossing. Yet many, maybe even the majority, of archaeologists and historians insist there is no evidence that the biblical Exodus ever occurred. This debate is the subject of the award-winning documentary Patterns of Evidence: Exodus that has an encore presentation this Thursday.1 "Absence of evidence," however, does not necessarily indicate "evidence of...

The mummy masks of ancient commoners are a treasure trove of classical and religious documents — Christian scripture, Phoenician histories, Greek poetry. While the rich and royal members of ancient Egyptian society were buried in mummy masks of flaked gold and other precious metals, common people were forced to construct theirs with recycled pieces of paper. Recently, archaeologists found what they believe to be the world’s oldest piece of scripture in the mask of mummy from the first century. Researchers say the new scrap of spiritual papyrus is a portion of the the Gospel of Mark, the second chapter of...

In the Gospel of John, we read a story where a group of Jewish Torah teachers and Pharisees (members of a legalistic sect of Judaism) bring to Jesus a woman whom they caught in adultery, asking Him what punishment He thinks the woman deserves. Masterfully — as He always did — Jesus answers the scholars with a simple, yet profound statement: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7, NIV).Recently, Newsweek featured a cover article on the Bible in which author Kurt Eichenwald — not a Biblical scholar...

Newsweek’s recent cover story on the Bible, as we expected, proved quite controversial, particularly among the evangelical community... Is it true that prominent Christian leaders in America are misusing the Bible to suit their own purposes?... Has the text of the Bible undergone such dramatic changes over the centuries that it bears little resemblance to the original teachings of Moses, Jesus, and Paul?.. ..does Newsweek paint an accurate picture of conservative evangelicals? Certainly not. More importantly, does Newsweek paint an accurate picture of the reliability of the Scriptures? Emphatically not...

Amid mounting pressure from both atheist groups and concerned parents, Orange County (Fla.) Public Schools have banned Bible distribution in several area high schools after Satanists and an anti-religion group announced plans to pass out their own literature. One of the largest school systems in the country with more than 180,000 students, OCPS had allowed World Changers of Florida, a Christian group, in conjunction with the Florida Family Policy Council to passively distribute Bibles to high school students on Jan. 16—which is National Freedom of Religion Day—for the past three years. Under the school system’s policy at the time, Bibles...

Ousted Atlanta Fire Rescue Department Chief Kelvin Cochran is exploring legal options after being fired last week for espousing his Christian beliefs on homosexuality in his self-published book and sharing it with employees. The married father of three says that his First Amendment rights were violated when city officials dismissed him as fire chief, one month after he was suspended without pay and forced to undergo sensitivity training. In his 2013 book, Who Told You That You Are Naked?, Cochran openly expressed his beliefs on faith and spirituality and an interal complaint was filed when he distributed copies in the...

Parents are accusing a teacher of violating their child’s First Amendment rights by allegedly refusing to allow him to read his Bible in school. They claim that their son, Loyal Grandstaff, a middle school student at Bueker Middle School in Marshall, Missouri, was told by his teacher that he couldn’t read the book after he brought the Bible in and silently studied it during free time. “I feel like it violated his freedom of religion but also his freedom of speech,” Justin Grandstaff, the 12 year old’s father, told WDAF-TV. Loyal said that he wasn’t being loud and that he wasn’t sharing the book...

The Presbyterian Church USA is considering banning the word “Israel” from its prayers. That anti-Semitic resolution was meant to “distinguish between the biblical terms that refer to the ancient land of Israel and the modern political State of Israel". It has happened before. In his war against the Jews, Adolf Hitler instructed Christian theologians to rewrite the Bible, in a bid to remove all mention of the Jews. Their barbaric spirit is living on in the Palestinolatry of these liberal Christians...

The Secular Coalition for America asked members of Congress to reject using religious texts such as the Bible or Torah to swear into office Tuesday, urging them to instead use the Constitution — or nothing at all. “By taking the oath of office on the Constitution, senators will demonstrate their commitment to our secular government, the laws that they’re affirming to uphold, and the people they were elected to represent,” said the coalition, which bills itself as a group of atheists, agnostics and humanists who are fighting against religious influences in politics. All members of the House and more than...

Between 1980 and 1981 Prof. Northrop Frye held 25 lectures under the title ‘The Bible and Literature’. Each of these lectures was recorded and for each of them a transcript was provided. Later excerpts of these 25 lectures (each 50 minutes long) were made into 30 programs (each about 30 minutes). That means in some cases 1 lecture supplied material for 2 programs or the other way around.

Featured Term selected at random:JUDITH The name means "Jewess." She is the heroine of the Book of Judith, which is a historical romance (Judith 7). The details of a great battle are impressive, but the purpose of the book is mainly didactic. When the terrified Israelites were awaiting invasion and annihilation by Nebuchadnezzar's great army under its general, Holofernes, the beautiful, ingenious Judith, inspired by Yahweh, visited the Assyrian camp, dazzled the general with her beauty and eloquence, and during the night killed and beheaded him. In the ensuing battle, the demoralized Assyrians were vanquished and Judith became a national...

Newsweek magazine decided to greet the start of 2015 with a massive cover story on the Bible. For decades now, major newsmagazines have tended to feature cover articles timed for Christmas and Easter, taking an opportunity to consider some major question about Christianity and the modern world. Leading the journalistic pack for years, both TIME and Newsweek dedicated cover article after article, following a rather predictable format. In the main, scholars or leaders from very liberal quarters commented side-by-side those committed to historic Christianity on questions ranging from the virgin birth to the resurrection of Christ. When written by journalists...

I’m often asked where Catholic urban legends come from. The simple answer is that many are as old as sixteenth-century Reformation propaganda, which formed the roots of nineteenth-century American nativism, which evolved into the leftist European anti-clericalism of the post-World War II period.

Newsweek is back and this time it is fully a leftist rag. It’s latest is Christian troll bait written by non-religious scholar Kurt Eichenwald of Vanity Fair who, if you’ve ever paid attention to him, holds Christianity in disdain to begin with. So of course a guy who hates Christianity is going to attack it. His attacks, for knowledgeable Christians, are silly fabrications and half-truths. But then Eichenwald is not really writing for Christians, but against them. He’s writing to the secularists trying to buttress their faith in their gods. Al Mohler has a well written rebuttal as does Michael...