Free Republic

Will Gervais and Maxine Najle are co-authors of a study suggesting that far more Americans are atheist than previously thought. The dubious claim by Gervais, director of the University of Kentucky’s Beliefs and Morality Lab (Bam! for short), and Najle, a grad student advised by Gervais, provided fodder for a fake news story posted this past week on the website FiveThirtyEight. “Attitudes about atheists are quickly changing, driven by the same powerful force that transformed opinion on gay rights,” wrote Daniel Cox, who hyped the study by Gervais and Najle. Dismissing recent studies in which no more than 3 percent...

Mother’s Day is a joyous observance for most of the 85 percent of women who have borne a child by age 40. But not so much for women who have neither procreated nor adopted, who find Mother’s Day a painful reminder of their childlessness. Perhaps they squandered years on a relationship that resulted in neither marriage nor children. Perhaps they were so career-driven they had no room in their lives for a husband and offspring. Or perhaps they wed and tried to have children, but their wombs were barren. For women of faith despairing on this Mother’s Day that they...

During the reign of Cyrus the Great, king of all Persia, the prophet Daniel foresaw a great war that filled his heart with fear and trembling. So troubled was Daniel he spent three weeks, the Bible says, fasting and praying for divine intervention. God heard the prayers of his prophet and sent an angel to deliver a message. But the heavenly messenger was delayed, Daniel was told, because he was resisted for 21 days by the demonic spirit that laid claim to Persia. Such demonic spirits continue today to exert powerful influence over earthly jurisdictions to which they lay claim....

Jesus often used parables to teach lessons. Well here are three modern-day parables concerning the lives and deaths of Wanda Dunn, Eddie Maintenance and Jack Shephard. Each parable reinforces the lesson of Easter: That the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Wanda was a lonely old woman who dared not set foot outside of her one-room basement apartment for fear that death awaited her one the other side of her front door. One day there was a scuffle outside Wanda’s apartment during which a policeman was shot. When she peered through her window, Wanda saw...

One hundred fifty-five years ago, the Atlantic Monthly published on its front cover the lyrics to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which not only is one of this nation’s most well-known patriot songs, but also, arguably, its most spiritual. The melody was borrowed from a Civil War marching song, which paid tribute to the abolitionist John Brown, and which was popular with Union soldiers. The song’s lyrics – “poor old John Brown is dead, his body lies mouldering in the grave” – were inoffensive to soldiers marching into battle, but deemed too coarse to be sung by the general...

A sexually explicit video of a high school girl in La Porte, Indiana was posted this past week on Facebook Live and other social media. Authorities suspect the underage girl was coerced into making the video in response to a “sextortion” threat. This is but the latest shocking example of social media’s role in coarsening our culture. It no longer is enough for the unredeemed to commit unspeakable acts; they also feel compelled – demonically so – to memorialize their grave sins against God on Facebook Live, YouTube, Periscope, LiveMe.com and other such online platforms. That includes Derek Medina, a...

My wife called to tell me she was stuck in traffic not far from our home. When she eventually discovered the cause of the highly unusual Saturday midafternoon backup, her heart was filled with sadness. For it was a fatal accident involving a motorcycle and an SUV. The biker was traveling west at “a high rate of speed.,” according to a police report. The Nissan SUV was traveling east. When the SUV turned left, the bike collided with the larger vehicle sending its rider flying through the SUV’s windshield like a projectile. The 28-year-old biker was killed. The 51-year-old husband...

The Gospel According to Mark recounts the circumstances that led to the beheading of John the Baptist by order of Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee. “Herod himself had sent and laid hold of John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Phillip’s wife; for he had married her. Because John had said to Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.’” Beau Biden, the eldest son of former vice president Joe Biden died of brain cancer in May 2015. Not even two years later, Beau’s younger brother Hunter has left his...

Fifty years ago this upcoming October, the so-called National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, aka “the Mobe,” held a march on Washington. The highlight of the protest was to be an exorcism ritual and supernatural levitation of the Pentagon, which supposedly would bring about the end of the war. As protestors encircled the Pentagon, they were led in an incantation resisting in the war “in the name of Zeus, in the name of Anubis, god of the dead… in the name of the lives of the soldiers in Vietnam who were killed because of a bad karma,...

A plague has beset the Seattle area – an increase in heroin overdose deaths in recent years that has reached “crisis levels,” according to a report by a task force convened by the mayors of Seattle and neighboring cities in King County, Washington state. The best way to address the plague, task force members agreed, is to establish so-called “Community Health Engagement Locations” where “supervised consumption occurs for adults with substance abuse disorders…” Of course, what the task force really is recommending are legalized shooting galleries; supposed “safe” sites where junkies are given clean needles with which they are free...

I’m awaiting Inauguration Day with expectancy. Not to rejoice that, at long last, we will finally reach the 2,922nd – and final – day of the Obama presidency. Not to experience the schadenfreude of seeing the pained expressions of Hillary and Bill Clinton as Donald Trump – rather than Madam Clinton – takes the oath of office as the nation’s 45th president. No, I look forward to Inauguration Day because the Christian heritage of this nation’s founders – disavowed for the past eight years by a president who declared America “no longer a Christian nation” – will be front and...

Eleven years ago, Illinois Senator Barack Obama delivered the keynote address at a conference sponsored by Sojourners, the self-styled “progressive” Christian magazine. “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation,” said the future 44th president. America was also “a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of unbelievers.” That’s the distorted view of America’s religiosity Mr. Obama brought with him to the White House. And he was dead wrong. America is, indisputably, a Christian nation. And that was confirmed this past week by the Pew Research Center, which released...

1. The Obama family’s final White House “Christmas” card actually made no mention of Christmas for the eighth straight year the first family has resided at 1600 Pennsylvania. We can only surmise that, while President Obama maintains he is a Christian, neither he, nor the first lady, nor their two daughters believed Jesus was the reason for the season. 2. Following last week’s death of actress Carrie Fisher and, the very next day, mother Debbie Reynolds, actor Charlie Sheen, who is HIV positive, who has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, who has multiple arrests on domestic violence and...

When Philip Van Doren Stern passed away in 1984, his New York Times obituary eulogized him as “a historian, novelist and editor who was widely respected by scholars for his authoritative books on the Civil War era.” But while Stern authored a number of historical titles – including “They Were There: The Civil War in Action as Seen by Its Combat Artists,” “Secret Missions of the Civil War,” and “An End to Valor: The Last Days of the Civil War” – his most notable work was a short story that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Civil War. It...

Christopher Suprun claims to be a man of faith. “I’m Roman Catholic,” the Republican presidential elector told Jack Jenkins, senior religion reporter for the decidedly left-of-center news site ThinkProgress. Suprun, a Dallas, Texas paramedic, made national news a fortnight ago when he authored an op-ed for The New York Times in which he announced that he would not cast his electoral vote for Donald Trump In his subsequent interview with Jenkins, the faithless elector insisted that it actually was because of his Christian faith that he decided to repudiate President-elect Trump, who, wrote Suprun, in his New York Times screed,...

“Nov. 8 was a game changer – and not for our essential work.” So lamented husband and wife atheists Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of the so-called Freedom from Religion Foundation, which is based in Madison, Wisconsin and which claims 23,500 members nationwide. In fact, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth within the nation’s anti-God community in the wake of Donald Trump’s seemingly improbable election this past week as America’s next president. “Mr. Trump has made a number of statements,” decried David Silverman, president of American Atheists, “that has given millions of Americans who value constitutional...

I went to the polls yesterday, casting an early vote against Hillary Clinton. It really was little more than a symbolic vote inasmuch as I reside in California, where Madam Clinton enjoys a 20-point lead, according to a Field Poll released last week. Indeed, if the Whore of Babylon herself was the Democrat Party’s presidential nominee, she’d very likely win the not-so-Golden State’s 55 electoral votes on Tuesday. That is why this Christ follower trembles for his country, in the words of Thomas Jefferson. Because I believe a Hillary Clinton presidency will move America even further away from God than...

I received an email this week from Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church. “Halloween,” he said, “is a huge opportunity … to be a light for Christ on a dark night.” Indeed, he explained, “you’ll have the MOST contact with families in your community than any other day of the year.” So Pastor Rick asked members of the Southern California megachurch to do the following for Halloween: Buy a package of the biggest candy bars we can find and tape “Trick-or-Treat invitations” to next weekend’s services at Saddleback. And stay home on Halloween night and turn on the lights so...

Most Americans have never heard of Thomas à Kempis, who in 1418 authored “The Imitation of Christ.” But most of us are familiar with the principle he set forth nearly six centuries ago: “Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen.” That’s why this God-fearing Christian can do no other than vote for Donald Trump. Not because the billionaire real estate developer/reality show personality is remotely worthy of the office previously held by such great Republican presidents as Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, but because Trump will subject the body of Christ to less evil than Hillary Clinton....

A “flop.” That’s how Australian web site TheMusic.com.au disparaged “Let Hope Rise,” the concert documentary featuring Hillsong United, which debuted three weeks ago here in the United States. As of this past Friday, the film has earned $2.3 million. That’s little more than a tenth the sum earned over the same span by, say, “Blair Witch,” as Hillsong’s detractors would no doubt point out. But the success of “Let Hope Rise” cannot be measured by the standards of Mammon, the god worshiped by the secular world, but by the Great Commission the risen Christ issued to his followers: “Go into...