Free Republic

How Discipline Died - The church should stop taking its cues from the state. by Marlin Jeschke - Christianity Today Magazine, August 2005 The Protestant reformers named three "marks by which the true church is known": the preaching of the pure doctrine of the gospel, the pure administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline to correct faults. Today, church discipline is feared as the mark of a false church, bringing to mind images of witch trials, scarlet letters, public humiliations, and damning excommunications. Does discipline itself need correction and redemption in order to be readmitted into the...

Do not use my tax dollars for disengagement By SHMULEY BOTEACH Ariel Sharon prides himself on being a pioneer, Israel's human bulldozer, the man who is always out in front, who achieves the impossible, who breaks through all barriers. Well, chalk up yet another first to this stubbornly audacious man, for Sharon is the first Israeli prime minister to have caused Israel's staunchest allies, America's evangelical Christians, to come out against the Israeli government.

Fundamentalism divides Christians, Carter tells Baptists By Ken Camp Managing Editor BIRMINGHAM, England--Fundamentalism characterized by rigidity, domination and exclusion--practiced primarily by authoritarian males--divides Christians by adding restrictive requirements to the simple gospel message, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter told delegates to the Baptist World Centenary Congress.

RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN ISRAEL PERTAIN TO KING DAVID, JESUS Aug 17, 05 | 4:55 pm Working a short distance from each other near Jerusalem's Old City, archaeologists have made two major discoveries in recent months, one pertaining to King David and the other to Jesus.

Lutheran leader calls for an ecumenical council to address growing biblical fundamentalism Contributed by Religion News Service Thursday, 11 August 2005 The leader of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination has called for a global Christian council to address an "identity crisis" on how churches interpret and understand the Bible.

Threat to Divest Is Church Tool in Israeli Fight By LAURIE GOODSTEIN New York Times The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. announced Friday that it would press four American corporations to stop providing military equipment and technology to Israel for use in the occupation of the Palestinian territories, and that if the companies did not comply, the church would take a vote to divest its stock in them.

Conservative churches grow while mainline churches struggle By BOB REEVES/Lincoln Journal Star As they have for the last 30 years, the so-called "mainline" denominations, especially those identified as liberal or moderate, are losing members while Evangelical and charismatic churches, which are often identified as conservative, are growing.

Just a few years ago (as late as 1995) all people in the world believed the Jewish Temples in Jerusalem were never lost from sight by modern man. It was universally agreed that the former Temples were once located somewhere east of the "Wailing Wall" and inside the Haram esh-Sharif. Yes, this is what the whole world accepted, but things are different now. The world is being staggered by new historical, biblical and geographical information that shows that all scholars throughout the earth have actually lost the knowledge of where those Temples were built. This loss of knowledge is rampant...

We all remember the proverb that a picture is worth a thousand words. This is so true. When we are able to view a site that we have been reading or hearing about, the historical and architectural information associated with the area becomes much more meaningful and the subject better understood. That is certainly the case with the Temple built by Herod the Great that existed in the time of Christ Jesus along with the adjacent fortress that dominated the landscape known as Fort Antonia. The truth is, no one in modern history (nor for the past 1900 years) has...