Free Republic

The story is heartbreaking. A woman showed up at an abortion clinic “in flip-flops and in tears,” having walked for an hour to have her fourth child aborted after her boyfriend lost his job. “‘This was a desired pregnancy—she’d been getting prenatal care—but they re-evaluated expenses and decided not to continue,’ said Dr. Pratima Grupta,” in the Associated Press report. Yes, it’s a heartbreaking story. But columnist Bonnie Erbe sees it quite differently. “In the long run,” she asks, “can we agree that this unwed couple’s decision not to bring a fourth child into the world when they are having...

Exposing ScientismIn his inaugural address, President Obama said he would “restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality.” By this, many suspect he means to spend taxpayer money on embryonic stem cell research, which destroys humans at the embryonic stage. Evidently, President Obama has been listening to those who want research funded, some because they are driven by greed but many others driven by a dangerous worldview called scientism. As Nancy Pearcey and I write in our book, How Now Shall We Live?, scientism has its roots in Darwinism. Tufts University professor Daniel...

Today President Bush welcomed Darfur Human Rights Activist Dr. Halima Bashir to the Oval Office. (Transcript) Dr. Bashir has been tortured my militant Muslims throughout her life, most horrifically after she dared to speak out about the abuse of women and young girls in her native Sudan. She tells her story in her book “Tears In The Desert”. President Bush: This good soul brings firsthand accounts to what life is like in Darfur. She has witnessed violence, deprivation, and she carries a message of a lot of people who want our help. First Lady Laura Bush spoke about women’s rights...

"Something very strange happened to me this past week. I was seated in my library chair, mulling over current events, trying to make a few New Year’s predictions, which is the custom for commentators. I was concentrating hard, when suddenly, I saw before my eyes a headline from the New York Times. It read, “Congress Votes to End War; Troops Ordered to Abandon Iraq.” The view changed. Just as in Vietnam three decades ago, I saw Americans clinging to helicopters, trying to get themselves out of Baghdad along with friendly Shiite Muslims. There was massive confusion, bombs going off in...

Evangelicals: Change of Heart toward Catholics Evangelicals have been going through a major change of heart in their view of Catholicism over the past 15 years or so. In the 80’s when I was in college I lived in the Biblebelt and had plenty of experience with Evangelicals–much of it bad experience. The 80’s was the height of the “Are you saved?� question. In Virginia, the question often popped up in the first 10 minutes of getting to know someone. As I look back, Isurmise that this was coached from the pulpit or Sunday school as it was so well...

There are an estimated 1.6 million Muslims in Great Britain. By some estimates, more people attend mosque than go to Anglican churches every week. Judging by recent comments by the Archbishop of Canterbury, it is easy to see why. As most of you by now know, Archbishop Rowan William said in a recent interview that the “UK has to ‘face up to the fact’ that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.” He left no doubt who those “citizens” are: British Muslims. So according to Williams, British Muslims should not have to choose between “the...

Note: This commentary contains sensitive information that may not be suitable for children. Tonya was only 12 when she was approached by a man as she walked down a city street. Over the next few months, his gifts and compliments impressed her—and soon, she thought she was in love. The minute he gained Tonya’s trust, the man—who was actually a pimp—took her to another city and forced her into a nightmare world of sexual slavery. She was forced to sell her body to countless men. To keep her in line, the pimp beat her violently. He kept all the money...

Last month, the president announced his intention to sell Saudi Arabia some of our most sophisticated weapons. This is a bad idea, and you should let your representative know it right away. The proposed $20 billion deal includes “satellite-guided weaponry” and “high-tech munitions,” including 900 JDAM bombs. The JDAM is arguably the smartest “smart bomb” in our arsenal. Its electronics can “guide the bomb to its target regardless of weather.” And, it is also resistant to the jamming of its GPS system. According to Reuters, the deal appears to be part of an “effort to persuade Saudi Arabia . ....

Is it possible, or even worthwhile, for Christians to reach a consensus on impacting culture—from the performing arts, to music, to literature? Well, there are probably as many answers to that question as there are Christians. But theologian T. M. Moore, in his compelling new book Culture Matters, explains why it is so important that Christians reach a cultural consensus: “All culture,” he says, “is a gift from God. The challenge to us is in learning how to take what is good in contemporary culture, reclaim and retool it, and put it to work in a Christian framework for forming...

As Americans observe Martin Luther King Day today, I am reminded of the rich Christian tradition of activism in this country. For millions of Christians who have gone before us, activism was considered fruit of the faith. Not only was the civil-rights movement led by evangelical Christians like Dr. King, so too were campaigns for abolition and women’s suffrage heavily influenced by Christians expressing their faith. But for much of the twentieth century, Christians—especially white evangelicals—shied away from activism. Part of the reason is that from about the 1920s to the 1970s, many evangelical Christians simply withdrew from the public...

As I discovered in Watergate, we humans have an infinite capacity for self-justification—which is why it is pretty good to get a reality check and find out how others see us. After all, only your closest friends tell you if you have bad breath. That is a service David Kinnaman, president of Barna polling, and Gabe Lyons, one of our Centurions, have performed for us with their new book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity . . . And Why It Matters. Kinnaman and Lyons spent three years polling young, unchurched Americans to find out what they...

If you’re like I am, your New Year’s resolutions seldom make it to the end of January. So rather than lay out resolutions today, I want to simply share some thoughts about the New Year—a year that will be dominated by this year’s presidential election. The official kickoff is tomorrow, with the Iowa caucuses. I am almost relieved. It has been a long, tiresome campaign that began the night the 2006 election returns were coming in. I am sure many of us are so tired of the perpetual campaigning that we are tempted to think, Please let it be over,...

As part of the Economist magazine’s coverage of religion’s role in the twenty-first century, a recent story covers the “new wars of religion.” The magazine’s emphasis on religion represents a nearly 180-degree turn from the publication’s 1999 declaration that belief in God had “passed into history.” But while the magazine is looking in the right direction, it does not understand what it is seeing. The graphic accompanying the story could not be less subtle: an arm reaching down from heaven holding a hand grenade. According to the story, “faith will unsettle politics everywhere this century; it will do so least...

On the eve of the new millennium, the prestigious Economist magazine published what amounted to an obituary for belief in God. Fast forward to November 2007: The cover story of a recent issue of the magazine is titled, “In God’s Name.” In it, the editors admit that they were wrong eight years ago and tell their readers that “religion will play a big role in this century’s politics.” What happened to change their minds? For starters, they began looking through the correct end of the telescope. In 1999, the magazine cited the many different conceptions of God as possible evidence...

Since late September, the crackdown on pro-democracy forces in Burma has brought unwelcome attention to one of the most oppressive regimes on Earth. For many people, the defining image of the Burmese struggle for human rights has been Buddhist monks in red robes staging demonstrations. Reports about Burma focus on the plight and plans of the estimated 400,000 Buddhist monks in the country. Given the coverage, people might be surprised to learn that Burma not only has a substantial Christian population, but that these Christians have long been the junta’s preferred target. Late last month, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner...

According to its Academy of Social Sciences, China “suffers from the world’s most severe brain drain.” Approximately two-thirds of the Chinese who have studied abroad in the past two decades did not return home. The BBC offered many possible explanations for this drain: the lack of opportunities at home; a lack of freedom, especially after Tiananmen Square, and a preference for the Western “lifestyle.” One factor that was not mentioned but should have been was a concern about spending the rest of your life alone. According to China’s State Population and Family Planning Commission, “by 2020 some 30 million Chinese...

As the summer grinds on, the war of words over the real war in Iraq is growing hotter every day. Critics of the war are saying that the American people are fed up and want the troops to come home; that the Iraqi government needs to step up and take responsibility for the growing violence; that the war is straining our military—and our soldiers—to the breaking point. Meanwhile, the war’s defenders are claiming that if the troops leave now, the enemy will have won. Instead of fighting terrorists in Iraq, we’ll be fighting them here in our homeland. Leaving now...

When you think of God, what comes to mind? A.W. Tozer once said, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.” If our ideas about God are coming from the wrong places, then our God will be too small. God’s Word, His Son, and creation give us ideas about the Creator. In Romans 1, Paul tells us that creation reveals God’s glory, but men have suppressed this knowledge. In her latest book, Time Peace, my friend and colleague Ellen Vaughn has come up with a wonderful way to blast our too-small...

Quick, what famous event do we commemorate on the Fourth of July? Not sure? A little rusty on your sixth-grade civics? Well, you're in good company. One Gallup poll revealed that one out of every four Americans doesn't know that July Fourth commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It's a poor patriotism that doesn't even know our national history and traditions. This Fourth of July, let’s ask what it means, in the light of Scripture, to be an American citizen. Patriotism used to be a simple matter. Most of America's traditions were rooted in a Christian heritage. To...

On June 27, Tony Blair left office after having been Britain’s prime minister for 10 years. His next job will be that of envoy for the so-called “Quartet” of Mideast negotiators: the United States, the U.N., the European Union and Russia. Let’s hope that his new employers appreciate him more than his old ones. Blair leaves 10 Downing Street with the dubious distinction of having been the “most unpopular Labour Prime Minister of modern times.” Last November, his approval rating sank to 26 percent. In other words, Blair is less popular than the Labour leaders who presided over Britain’s economic...

The full-page ad in the New York Times featured head shots of Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and Pat Robertson. Above them, in giant type, were the words, “Meet America’s Most Influential Stem Cell Scientists.” The ad charges evangelicals with trying to turn America into a theocracy and outlaw scientific research. This ad was one of many hysterical, vicious, and untruthful ads paid for by a group called the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, or “DefCon.” But far from defending the Constitution, DefCon, which does not have to report who they are or who is paying for these ads, is an...

There they go again. The liberal media, it seems, likes nothing better than to play up what they see (or create) as divisions in the evangelical ranks. This Sunday’s New York Times featured a front-page story about Gregory Boyd, an evangelical pastor in Minnesota who is highly critical of the religious right and refuses to talk about abortion or other cultural war issues from his pulpit. The article paints him in heroic terms, willing to stand against the tide. It quotes other Christian leaders who support him, but none of those who might give the other point of view. It...

A few years ago, a professor at Pasadena City College led a class discussion on the famous story “The Lottery.” In the story, a seemingly normal village carries out a bizarre ritual involving human sacrifice. The professor, Kay Haugaard, had taught the story many times over the years and was anticipating the usual shocked reactions from her students. Instead, she found that she was teaching a room full of moral relativists who thought that the ritual might be all right “if it’s a part of a person’s culture . . . and if it has worked for them.” To Haugaard’s...

In the first chapter of their new book, 20 Compelling Evidences that God exists, Ken Boa and Robert Bowman write, “We don’t mean to discourage you from reading the rest of this book. But in the interest of full disclosure, we should tell you that, in a sense, there is only one good reason to believe that God exists: because it’s true.” That statement is both profound and well expressed. Unfortunately, these days it’s not the kind of statement you can make in public without having scorn heaped upon your head. As the authors jokingly point out, the popular viewpoint...

What do you get when you hold a conference with 1,200 people who are all afraid of offending one another? I’ll tell you what you don’t get. You don’t get unity, and you don’t get agreement on anything. That’s what happened when the Spiritual Activism Conference took place recently in Washington, D.C. According to the New York Times, this group of religious liberals came together to discuss “taking back religion from the conservative Christians.” But the conference members had trouble getting anything specific done. The Times hit it right on the nose when it explained, “Turnout at the Spiritual Activism...

Next week the House of Representatives will be voting on the Marriage Protection Amendment, which defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. Our opponents say there is no need for this amendment because the states will do it, and they cite last week’s New York Court of Appeals decision supporting heterosexual marriage as evidence. Well, they’re wrong. Yes, the Court of Appeals in New York did uphold New York’s law limiting marriage to one man and one woman. But in holding that there was a “rational basis” for this, the New York court is swimming against the...

What are you taking on vacation this summer? Probably the iPod, the Gameboy, maybe even the DVD player—nothing wrong with that. Music and movies can be enriching as well as relaxing. But they’re no substitute for that classic summer tradition of reading books. Unfortunately, many of us are so hooked on technology that we’re in danger of losing our taste for good books. But we need books to exercise our mind, to explore important ideas, and to provide great topics for family discussion. So I’ve got a few recommendations for summer reading, starting with a book by one of my...

Earlier this year, Britain’s Channel Four aired a two-part special entitled “The Root of All Evil.” No, it wasn’t about money, greed or materialism. Nor was it about racism and other forms of hatred. The “root” was religion, specifically Christianity. The special featured Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, arguably the most famous apologist for the Darwinian worldview. While Dawkins may be an expert on Darwin, it’s clear that he knows little about history, especially the history of Christianity. Besides the old saw that religion causes violence—as opposed to peaceful atheism, as practiced by Stalin and Mao—Darwinists charge Christianity with promoting superstition...

A few months ago, I told you about the agonizing choice facing Catholic Charities of Boston: Either serve the needy or remain faithful to Catholic teaching. Specifically, the only way it could continue to handle adoptions according to Massachusetts law was to include same-sex couples among its clientele. While the Massachusetts law is not new, a new interpretation of the legal protection afforded sexual orientation threatens to undermine religious liberty not just in Massachusetts but also across the nation. It’s important to understand the background. In March, Catholic Charities, citing a “dilemma we cannot resolve,” announced that it would no...

Across America this Mother’s Day, sons and daughters will shower their mothers with gifts. But of course the most precious gift a mother can receive is the gift of life itself—a child from the hand of God. One mother I know—a Christian woman and a personal friend—so treasures the gift of life that she has begun the process of adopting an orphaned little girl from Romania, a child with cerebral palsy many others would have chosen to ignore. After major surgery and countless physical therapy sessions in the United States, this little girl now walks with a walker. But equally...

A recent cover of Newsweek magazine jarred me. In bold type across the face of the magazine cover were these words: “Freud Is Not Dead.” Just being reminded of Sigmund Freud, the Viennese psychiatrist who redefined modern psychiatry and dismissed God as the figment of our imaginations, gave me cold chills. Here was the man whose influence has ushered in the age of therapy—excusing anyone’s behavior because they sucked their thumb too long as a baby. He’s also one of the great intellectual influences that led to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, for which we pay dearly to this...

This past Good Friday, a man entered Mar Girgis Church in Alexandria, Egypt, and stabbed one worshipper to death and wounded two others. He then went to another church and stabbed three other Christians. The events in Alexandria were a reminder of the, at best, tenuous status of Christians in the Islamic world. The Egyptian government immediately dismissed the possibility that animus toward Christians played a role in the attacks. Egypt’s Interior Ministry said that the attacker suffered from “psychological disturbances.” How convenient. Egyptian Christians, known as Copts, did not buy it, and for good reason: Police officials had a...

In a recent Washington Post story about Abdul Rahman, the Afghan whose Christian conversion almost earned him a death penalty, reporter Pamela Constable wrote that Afghans are grateful to the United States for its economic support. But, she added, many Afghans “remain leery of Western values and associate Christianity with fornication and drunkenness.” Clearly, Afghans link Christianity with America, and link America with decadence. But why would they do that? Well, let’s see. In the news this week, we have stories of Duke University lacrosse players accused of getting drunk and raping an exotic dancer. Pictures of two unmarried and...

After a long slump, Christian literature is finally experiencing a rebirth—and that’s something to celebrate. The state of Christian fiction was so poor for a while that most Christians have forgotten what a rich heritage we actually have in fiction, from the likes of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Austen, O’Connor, and so many more. These writers understood that moral literature is one of the most important ways of transmitting Christian truth. That’s why I’m so thrilled to see the success of recent works such as the heartwarming Mitford series by Jan Karon; Susan Howatch’s penetrating novels about the Anglican church; and the...

The Church Report is pleased to announce this year’s list of The 50 Most Influential Christians in America. Thanks to the readers of the magazine as well as the online readers for contributing over 150,000 nominations. Each of the people on this list is most deserving of this recognition. As with all types of lists, there are those who are not on the list – not because they weren’t deserving – but simply because we did not have enough space to publish a list of the 100 most influential. The staff of The Church Report did not choose this list;...

Can you keep a secret? If you can, you’re pretty unusual, because a lot of people can’t. Especially if it’s the kind of secret that—if exposed—could get them in major trouble. One recent, and very public, example of this is the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal—which you probably heard about on the news—which helps to prove my point. Last year, when he was caught taking bribes, it didn’t take long for former Congressman Cunningham to spill the beans. He turned state’s evidence against his co-conspirators, and Time magazine reports that the congressman may have worn a wire to record secret conversations....

Welcome to Holy Week, American style. Just as millions of Christians are preparing to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the media is once again out to debunk historical Christianity. Just last weekend I was in an airport bookstore and saw the new book counter filled with numerous editions of The Da Vinci Code. Then I picked up the New York Times, and there I was greeted with the headline on the front page that read, “In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal.” You probably have seen the hype, including a one-hour National Geographic TV spectacular: After seventeen hundred years, the...

Americans have witnessed over the past two days the largest public protest since the Vietnam War: millions marching to protest Congress’s failure last week to enact immigration reform. So many immigrants left their jobs to parade that many businesses in major cities were shut down. The immigration issue is a classic illustration of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. The immovable object is, of course, the need to uphold the rule of law in dealing with immigration. But the irresistible force is the economy. Removing all the illegal immigrants in our society would deal a death blow to our...

When writer Marcia Segelstein headed to the bookstore to scout out books for her 12-year-old, she wasn’t sure what to expect. But she certainly didn’t expect rampant drinking, drug use, profanity, and explicit descriptions of sex and nudity. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what she found. Segelstein’s daughter had been clamoring to read the Gossip Girl series, which “‘all’ of her friends were reading,” she said. After seeing what was in the books, Segelstein was floored. But a school librarian confirmed, “They’re very popular among sixth and seventh graders.” Even worse, the librarian added, “Some parents are so happy that their kids...

"Americans will not give their blood and treasure to prop up new Islamic fundamentalist regimes. Religious freedom is not just 'an important element' of democracy; it is its cornerstone. Religious persecution leads inevitably to political tyranny. Five hundred years of history confirm this. Americans have not given their lives so that Christians can be put to death," Perkins said. Such sentiments are spreading through Christian radio stations, Web sites and blogs, stoked by traditional conservative institutions as National Review magazine. National Review Online quoted Chuck Colson, a former Nixon White House official, disgraced by Watergate and rehabilitated as a Christian...

Since October 2001, approximately three hundred Americans have been killed and another eight hundred have been wounded in Afghanistan. The overthrow of the Taliban was about more than denying a base of operations to al Qaeda—it was also about liberating the people of Afghanistan from a brutal theocracy. All of this makes recent news from Kabul all the more ironic—and outrageous. Abdul Rahman is on trial for his life in a Kabul court. His crime? Converting to Christianity. According to reports, Rahman converted to Christianity sixteen years ago while working for a Christian group that helped Afghan refugees in Peshawar,...

If you ask people who Saint Patrick was, you’re likely to hear that he was an Irishman who chased the snakes out of Ireland. It may surprise you to learn that the real Saint Patrick was not actually Irish—yet his robust faith changed the Emerald Isle forever. Patrick was born in Roman Britain to a middle-class family in about A.D. 390. When Patrick was a teenager, marauding Irish raiders attacked his home. Patrick was captured, taken to Ireland, and sold to an Irish king, who put him to work as a shepherd. In his excellent book, How the Irish Saved...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. There’s nothing parents dread more than their doctor telling them that there’s something wrong with their child. In an instant, all of their hopes and dreams vanish, for themselves and their child, and are replaced with a numb, empty feeling. It’s a feeling that some here at “BreakPoint” are personally acquainted with, which is why we empathize with any parent in this situation. But the price of our consolation can never be the sanctity of life itself. And that’s what is happening in places like Orangeburg, New York. The...

f all goes as expected at this Sunday’s Academy Awards, Brokeback Mountain will win in the “Best Picture,” “Best Director,” and perhaps even “Best Actor” categories. Even if it doesn’t do as well as expected, the film is already being hailed as a “breakout” event, a kind of cultural watershed of sorts—which it almost certainly is not. By “breakout,” I mean the idea, most famously advanced by New York Times columnist Frank Rich, that the movie would do well in the “heartland,” and that this, in turn, would signal an increased acceptance of same-sex relationships. As USA Today summarized it,...

Professor David Fergusson, director of the Christchurch Health and Development Study in New Zealand, is firmly pro-choice. But I suspect the good professor might understand if I point out that, lately, he’s been getting a little taste of what it’s like to be pro-life. Fergusson and two colleagues, L. John Horwood and Elizabeth Ridder, conducted a study on abortion and mental health. And they didn’t find what they expected to find. Their report states, “Those having an abortion [under age 25] had elevated rates of subsequent mental health problems including depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviours and substance use disorders.” Their report...

A recent Washington Post profile on Jack Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and an Episcopal priest, doesn’t pull any punches. “Jack Danforth,” it begins, “wishes the Republican right would step down from its pulpit. Instead, he sees a constant flow of religion into national politics. And not just any religion, either, but the us-versus-them, my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God, velvet-fist variety of Christian evangelism. . . . Danforth [says he] worships a humbler God and [he] considers the [religious] right’s certainty a sin.” This judgmental tone is all too common these days. And it’s unfortunate that Jack Danforth is going along with...

One hundred fifty years ago, a Constitutional crisis took place similar to one that we have been threatened with over Roe v. Wade—one in which no moral consensus could be achieved between the three branches of government. The first constitutional crisis was over the hot-button issue of that day: slavery. The Supreme Court declared an act of Congress unconstitutional, and the president, Abraham Lincoln—to his everlasting credit—refused to recognize the Court’s decision. In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of a Missouri slave named Dred Scott. Scott’s master, John Sandford, had taken him into the free state of...

Over the last ten days, the press has been full of stories about violent Muslim protests against cartoons published in Danish papers, caricaturing Muhammad. Reuters, in a story this week, took the conventional line: that the cartoons had created a “crisis” between Europe and the Islamic world. Well, Reuters and the rest of the press are right about there being a crisis, but wrong about when it started and what caused it. The cartoons were, of course, offensive, but the kind of thing that those of us in free countries expect of a free press. But the Muslim response has...

Sometimes you have to wonder just who is funding scientific studies these days. There has to be some explanation for all the research on bizarre subjects. Like the study that came out recently in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, which purports to show that taller women are more career-oriented and less motherly than short women. I kid you not. Britain’s Sunday Times summed up the study this way: “The taller a woman is, the less maternal her personality. . . . Taller women aim for fewer children, and put off having their first for longer, the research found. But...

It’s becoming increasingly clear that strong families depend on churches, and churches depend on strong families. That statement sounds obvious to some folks. But in fact, it challenges the conventional wisdom. For a long time, misinterpreted statistics made it seem that the connection between strong faith and strong families had weakened. For example, my friend Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action has said for years that evangelical Christian families were no different from secular families. According to Sider, “evangelicals and born-again Christians . . . divorce at the same rate as—or slightly more often—than other Americans.” Sider also has...