Free Republic

The Russian Primary Chronicle on how Russia was Christianized "Invitation to the Rus" 860-862 (6368-6370) [The four tribes who had been forced to pay tribute to the Varangians--Chuds, Slavs, Merians, and Krivichians] drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them further tribute, and set out to govern themselves. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to custom [po nravu]". Thus...

Pristina, the capital of an Anglo created Islamic Jihadist state, which of course it is never sold as, is a true show case for what any Christian nation has to face if and when its majority falls from power. This of course is nothing new for our ancient ancestors who witnessed this and knew why they fought against Islam. Unfortunately, the present day West, decadent in its form, ignorant in its self love, intellectually bankrupt and lazy, refuses to see the hell they have forced on Orthodox Christian victims and that they themselves soon face. In Pristina, the show case...

Aug 14, 2009 From church to mosque: Istanbul’s forgotten Byzantine heritage Is it a church? Is it a mosque? Is it a museum? Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia, the Church of Divine Wisdom) may be one of İstanbul's most famous buildings, but it's also one that suffers from an acute identity crisis, having started life as the great sixth century church of the Emperor Justinian, before becoming a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and then a museum in 1935 after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk declared the Turkish Republic. Something similar happened to Chora, near Edirnekapı, which also kicked...

A century ago, Christians dominated the intellectual and commercial life of the Levant, comprising more than one-fifth of the 13 million people of Turkey, the region's ruling power, and most of the population of Lebanon. Ancient communities flourished in what is now Iraq and Syria. But starting with the Armenian genocide in 1914 and continuing through the massacre and expulsion of Anatolian Greeks in 1922-1923, the Turks killed three to four million Christians in Turkey and the Ottoman provinces. Thus began a century of Muslim violence that nearly has eradicated Christian communities in the cradle of their religion. It may...

his list is based on responses to a Gallup Poll that asked a cross-section of Americans if religion is an “important part” of their lives. 1. Mississippi 85% 2. Alabama 82% 3. South Carolina 80% 4. Tennessee 79% 5. Louisiana 78% 6. Arkansas 78% 7. Georgia 76% 8. North Carolina 76% 9. Oklahoma 75% 10. Kentucky & Texas (tie) 74% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HUMAN EVENTS is the news source President Reagan called his "favorite newspaper" and we still hold high the Reaganesque principles of free enterprise, limited government and, above all, a staunch, unwavering defense of American freedom.

Go West, young man! For most evangelicals, Jesus instruction in Matthew 28:19 to ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations … ’ is a serious command, and it is an integral part of the mission statement of most churches. A great many churches take up special offerings and allocate funds towards missionaries they support. The western world countries (where Christianity once flourished) are still where the majority of missionaries are supported from, often by the prayers and small monthly donations from faithful Christians that want to be the ‘hands and feet of Jesus’ in countries they will probably...

John Calvin was a theologian, pastor, biblical exegete, and tireless apologist for Reformed Christianity, and ranks among the most important thinkers in church history. His theological works, biblical commentaries, tracts, treatises, sermons, and letters helped establish the Reformation as a legitimate and thriving religious movement throughout Europe. No theologian has been as acclaimed or assailed as much as Calvin...

Sometimes it seems that an atheistic tsunami has hit. Anti-Christian books land high on bestseller lists. Polls purportedly show a decline in belief. Newsweek this spring had one of its traditional Easter cover stories on "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." Whenever the conventional wisdom points in a particular direction it's good practice to ask: What if the opposite is true? What if nominal Christian affiliation is declining but serious biblical belief is actually on the rise? What if Christianity in America is not dying, but instead getting its second wind—or maybe its sixth wind? After all, the American...

Evangelical megachurches across San Diego, Calif., are joining Catholics on Sunday to make a public outcry against abortion in their first ever joint pro-life rally. The demonstration, which will take place after the multiple worship services that typically take place at megachurches, is being held on the same day President Barack Obama will take the stage at the University of Notre Dame to deliver the commencement speech. While the San Diego rally is fundamentally a pro-life rally, the undertone of the event is "a statement to the president that the killing of babies must come to an end," Pastor Jim...

Is Christianity Dying in America? Only, perhaps, at the hands of political entanglement. Jon Meacham, following Newsweek's tabloid trash journalistic standards, has completely botched an article on Christianity in America. He slants his report on the latest American Religious Indentification Survey to make is seem as if Christianity is dead in America. He was obviously in over his head, so I won't spend too much time on his pathetic effort. I'll only point out the grossest stupidities. Atheism isn't Overtaking Christianity The survey report concludes that self-identification confusion among deists, atheists, and agnostics clouds the true numbers, but that perhaps...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-s9wsNZq1gPosted by a Muslim it seems Islam triumphing over Christianity in the UK the land of St George The Muslim uploader must be very happy

The End of Christian America The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become. By Jon Meacham | NEWSWEEK Published Apr 4, 2009 It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March,...

A murmur of “Amen” echoes softly down a corridor in a luxury Beijing hotel. Dozens of young Chinese are gathered in a beige-carpeted conference room to listen to the word of God. After helping themselves to hot water or tea at the back of the room, they find a seat and chatter with friends. They tuck Louis Vuitton and Prada handbags under their seats, switch their mobile phones to silent and turn to listen to a young woman who takes the microphone to ask for silence and recite a prayer. A casually dressed, grey-haired Chinese man takes to the podium....

Oneida, Ky. - We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century. This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of...

“When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.” That is the opening statement of Cathy Lynn Grossman’s front-page article in the March 9 edition of USA Today concerning the fast changing face of Christianity in America. In the article, Grossman looks at the results of the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), which is touted to be the most comprehensive look at American religious preferences available considering the fact the U.S. census report excludes questions concerning religious practice. The news for people of faith is not good. Since 1990, the last time the survey was conducted,...

The Radio 2 host said that he feels unable to talk about his faith on his show because he fears how people would react. He argues that society has become increasingly intolerant of the freedom to express religious views. "You can't express views that were common currency 30 or 40 years ago," he said. "Arguably, the parameters of what you might call 'right thinking' are probably closing. "Sadly, along with that has come the fact that it's almost socially unacceptable to say you believe in God." His comments follow the claim from Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Catholic...

2008-2009 Top Ten Conservative Colleges January 2009 Young America’s Foundation is pleased to release our fifth annual “Top Ten Conservative College” list in response to the frequently asked question of which schools we recommend to those seeking conservative colleges. Each year, hundreds of thousands of students begin their college search. Admission guides, seminars, advice from friends, and help from advisors all offer different perspectives. Presented with so many options, confusion often clouds this important decision-making process. Given the requests for Young America’s Foundation’s recommendations, and to aid in making the right decision, we are proud to release our fifth annual...

Image courtesy of istockphoto. click for info Christianity Is No Longer Americans’ Default FaithJanuary 12, 2009 (Ventura, California) - For much of America’s history, the assumption was that if you were born in America, you would affiliate with the Christian faith. A new nationwide survey by The Barna Group, however, indicates that people’s views have changed. The study discovered that half of all adults now contend that Christianity is just one of many options that Americans choose from and that a huge majority of adults pick and choose what they believe rather than adopt a church or denomination’s slate...

Sylvain Gouguenheim’s "Aristote au Mont Saint-Michel: Les racines grecques de l’Europe Chrétienne" reviewed by Thomas F. BertonneauLong before the late Eduard Said invented “Orientalism” to exalt Arab culture and Islamic society at the expense of the West, bien-pensants like Voltaire inclined to express their rebellion against the dwindling vestiges of Christendom by representing Europeans as bigots or clowns and raising up exotic foreigners – Voltaire himself wrote about Turks and Persians of the Muslim fold – to be the fonts of wisdom and models of refined life in their tracts and stories. The sultan and dervish look with amused tolerance...

In Joseph Smith's day some of the most prominent Americans were disgusted with the creeds of Christendom. Thomas Jefferson said: I [Jefferson] am a real Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the preachers . . of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said or did. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man of which Jesus, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature. . . . It is the speculations of crazy theologians...

In one of the most holy weeks in the Christian calendar, a report says that in just over a generation the number of people attending Church of England Sunday services will fall to less than a tenth of what they are now. Christian Research, the statistical arm of the Bible Society, claimed that by 2050 Sunday attendance will fall below 88,000, compared with just under a million now. The controversial forecast, based on a "snapshot" census of church attendances, has been seized upon by secular groups as proof that the established church is in decline. But the Church of England...

Philip Jenkins has a piece up in the Boston Globe that is worth the read. It’s kinda two pieces (or maybe 1 1/2) in one. One side is a response to the Vatican inquiry (Jenkins is High Church Anglican) for investing Roman Catholic theologian Peter Phan on the question of inter-religious dialogue/discussion. Phan’s bio is here. A correction to Jenkins’ article–Phan is not a Jesuit, he teaches at a Jesuit school. For anyone interested, background on Phan’s case here from John Allen, Jr. That part of his article imo is less successful (and less interesting) than the other half which...

ISLAM has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world. Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's 2008 yearbook, said Muslims made up 19.2 per cent of the world's population and Catholics 17.4 per cent. "For the first time in history we are no longer at the top - the Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Formenti told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, saying the data referred to 2006. He said that if all Christian groups were considered, including Orthodox churches, Anglicans and Protestants, then Christians made up 33 per cent of the world's population - or about...

"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook. He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population - a stable percentage - while Muslims were at 19.2 percent. "It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer," the monsignor said. Formenti said that the data refer to 2006. The figures...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday. Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 percent of the world's population and Catholics 17.4 percent.

Last September Jim Pinkerton penned a brilliant cover story for the American Conservative entitled “The Once & Future Christendom,”1 wherein he argued that Western civilization could only be saved from the onslaught of global radical Islam by uniting under the umbrella of its shared Christian heritage. He illuminated his thesis with trenchant examples taken from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and in fact named his plan the “Shire strategy,” after the homeland of the hobbit heroes of the trilogy.2 This essay constitutes a sequel, fine-tuning of Pinkerton’s ideas and a further laying of the groundwork for re-establishing a political...

Evangelical Christianity has become the largest religious tradition in this country, supplanting Roman Catholicism, which is slowly bleeding members, according to a survey released yesterday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Evangelical Protestants outnumber Catholics by 26.3 percent (59 million) to 24 percent (54 million) of the population, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, a massive 45-question poll conducted last summer of more than 35,000 American adults. "There is no question that the demographic balance has shifted in past few decades toward evangelical churches," said Greg Smith, a research fellow at the Pew Forum. "They are...

Fewer People Claim Religious Affiliation Survey Of 35,000 Finds Religious Landscape Changing POSTED: 1:10 pm EST February 25, 2008 UPDATED: 2:29 pm EST February 25, 2008 The U.S. religious marketplace is extremely volatile, with nearly half of American adults leaving the faith tradition of their upbringing to either switch allegiances or abandon religious affiliation altogether, a new survey finds. The study released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is unusual for it sheer scope, relying on interviews with more than 35,000 adults to document a diverse and dynamic U.S. religious population. While much of the study...

A kind reader suggested that I offer an analysis of all the presidential candidates in order to assist voters in making the right choice. Unfortunately, despite the shrill denunciations of modernist Catholics who insist that my opposition to abortion proves I am a shill for the Republican Party, I am one of the least qualified persons to make such an assessment. Though I do have a personal friend who is running for the Senate, I tend to be woefully uninterested in politics. I get most of my own political information from people I trust who are far more knowledgeable than...

He's been called the diocesan hit man. As a joke, of course. Not a great joke. People with the skills of Simon Bell have become necessary in Canada's major Christian churches. He determines which congregations can survive, and why, and which ones have slid so far into the abyss of decline that they need to be put out of their misery. His title is congregational development consultant with the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, the largest Anglican jurisdiction in Canada. Churches call him in when they realize they're in trouble. He acquired the hit-man sobriquet after his involvement in the protracted...

Commenting on the results of the survey, Theos Director Paul Woolley said: "These findings provide us with a good snapshot of our national relationship with Christianity. They show that the Christmas story, in its classic formulation is still very much in our cultural blood stream, as indeed is the Christian story as a whole. "However, when you probe in any depth, you discover that our knowledge and understanding is rather more shaky.” The poll also found that knowledge of the Christmas story varied with age. The youngest people questioned (aged 18-24) knew the least about the story of the birth...

‘Our country has become a Christian nation,’ says Zambia’s First Lady Her husband, the President, has been publicly baptized at a Lusaka Baptist church By Dan Wooding The First Lady of Zambia has stated that her country has become a “Christian nation.” Mrs. Maureen Mwanawasa (mwah-nah-WAH-sah), made this statement during an interview with me for ANS and also Safe Worlds IPTV at the recent 3rd Annual Global Summit on AIDS and the Church held at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, hosted by Pastor Rick Warren and his wife, Kay. I asked the first lady, a Christian, like her husband,...

I just wanted to post information that Corpus Christianum has a website - www.corpuschristianum.org. This international private association of the faithful is a Catholic group dedicated to praying daily for the renewal of Christendom.

The Once & Future Christendom From death of the West—to knights of the West The Call of Duty—and Destiny In one of the great epics of Western literature, the hero, confronted by numerous and powerful enemies, temporarily gives in to weakness and self-pity. “I wish,” he sighs, “none of this had happened.” The hero’s wise adviser responds, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.” The old man continues, “There are other forces at work in this world … besides the will of evil.” Some events, he adds, are “meant” to...

The Third Islamic Wave by Bernard Lewis On March 7, The American Enterprise Institute granted Professor Bernard Lewis the Irving Kristol Award, an honor whose past recipients have included former President Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger and Justice Antonin Scalia. Professor Lewis was also selected to deliver the Irving Kristol Lecture. Below are excerpts from that lecture. A favorite theme of the historian is periodization—dividing history into periods. Periodization is mostly a convenience of the historian for purposes of writing or teaching. Nevertheless, there are times in the long history of the human adventure when we have a real turning point,...

Culture is an enormous force shaping man's character and views of the world. It has inspired the loftiest goods and the greatest of evils, from the foundation and maintenance of Christendom for a millenium to the massacres of the American Indians. It inspires what and how we do everything. Yet culture has not been much examined by Catholics, and what examination there has been has focused almost entirely on how religion impacts culture. While this is, of course, a very important pursuit, culture contains many more aspects than those informed by religion. Furthermore, because culture has such an immense impact...

Learn what American attitudes toward current events and Bible prophecy are in this exclusive new poll.Are We Living in the Last Days? We asked: "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: 'Events such as the rebirth of the State of Israel, wars and instability in the Middle East, recent earthquakes, and the tsunami in Asia are evidence that we are living in what the Bible calls the last days.'"* 42% of all Americans agree * 44% disagree * 14% say they don’t know Last Days—Gender* 50 percent of women agree; 37 percent disagree; * 14 percent don’t know...

Christianity is thriving amongst the burgeoning populations of Africa and Latin America. Will it become the Big Idea of the 21st century? --------------------------------------------- If God isn’t dead, at least Christianity is. That’s the impression you might have after driving past churches in many suburbs on Sunday mornings. It is white heads that you will see straggling through the doors -- to hear sermons from priests and ministers over 60. Sexual scandals have rocked all churches, not just the Catholic Church. This has made it easier for traditional Christian views on public morality to be sidelined by governments. Warnings that Christians...

A lot of people I run into seem to be angsting these days about the imminent failure of what used to be called “Christendom.”  On the one hand, the repaganization of Western Civilization seems to be progressing steadily.  (On CSI: Miami the other day, some character told another that “That’s between you and your own personal god.”  I found that to be a rather telling statement.  It can only be between “you and your own personal god” if your own personal god really exists!  Otherwise it’s the same as saying “it’s between you and your imaginary friend Skippy.”  The concept of “my personal god” lies at...

Evangelical Christians are the main force behind the growth of Christianity, according to Patrick Johnstone, author of The Church is Larger Than You Think. Johnstone's assessment of the growth in evangelical Christianity was reported in the November-December issue of Good News magazine, a journal that promotes evangelical renewal in the United Methodist Church. The magazine story quoted Johnstone as identifying the following trends: 1. Evangelical Christianity has grown slowly but steadily in the West, while the rest of Western Christianity has shrunk significantly; 2. The real growth of Evangelical Christianity in recent years has been in Latin America, Africa, and...

Integrity It is more than simple honesty. It's the key to success. Do you want to learn how integrity can make you a success? These essays explore the many ways we can find purpose when helping other people on a personal level, nurturing the environment, or when working with others toward a larger goal. Read More... See! Hear! Study! Enjoy! • Bibles • Bibles on CD • Bibles on MP3 • Bible Software • Electronic Bibles.... and more... Read More... See this? Advertise here! Evangelical Christianity, born in England and nurtured in the United States, is leaving home. Most evangelicals...

Neocatechumenal Families: the New MissionariesAfter Benedict XVI sent some 200 families of the Neocatechumenal Way on mission, the Way's founder revealed that these apostles will take on the toughest evangelical tasks. In an interview with the Veritas news agency, Kiko Argüello explained that the families are destined for places where Christ is absent. "Families are sent to areas where the situation is one of total paganism. It is a mission of the purest 'ad gentes' type," he said. "Some families go to cities of the former Communist regime where there still are no parishes, to European cities where there are...

IT'S one of history's most important questions: Why did Europe and North America embrace democracy and thrive economically while countries elsewhere suffered oppression and stagnation? Leading U.S. sociologist Rodney Stark says many scholars purposely overlook the obvious answer: It was the spread of Christianity that made possible political and economic freedoms, modern science and resulting western advancement. Such is the Baylor University professor's contention in The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success (Random House), one of the more provocative of recent books, whose vigorous prose reflects the author's one-time employment as a newspaper reporter....

A report released this month by the Lausanne Researchers’ Network highlights the profound southern geographical shift of global Christianity over the past hundred years. USA Evangelicals/Evangelicals in a Global Context by Todd Johnson, Ph.D., Director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, offers new data on the southern shift in the evangelical movement from its roots in the United Kingdom and the United States. According to the study, over 80 percent of all Christians in 1900 were from Europe and North America, yet by 2005 it was under 45 percent. This statistic correlates with...

Charles Martel Born about 688; died at Quierzy on the Oise, 21 October, 741. He was the natural son of Pepin of Herstal and a woman named Alpaïde or Chalpaïde. Pepin, who died in 714, had outlived his two legitimate sons, Drogon and Grimoald, and to Theodoald, a son of the latter and then only six years old, fell the burdensome inheritance of the French monarchy. Charles, who was then twenty-six, was not excluded from the succession on account of his birth, Theodoald himself being the son of a concubine, but through the influence of Plectrude, Theodoald's grandmother, who wished...

N A SUSTAINED, century-long rampage that would have wowed Rommel, the Prophet Mohammed and his successors beginning in A.D. 629 conquered not only Arabia, Persia, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa, but also branded the crescent of Islam on lands formerly within the fold of a Christian Roman Empire then in ruins. In 709, Arab horsemen and their allies crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. Four short years later, Spain belonged to the Empire of the Prophet. In the summer of 732, the centennial of Mohammed's death, this veteran Islamic juggernaut, at least 80,000 strong with the skilled and popular general Abd...

The Battle of ToursOctober 10, 732 AD marks the conclusion of the Battle of Tours, arguably one of the most decisive battles in all of history. A Moslem army, in a crusading search for land and the end of Christianity, after the conquest of Syria, Egypt, and North Africa, began to invade Western Europe under the leadership of Abd-er Rahman, governor of Spain. Abd-er Rahman led an infantry of 60,000 to 400,000 soldiers across the Western Pyrenees and toward the Loire River, but they were met just outside the city of Tours by Charles Martel, known as the Hammer, and...

1,273 years ago today.

[All, CT's requirement for excerpting, and FR's excerpting rules, don't allow me to provide enough to give you any sense of this excellent article. --sionnsar] Philip Jenkins, in his groundbreaking The Next Christendom, wrote that a "global perspective should make us think carefully before asserting 'what Christians believe' or 'how the church is changing.' All too often [such statements] refer only to what that ever-shrinking remnant of Western Christians and Catholics believe. Such assertions are outrageous today. … The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes, and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning."In the Anglican Communion, the...

Christianity in many of its forms and denominational faces is exploding across the continent of Africa, says documentary filmmaker James Ault. In Ghana, for example, the number of churches is doubling every few years, he says. In Zimbabwe, Christian ministers are regularly casting out demons and bringing healing, stability and comfort to people of all ages. And meanwhile, says Ault, Pentecostalism in Uganda has taken off and is given much of the credit for a miraculous stemming of the AIDS epidemic there. "The power and vitality of the Christian movement in Africa is beginning to be seen on the world...