Free Republic

Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:(Proverbs 1:20)What a privilege and opportunity for any nation to be able to host an Olympics. The opening ceremony is a unique opportunity to display the glories of the host country. But that would presuppose that the presenters actually believe in the validity of their own national story. IÂ’ve been told that an unprecedented one billion people around the world witnessed this yearÂ’s London opening ceremony. I also was eager to see how the narrative of the nation of Shakespeare, Donne, Churchill, the Puritans, Wilberforce and countless other of the remarkable...

Though ostensibly dealing with a building, a recent report demonstrates how Turkey’s populace—once deemed the most secular and liberal in the Muslim world—is reverting to its Islamic heritage, complete with animosity for the infidel West and dreams of Islam’s glory days of jihad and conquest. According to Reuters: Thousands of devout Muslims prayed outside Turkey’s historic Hagia Sophia museum on Saturday [May 23] to protest a 1934 law that bars religious services at the former church and mosque. Worshippers shouted, “Break the chains, let Hagia Sophia Mosque open,” and “God is great” [the notorious “Allahu Akbar”] before kneeling in prayer...

For centuries the alleged ideal of communism had come to the world as a messianic and millennial creed. Various seers, notably Joachim of Fiore, had prophesied the final state of mankind as one of perfect harmony and equality, one where all things are owned in common, where there is no necessity for work or need for the division of labor. In the case of Joachim, of course, problems of production and property, indeed of scarcity in general, were "solved" by man no longer possessing a physical body. As pure spirits, men as equal and harmonious psychic entities spending all their...

WASHINGTON – The officially atheist Chinese government is surprisingly open to Christianity, at least partially, because it sees a link between the faith and economic success, said a sought after scholar who has relations with governments in Asia. China believes that Christianity is responsible for much of the historic success of Western Europe and the United States, said Dr. William Jeynes, senior fellow of The Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J., during a presentation at the Family Research Council on Tuesday. But while the Chinese government is open to Christianity, it also “wants to control Christianity.” Those in authority are very...

George Weigel, in his most recent column ("Christmas, Jews and Christians"), takes up a theme near and dear to my heart:Eastern Christian theology has long stressed “theosis,” or divinization, as the goal of the Christian life. It can be a somewhat startling theme for western Christian ears, formed as we are by Augustine’s sense of the distance that original sin created between humanity and God. Yet if, as theologians East and West have long insisted, Christianity is not about our search for God (as so much pop-spirituality these days insists), but about God coming into history in search of us...

[Quixicated emphases] "THE BRIDE Will LEAVE CHRISTENDOM"-Vision by Wayne Thomas. The following vision is probably one of the most well-known that hasever come out of my home nation of New Zealand. It is a key vision that has been acknowledged and read around the world. This vision was given to Wayne Thomas late in 1993. He told me that it was probably the most powerful he had ever seen. VISION of THE BRIDE LEAVING CHRISTENDOM-Wayne Thomas. Basically, it was a traditional wedding scene. The radiantly beautiful Bride had just stepped out of the Cathedral and was standing on the top...

[London/Rome] A few days from the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in Scotland and England, the "Number two" in the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Direcoter of the "Foreign Office" of the Moscow Patriarchate, will make his visit to Great Britain. On the 9th of September he will meet [has already met] in Lambeth Palace with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the Primate of the Anglican Communion. In a certain way "he makes straight the way of the Pope", as the Pope's meeting on the 17th of September is described by Vaticanist Sandro Magister in the Weekly...

A group of more than 100 prominent Christians ranging from evangelical minister Jim Wallis on the political left to...Chuck Colson on the right released a document Thursday calling for an end to the fight club tone of the national political discourse. ...the "Civility Covenant"...says...churches have too often "reflected the political divisions of our culture rather than the unity we have in the body of Christ." SNIP ...the covenant...has 114 signatories from a broad swath of Christian traditions, including the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and the general superintendent of...

Breaking news as the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America has formally requested to enter the Catholic Church. All 99 parishes and cathedrals! Here is the complete text: Orlando, FL – 1 pm EST – Bp. George Langberg Released by the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America, Traditional Anglican Communion 3 March 2010 We, the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America of the Traditional Anglican Communion have met in Orlando, Florida, together with our Primate and the Reverend Christopher Phillips of the “Anglican Use” Parish of Our Lady of the Atonement...

“Contextualizing the Gospel in the New South.” That’s the title for this year’s Advance Conference, April 26-27 in RDU. Last year we called for a resurgence of the local church. This year we’re focusing on the major issues that are standing in the way of that happening here in the South. The South is changing. Urbanization and the vibrant growth of our cities have transformed the cultural landscape. Cities like RDU have become new centers of business and education, places where culture is being formed and made. And yet as our cities are advancing, the church is shrinking. For the...

he year is 732 A.D., and Europe is under assault. Islam, born a mere 110 years earlier, is already in its adolescence, and the Muslim Moors are on the march. Growing in leaps and bounds, the Caliphate, as the Islamic realm is known, has thus far subdued much of Christendom, conquering the old Christian lands of the Mideast and North Africa in short order. Syria and Iraq fell in 636; Palestine in 638; and Egypt, which was not even an Arab land, fell in 642. North Africa, also not Arab, was under Muslim control by 709. Then came the year...

Is Russian leadership more Christian than the United States? Is the Russian Government more Christian than George Bush ever hoped the United States to be? The answer is yes, and not only is it true, but thanks to born again Christians, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, Christian influence in matters of State is rapidly on the rise. Let's look at the facts.A couple of weeks ago Barack Obama skipped Church on Christmas Day while the President of Russia, Dimitry Medvedev, on January 6, 2010, attended mid-night mass services celebrating the Russian Orthodox Christmas in grand splendor in the traditional Vigil...

WATERTOWN {Connecticut} — A local spiritual leader's ties to Tanzania are shaping his ministries, both here and in the African nation. The ties between the Rev. Bryan Bywater, of New Hope Anglican church, and Anglicans in Africa also help illustrate the powerful bond between conservative Anglicans in the United States and the church in Africa. Bywater, who retains an affiliation with the Tabora Diocese in Tanzania, was ordained rector of New Hope on Saturday during a service in the auditorium at Swift Middle School. He has been the interim rector for the church, which formed after splitting from Christ Episcopal...

It is a vision most mainstream Canadian church leaders can only dream of: Sunday mornings in which parishioners dance and sing through three-hour services. Seminaries overflowing and unable to keep up with demand for pastors as the number of the newly baptized rises. The dream is a reality in such places as Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, where there is an explosion in Christianity. In the past decade, this demographic surge has started to spill out of Africa, as well as Asia and Latin America, in the form of missionaries to the West, a trend influencing everything from styles of worship...

December 24, 2009 This Christmas, 78% of Americans Identify as Christian Over time, fewer Americans identify as Christian; more have no religious identity by Frank NewportPRINCETON, NJ -- This Christmas season, 78% of Americans identify with some form of Christian religion, a proportion that has been declining in recent decades. The major reason for this decline has been an increase in the percentage of Americans claiming no religious identity, now at 13% of all adults.

"The sanctity of the Sabbath is of a higher value than the dollar," declared the protesters' banner. It was a wet Sunday in Aitutaki and I was looking at a bedraggled band of demonstrators outside the tiny airport. When the local airline decided to add a Sunday service to its normal schedule it may have anticipated some hostility. Most Polynesians have been devout Christians since the arrival of missionaries in the early 19th Century and on many islands Sunday is a special day. But on Aitutaki, as well as the airport protests, 1,300 people signed a petition against the flight....

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...