Free Republic

Ever since Eve bit into an apple in the Garden of Eden, God has been rough on women. Or, more precisely, the men who claim to speak on behalf of God have routinely disparaged women or discriminated against them. Male religious leaders declared menstruation ritually unclean and advised in Deuteronomy that when a girl doesn’t bleed on her wedding night “the men of her town shall stone her to death.”

This Sunday, Christians around the world will celebrate Easter. Some prefer to call it Resurrection Day. Now most Christians – whether nominal or serious – just accept the holiday without much thought. But if they would examine the claims, most Christians would be shocked. The basic premise behind Christianity is that humanity, and also by extension the universe, is flawed – the theological term is fallen – so flawed that there is no way any human could set himself right with a just, perfect, and holy Creator. If humanity is to be reconciled to the Creator, it must be the...

MAGDALA, Israel - If there’s a feminist figure from the Bible for the #MeToo era, it could very well be Mary Magdalene. The major character in the life of Jesus was long maligned in the West and portrayed as a reformed former prostitute. But scholars have adopted a different approach more recently, viewing her as a strong, independent woman who supported Jesus financially and spiritually. The New Testament tells how Jesus cast demons out of her. She then accompanied Jesus in his ministry around the Galilee, before witnessing his crucifixion, burial and resurrection in Jerusalem, which is being commemorated by...

"A foundational doctrine of feminism is an “anti-baby” creed which views children as a nuisance and hindrance to the modern woman’s pursuit of perceived personal happiness. Volumes could be written on the tragedy of feminism, the suffering it has caused millions of women, and its massive destructive cultural ramifications."The first weeks of March were some good days in “Trump World.” First came tariffs on steel and aluminum with plants expanding, establishment Republicans mad, labor unions praising Trump, globalists Cohn and Tillerson out, Navarro on the rise, North Korea pursuing peace, and McCabe finally fired. Then came the spending bill controversy....

National Public Radio, the taxpayer supported nationwide radio behemoth, has been forced to issue a correction that reveals an impressive level of ignorance on the fundamentals of Christianity. Rod Dreher caught the obliviousness of NPR’s staff and tweeted about the religious illiteracy and lack of newsroom diversity: NPR issued this embarrassing correction today. I assume will be no questioning within the NPR newsroom about its lack of religious literacy and religious diversity. pic.twitter.com/iIfh5YXu4b As of 2015, 75% of Americans claimed to identify with Christianity. Yet on Good Friday, the day on which Jesus died on the Cross, NPR revealed...

China's on track to contain the world's largest Christian population thanks to a surge in underground house churches and state-sanction places of worship, according to the Council of Foreign Relations. In a background document titled "Christianity in China," the CFR estimates of the number of Protestants at anywhere from 58 million to 115 million and higher — though fewer than 30 million attend officially registered churches. The CFR reported underground house churches exist parallel to state-sanctioned Christian churches, operating outside of the guidelines of the government, and their regulation by party authorities is largely determined by local leaders. According to...

In 1992, I learned the meaning of the Hebrew word “shachah.” 10 years earlier, I met my wife on an oil rig. I was a geologist, working on a well, she was an engineer. I had spent 11 years in college, going full time including summers, and never heard the message of the gospel. My parents, sister, and brothers were completely unchurched, and I actually did not know the meaning of Christmas or Easter, and certainly did not know who Jesus Christ was. I can’t say I was an atheist – I simply was a non-theist. So, when I met...

A CNN host on Wednesday confronted evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr., questioning where he would draw the line on his unwavering support for President Trump. "It doesn't give you any pause when you think about these women having the same stories and saying these things about the president, about his behavior?" CNN host Erin Burnett asked Falwell Jr., raising questions about adult-film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both of whom claim they had affairs with Trump. "And I really do believe that. I think he's had a change of heart. I think he's changed in the...

The theology program at the Jesuit-run College of the Holy Cross has taken on a new tone ever since the school appointed a gender-obsessed Chair of New Testament Studies who claims Jesus was a “drag king,” a new article contends. Writing for The Fenwick Review, Elinor Reilly of the Holy Cross class of 2018 argues in a March 26 article that Professor Tat-Siong Benny Liew’s “unconventional readings of Scripture” have brought “a new theological perspective to Holy Cross.”

The theology program at the Jesuit-run College of the Holy Cross has taken on a new tone ever since the school appointed a gender-obsessed Chair of New Testament Studies who claims Jesus was a “drag king,” a new article contends. Writing for The Fenwick Review, Elinor Reilly of the Holy Cross class of 2018 argues in a March 26 article that Professor Tat-Siong Benny Liew’s “unconventional readings of Scripture” have brought “a new theological perspective to Holy Cross.”

Dr. Willie Parker slowly and methodically dismembers babies for a living. Because he claims to do these evil acts in the name of Christian compassion, there are a lot of people who will never again be able to take Christianity seriously. That is the reason why the Mississippi State University (MSU) Gender Studies program recently hosted Parker’s lecture “Abortion and the Christian Case for Choice.” It was the perfect choice for feminist ideologues wishing to denigrate Christianity.Kimberly Kelly, Director of Gender Studies at MSU was quoted in the March 6, 2018 edition of The Reflector as saying, “abortion (is) critical...

There have been increasing signs of a real and sustained revival of Christian-themed enthusiasm in Europe, hardly reported and barely noticed in press across the pond. By John D. Martin Since the 2007 publication of Philip Jenkin’s “God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis,” observers of religious trends in European culture have been keeping a close eye on developments that might validate his sanguine view that Europe could see a revival in Christian belief. Richard J. Neuhaus, in his review of it in First Things at the time, thought the view was “too roseate.”That was then. In the ten...

So, does the Left hate Christianity?  There have been a more than a few disconcerting moments from the news media and others, where they’ve attacked people’s faiths. You had The View’s Joy Behar mocking Vice President Mike Pence’s faith, saying he was mentally ill in February. Behar apologized to Pence personally, which we only found out through an ABC shareholders meeting earlier this month. Pence accepted the apology, but wanted a public one as well. On March 13, Behar publicly apologized (via WaPo): “I think Vice President Pence is right; I was raised to respect everyone’s religious faith, and I...

American Pastor Andrew Brunson has now been officially charged, facing what amounts to life in prison, as his trial begins in just weeks. Yesterday, in yet another turn of events, a Turkish court approved an indictment that the Turkish prosecutor apparently turned in last week, even after denying doing so. Since the indictment has been approved, the prosecution phase of the case will now begin. After almost a year and a half in prison, Pastor Andrew has his first court date set for April 16, 2018. The case file is now finally open, and by the end of the week,...

As history demonstrates, in France as elsewhere, the Church is always rising from the dead because the gates of Hell cannot prevail against her... It’s not that secularism is dead...It isn’t (like the poor it is always with us). It is simply that it does not have the power to defeat the forces of Christendom... “A few years ago,” Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, “I started to realize something. Whenever I was less than five minutes early for Mass, I had to go to the overflow room, and I would typically have to step over people sitting on the floor to get there....

When the Dennis Quaid starring movie I CAN ONLY IMAGINE released last weekend, few thought that it would gross $17 million in its opening weekend, with a per-screen average of $10,400. Considering the movie had a production budget of $7 million, this is an outstanding return no matter how you slice it. In comparison, 21st Century Fox’s LGBT teen romance movie which opened in 800 more theaters than I CAN ONLY IMAGINE grossed only $11 million with a per-screen average of $4,700. It also beat out Disney’s A WRINKLE IN TIME in its second weekend, which only brought in $16...

“I should be dead. Buried in an unmarked grave in Romania. Obviously, I am not. God had other plans.” So declares a lady who grew up under Communism. Her name is Virginia Prodan. I had not heard of her until she reached out to me through Facebook---to commend me for a recent column I had written about how Communism, despite its deadly track record, seems to be gaining some support among the young and naïve of the West. I have come to learn her story, to read her book, and to interview her on the radio. She has an important...

By Philip Cottraux Stephen Hawking passed away at the age of 76 this week. A theoretical physicist, professor of mathematics at Cambridge University (a position once held by Isaac Newton), and author of the best-selling book A Brief History of Time, he was a legend in the scientific community. When Hawking spoke, the world listened. At one time, he seemed to be ambiguously deist (open to the possibility of God, but not as a loving Creator). But by the end, he was a devout atheist. In light of his death, the media has proudly displayed some of his most notorious...

How do you get saved? Notice in Romans 10:10 you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth. So, unless you followed that process you are not saved. Notice, that word confess means to say the same thing. So, you have to believe something from the word and say it to be saved. But, not just saved as in born again because that word saved if you look in the Strong's Concordance means healing, deliverance, preservation, do well. Notice, all those things are connected to your mouth(words). And The Bible shows that for Proverbs 12:6&18 says, "The mouth of...

C.S. Lewis once discussed the question of how angels (and such things) could pass through a wall. His response was intriguing: he suggested that they could do so not because they were less substantial, but because they were more substantial. Just as a rock is more substantial than water or air, so, he posited, an angel (or such) is more substantial than our materiality. Of course, this is completely arguable and unprovable. But it is a useful image for thinking about another aspect of reality, that which the Church describes as “mystery.” Our tendency in thinking about anything we do...