Free Republic

Billionaire, former mutual fund manager, Sir John M. Templeton has died. Templeton ran some of the most successful mutual funds during the initial boom years for mutual funds. In 1939, when World War II began in Europe and the stock market was at record lows, Templeton borrowed $10,000 and bought 100 shares each in 104 companies that were selling at $1 a share or less, including 34 in bankruptcy. A few years later, he made large profits on 100 of the companies; four turned out to be worthless. Templeton renounced his American citizenship in the 1960's and moved to the...

In early June, the German television network ARD aired a film called GOD AND THE WORLD: THE PERSECUTED CHILDREN OF GOD. The “children” referred to are Iraq’s largest Christian community: the Assyrians. While any attention to the plight of Iraqi Christians is welcome, I only wish that the film could have aired in the country that is in the best position to help them: the United States. The film tells the story of the suffering and persecution endured by Assyrian Christians through interviews with Christian refugees - or “internally displaced persons,” as bureaucrats call them - who escaped the most...

NEWTON(AP) — State officials say they will end a Bible-based treatment program at Newton prison that has been the subject of a five-year court battle. The Iowa Department of Corrections has notified Prison Fellowship Ministries in Virginia that the program, called the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, will end by mid-March, prison spokesman Fred Scaletta said in a copyright story in The Des Moines Register. Prison Fellowship sponsored a Christianity-based values program for inmates. It had a three-year state contract that ended in June. Prison officials had granted the organization a one-year extension with donations covering the expenses. A provision in the...

In his World Peace Day message, Pope Benedict XVI included caring for the environment as an important part of promoting peace. Nothing controversial about that—environmental degradation has often led to conflict over resources. What was controversial was the Pope’s speaking about environmental issues as if the Christian worldview were true. Benedict told his audience that “respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man.” This statement should not have been controversial or even noteworthy. As Frank Furedi of the British magazine spiked pointed out, the fact that the Pope “felt it was necessary to...

One of the biggest obstacles facing what’s called the “New Atheism” is the issue of morality. Writers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have to convince people that morals and values are possible in a society that does not believe in God. It’s important to understand what is not in doubt: whether an individual atheist or agnostic can be a “good” person. Of course they can, just as a professing Christian can do bad things. The issue is whether the secular worldview can provide a basis for a good society. Can it motivate and inspire people to be...

If you can not join us, please pray for Ramos and Compean this Sunday Morning* 'The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Join Ramos and Compean supporters this Sunday, January 6th at a rally in front of the Lake Forest, Saddleback Church http://www.saddleback.com/flash/default.htm Featured speaker at Saddleback Church this Sunday will be Chuck Colson, former White House Counsel - a key player during the Watergate scandal. Today, he is a religious talk show host and guest lecturer. The Lake Forest Saddleback Church is one of the largest in Southern California - thousands of church goers will see...

The cover story of Sunday’s New York Times Magazine pronounced the demise of the religious right in America. The ranks are demoralized, split, and liberal evangelicals are taking over with a new agenda for the environment and the poor. On the editorial page, the acerbic Frank Rich coordinated his column with the magazine, concluding, “Inauguration Day 2009 is at the very least Armageddon for the reigning ayatollahs of the American right.” Wow! Just three years ago the press touted conservative evangelicals as the most powerful voting block in America. What happened? Nothing. The press is up to its old tricks....

In H. G. Wells’s novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, the survivor of a shipwreck lands on an island in the South Pacific. There he discovers that the island’s owner has been creating human-animal hybrids. Wells’s novel grew out of his revulsion at what people were doing to animals. Today, the real source of horror is what man is doing to himself. Wells’s villain used surgery to create his monsters and had to flee civilization to pursue his inhuman goals. Today’s would-be Dr. Moreaus not only have a much more powerful tool—genetic engineering—but they also have their government’s official blessing....

Every time you turn around, a presidential candidate whips out his Bible—or a position paper—to let us know how faithful he or she is. Senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) says God "would be happy with the fact that" he's focused on people without health care. Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) says we should "discuss religion . . . in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another." Republicans, also, are quick to point out how faith informs their policies.

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...

I have what some might consider the macabre habit of reading the casualty reports from Iraq every day in the New York Times. This may reflect the fact that I served in the military or that I worked in the White House during Vietnam. But there’s one name that hasn’t yet appeared in the casualty reports: the name of General Peter Pace, the first Marine—and I say this with pride as a former Marine—to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Why am I looking for Pace’s name on the casualty list? His distinguished military career was recently...

I was dismayed a while back when I learned that a Barna survey found that “less than one out of every ten churched teenagers has a biblical worldview.” But a survey is just that, a survey. Things couldn’t be that bad, could they? Well, I recently heard a shocking story that vividly illustrates just how far relativism has infected the Church—to the point where Christian kids balk at the idea that Christianity would claim to be, of all things, true. Four years ago, the BreakPoint staff and I launched Centurions, an intensive, year-long education program designed to equip 100 people...

The editorial cartoon appeared in the "Philadelphia Inquirer" in the wake of the Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The five Catholic justices who voted to uphold the ban are depicted wearing bishops' mitres. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is Jewish, is staring at them with a horrified look. So are the three Protestant justices. The cartoon's message was clear: The Catholics had voted, not to uphold the law, but to impose their personal religious views. It's a graphic example of anti-Catholic bigotry. The Philadelphia Inquirer was hardly alone. For instance, Geoffrey Stone, former dean of the...

"Freedom is everybody's business, your business, my business, the church's business and a man who will not use his freedom to defend his freedom, does not deserve his freedom." (Dr. Carl McIntire-preacher who lost radio station to "Fairness Doctrine" in 1973) Back in the 1970's this controversial radio preacher's right to free speech was championed by the National Association of Broadcasters and the Radio TV News Directors Association. The attack on Don Imus and his firing, along with Al Sharpton's moves to define what is "acceptable" on the airwaves brings back memories of the "Fairness Doctrine" Days" when "right-wing" radio...

When you hear the words crisis pregnancy, you probably picture an unmarried teenager, too young to deal with the trauma of sin’s unexpected consequences. But according to a study compiled by the National Institutes of Health, up to 60 percent of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, affecting three million women—and their families—every year. And these are not just teenagers. Picture the mother with a still-young infant and postpartum depression; or the family with three young children and a father who has just deployed to Iraq; or the parents nearing retirement and planning for their teenagers’ college funds....

Framing Your Worldview New Video Series by Chuck Colson and Rick Warren Christian leaders Chuck Colson and Rick Warren have joined together to produce a stimulating new study called Wide Angle: Framing Your Worldview Our worldview —the way we look at life—impacts everything we do. The moral choices we make; the way we spend our money; the kind of relationships we have; the priorities we set.

Imagine an American president addressing the United Nations and concluding his remarks by praying that God would hasten Christ’s return and unleash the apocalypse. What do you suppose public opinion would be? Well, something even scarier actually happened at the UN last week, and the world said... nothing. That’s because the president in question was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. At the end of his September 21 address to the General Assembly, he prayed that Allah would send “the perfect human being promised to all by you.” That “perfect human being” Ahmadinejad prayed for was the Mahdi, a Shiite messianic figure....

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...

Michael Schiavo has published a book titled "Terri: The Truth." It is about his well-known and, unfortunately, successful fight to end his wife’s life. Opening this book is like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole and ending up in a new and bizarre world. You don’t even have to turn to the first page—just look at the front cover, where Michael proclaims, “My two babies were threatened with death. I was condemned by the president, the majority leaders of the House and Senate, the governor of Florida, the pope, and the right-wing media. . . . I didn’t respond to their...

Before the time she was eight, Vivian Dobbs had both made the honor roll and been labeled an “imbecile” by the Supreme Court. The story of how this could happen is one of the darkest, most frequently overlooked chapters in American history—one that isn’t completely closed. Vivian’s mother was Carrie Buck, and her story is the subject of a new book, Better for All the World, by Harry Bruinius. In it, Bruinius tells “the secret history of forced sterilization and America’s quest for racial purity.” In 1920, when Carrie was thirteen, her mother was sent to the Virginia Colony for...