Free Republic

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples. “We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says. The manifesto, to be released on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, is an...

More than 150 leaders across a spectrum of conservative Christianity on Friday released a 4,700-word document vowing civil disobedience if they are forced to take part in "anti-life acts" or bless gay marriages. Called the "Manhattan Declaration," the six-page, single-spaced document was drafted by Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson, an evangelical, and Princeton University professor Robert P. George, a Roman Catholic, and included a bevy of Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox bishops, archbishops and cardinals as signatories along with dozens of clergy and laity. Archbishop of Washington Donald W. Wuerl is one of the signatories. "Throughout the centuries, Christianity has taught...

www.catholicnewsagency.com Unprecedented coalition of religious leaders call Americans to stand for sanctity of life, marriage, and religious freedom Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2009 / 06:21 am (CNA).- An unprecedented coalition of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars has crafted a 4,700-word declaration addressing the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. The declaration issues “a clarion call” to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not “under any circumstance” abandon their Christian consciences. The statement,  called “the Manhattan Declaration,” has been signed by more than 125 Catholic, Evangelical Christian, and Orthodox...

A landmark book about intelligent design has hit the bookstore shelves. I’ll tell you about it. In recent years, there have been several important books about intelligent design that go to the debate about evolution and the origins of life. Bill Dembski’s The Design Inference was first. Then along came Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe, showing the irreducible complexity of the cell, which casts grave doubts on Darwinian evolution as an explanation for life and higher life forms. Now we’ve got Signature in the Cell by the Discovery Institute’s Dr. Stephen Meyer. I’m going to warn you up front:...

Chuck Colson has spent a lifetime atoning for his involvement in the Watergate cover-up. The founder of Prison Fellowship has spent more than three decades working with prisoners in more than 100 countries, and he has mentored generations of conservative Evangelical leaders. This month he launched the Chuck Colson Center, an online research and education center that he calls "the Lexis-Nexis of resources on the Christian worldview." The last of the original religious-right leaders still actively engaged with the movement, Colson spoke with TIME about his latest endeavor, why he thinks churches have failed society and the biggest mistake the...

As more states—like Iowa—approve same-sex “marriage,” conservatives are claiming that freedom of religion is in peril. Same-sex “marriage” supporters accuse them of engaging in hysterical gay-bating. Who’s telling the truth? Let me share some stories with you from an excellent news broadcast produced by National Public Radio. Then you decide. Two women decided to hold their civil union ceremony at a New Jersey pavilion owned by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. This Methodist group told the women they could not “marry” in any building used for religious purposes. The Rev. Scott Hoffman said a theological principle—that marriage can only...

As I’ve said before on BreakPoint, the Obama administration is planning to revoke the Bush-era “conscience clause” that protects health-care workers from having to perform procedures that violate their conscience—procedures like abortion.A leading post-modern scholar, Professor Stanley Fish, defended Obama’s stance recently in the New York Times. Fish’s reasoning should disturb anyone who believes that human rights come from a higher source than government. Fish’s argument relies on 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. To Hobbes’s, “the Law is the public Conscience” and must take precedence over the judgments of an individual’s “private Conscience” so that government can maintain order.Fish...

Before a backdrop of soaring stained glass and the 6,000 gleaming pipes of a Ruffatti pipe organ, Tullian Tchividjian on March 15 preached one of the pivotal sermons of his life. Tchividjian, 36, pastor of New City Presbyterian Church in Margate, Fla., was preaching 12 miles down the road in Fort Lauderdale. The occasion: Tchividjian's nomination to succeed D. James Kennedy as senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. There had been some dissent in the congregation over who would fill Kennedy's sizable shoes. Kennedy founded the church in 1959 and pastored it for 47 years. In 1974, he launched...

Editor's note: Charles W. Colson, a former aide to President Nixon, is the founder of Prison Fellowship, the world's largest Christian outreach to prisoners. President Bush this week acknowledged Colson's work among prisoners, awarding him the Presidential Citizens Medal. Colson was imprisoned for obstruction of justice in the attempt to smear Daniel Ellsberg, who disclosed the secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- If anyone knows how Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich feels right now, I do. On Tuesday, the governor was arrested in a glare of publicity and charged with going on "a...

More than 3,000 people, including longtime Mormon critic James Dobson of Focus on the Family, have signed an online petition thanking the LDS Church for its efforts on behalf of California's traditional marriage initiative known as Proposition 8. "Anyone who participated in this process has come to admire the competence, diligence and moral courage that so many members of your faith community displayed as part of this coalition effort -- as Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons and people of other faith communities all came together to fight this great battle for marriage," says the petition, which is addressed to LDS President Thomas...

Adding Insult to Injury: Africa, AIDS, and Victim-Blaming By Chuck Colson 9/5/2008 Approximately 30 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are thought to be infected with the HIV virus. Unlike the West, from the start, HIV/AIDS in Africa has ravaged the non-drug-using heterosexual population. Let me put it this way: People whose Western counterparts are not at risk for HIV/AIDS have been the epidemic’s principal victims in Africa. Why? This has prompted many people to blame the victims in ways that played on the worst racial stereotypes and prejudices: Researchers and experts argued that “Africans were simply incapable of being anything...

Solzhenitsyn's Warning The faculty of Harvard University admired Alexandr Solzhenitsyn for his literary achievements, so they were thrilled that he agreed to deliver the university’s 1978 commencement address. But almost as soon as he began to speak, the professors changed their minds: too late. As I wrote this month in Christianity Today, they realized that Solzhenitsyn was charging them with complicity in the West’s surrender to liberal secularism, the abandonment of its Christian heritage, and of all the moral horrors that followed. For example, describing the Western worldview as “rationalistic humanism,” Solzhenitsyn decried the loss of “our concept of...

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....