Free Republic

Unintended Consequences: How the “relevant” church and segregating youth is killing Christianity. I recently spent six-months doing a rotation as a hospital chaplain. One day I received a page (Yes, hospitals actually still use pagers). Chaplains are generally called to the rooms of people who look ill: People gray with kidney disease, or yellow with liver failure, discouraged amputees, nervous cancer patients. In this room, however, was a strikingly attractive 23 year-old young lady sitting up cheerfully in the hospital bed, holding her infant daughter and chatting with family and friends. Confused, I stepped outside and asked her nurse, “Why...

Fun times at the Immanuel Baptist Church of Skiatook, Oklahoma. Recent video shows pastor Jim Standridge throwing what can only be described as an uncomfortably epic hissy-fit upon discovering one of his younger churchgoers had fallen asleep during his sermon. “Don’t you go to sleep while I’m talking?” Standridge said from his pulpit, looking directly at the snoozing churchgoer. “Hey! Hey! Don’t you lay your head back!” “I’m important. I’m somebody,” the pastor continued as he stepped down from the pulpit and walked directly over to the unidentified sleepy male. “You may do your English teacher that way, but I’m...

Fans of baroque church design are sometimes accused of snobbery. Yet after readers peruse this kaleidoscope of ugly houses of worship, you will likely have a little more sympathy for the stodgy. Not only are these artistic innovations ugly, but also bizarre, weird, dumb, and gross. These holy train wrecks come to you from Monroe, Ohio to Uvari, India. Gaze upon these Catholic chapels and cathedrals, nondenominational megachurches, Baptist buildings, and even one mosque for good measure.

The Obama Internal Revenue Service targeted several Christian groups including a 180 year-old Baptist paper. The Obama IRS targeted Christian groups including Franklin Graham and the 180 year-old Biblical Recorder. The Obama IRS implemented a program to infiltrate and target conservative, evangelical Christian churches. ... The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief organization, were both targeted by the Obama IRS.

On Thursday the Examiner provided an exclusive report indicating that the Obama administration had implemented a covert program beginning in 2009 that was intended to spy on conservative, evangelical Christian churches. That program involved infiltration -- sending in government operatives to join churches for the purpose of data collection. The government snoops would keep their eyes and ears open for criticism of the Obama administration, talk of Tea Party participation, conversations about gun ownership, and a number of other issues. But a special report issued today by Fox News indicates that the program went far beyond infiltration and snooping. The...

Liberal Christians have much that you can teach us conservatives. Your passion for loving thy neighbor is admirable. But, I’ve got a few questions for you: 1. Have you let the culture influence you rather than the other way around? If so, how is that biblical? 2. Are you offering a message of hope and forgiveness (from the pulpit) through repentance and faith to those who may have strayed—on these issues: Adultery, Homosexuality, and Abortion? Remember, there are two sides to sin—the sin itself, and the recovery and healing. 3. Do you care about the TRUTH of homosexuality (or just...

If you've ever had the great fortune of seeing the entrance to a mosque, you'll have noticed that there are two doors: one, the main, huge, is for men, another, small and lateral, for women (as in the picture below of the East London Mosque). Apparently we need "right-wing groups" now in England to protest sexism, because the Left totally condones it. The recently-formed England National Resistance (ENR) felt outraged that the North West Kent Muslim Association’s mosque in Crayford High Street has separate entrances for men and women. Particularly offensive is the fact that this was once a church,...

For the Rev. Ernest Easley, the decision to cut ties with the Boy Scouts was simple. The Bible says homosexuality is a sin. The Boy Scouts do not. “We are not willing to compromise God’s word,” said Easley, pastor of the 2,300-member Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., which has sponsored Boy Scout Troop 204 since 1945. Easley, chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee, said his church will shut down its troop at end of the year because of a recently adopted policy to allow openly gay scouts. He’s urging other Baptists to do the same. Roswell...

Leave Boy Scouts, pastor advises parents Posted on May 28, 2013 | by Art Toalston MARIETTA, Ga. (BP) -- Parents of Boy Scouts should remove their children from the organization, Atlanta-area pastor Ernest Easley advised in his Sunday sermon. Troop 204's affiliation with Roswell Street Baptist Church also will end, Easley said. "I never dreamed I'd have to stand up publicly and say to parents: Pull your kids out of the Boy Scouts," Easley told Baptist Press May 28. "If you would have asked me that five years ago, 10 years ago, I would have laughed," Easley said. "And even...

This is a request for information assistance. Last night, I received a disturbing email from a longtime friend and pastor from my hometown church, which is breaking from the corrupt, mainline Presbyterian Church (USA), like many others are doing. Apparently PC (USA) has asked the congregation for an exorbitant sum of money, and is threatening the church manse and other property in an effort to force the congregation back into the corrupted fold. I've been out of the Presbyterian loop for a while but want to help, and so I'm wondering if anyone has any specific information about what is...

Earlier this month news reports surfaced out of Saudi Arabia that raised the red flag for Christians, reports MNN. Todd Nettleton, a spokesman for the Voice of the Martyrs USA, says, "The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia--the top Islamic official in the country of Saudi Arabia--has declared that it is "necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.'" Nettleton goes on to note that the report hasn't surfaced anywhere except on the Council on Foreign Relations Web site, which was then picked up by The Atlantic. Ranked second on the Open Doors World Watch List (a compilation of the...

This is our heritage. This is what they want us to toss into the garbage.

Within moments of Pope Benedict’s announcement that he was abdicating the Chair of St. Peter, secularists began demanding that the College of Cardinals choose a less rigid, more progressive pontiff; in other words, a pope who would repudiate Church teachings on chastity, same-sex “marriage,� divorce, contraception, abortion, and priestly celibacy.Leading the charge was The New York Times, which devoted plenty of front page, above-the-fold space to castigating the Church and Benedict. The op-ed editor published, ad nauseam, the usual tired-old Catholic critics, including Garry Wills and Hans Küng.And the moment secularists realized that Pope Francis is not a South American liberation theologian, but...

Indonesian city officials destroyed a Christian church in front of its weeping congregation. Muslims stood around and egged on the destruction. ... Muslim protesters egged on workers and branded the Christians “infidels”. Dozens in the 100-strong congregation wailed as a digger tore down the brick walls, with worshippers accusing the government of “criminalising our religion”, in a sign of increasing intolerance in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. “My heart is aching and I feel numb watching my church collapse. I went to this church for 11 years,” worshipper Megarenta Sihite, 46, told AFP, wiping away tears as fellow worshippers, dressed...

In Germany, architecture is being "de-Christianized". Entire new neighbourhoods and urban areas are being built without a church in them: churches are just not planned in the projects, as if nobody even thought of them. The German Catholic news site Kreuz reports on this phenomenon with examples from an article by architecture critic Dankwart Guratzsch in the daily Die Welt. In Stuttgart, a large new district was built for 12,000 residents without a church. In Hamburg, another new neighbourhood for 12,000 residents was created without a church. Not only that: to realize this project, 19 churches were closed down, probably...

Three Wilmington churches were struck by graffiti vandals early Saturday morning, police said. The vandals stenciled the words "brain washed" on statues, exterior walls, doors and stairs, according to the Rev. Philip Early, pastor of Saint Thomas of Villinova and Saint Dorothy's Catholic churches. A nearby Congregational church was also damaged. Early said, "Acting out accomplishes nothing." The graffiti was discovered early Saturday morning as several funerals were about to get underway.

<p>Crumbling and abandoned, the last remnants of Russia's wooden churches lay dotted in the woodlands of the country's north-western corner.</p> <p>Forgotten by many and in the process of being reclaimed by nature, the few remaining churches are exposed to the harsh elements without any hope of being salvaged.</p>

The White House and the nation’s most prominent charities are embroiled in a tense, behind-the-scenes debate over President Obama’s push to scale back the nearly century-old tax deduction on donations that the charities say is crucial for their financial health. In a series of recent meetings and calls, top White House aides have pressed nonprofit groups to line up behind the president’s plan for reducing the federal deficit and averting the year-end “fiscal cliff,” according to people familiar with the talks. In part, the White House is seeking to win the support of nonprofit groups for Obama’s central demand that...

The city of New York continues to seek eviction of churches meeting for worship services in public school buildings on weekends, even after many of the congregations have ministered to the communities in which they meet in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose administration has also come under fire for banning food donations to homeless shelters, has not intervened to stop his Board of Education’s ongoing efforts to oust the churches. “Churches that have been helping communities for years should be allowed to continue to offer the hope that empty buildings can’t,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior...

Six churches in Buffalo were the target of a rock-throwing rampage and inflammatory messages about homosexuality regarding religion and sexual orientation. Police have arrested a 30-year-old man who said he hurled rocks and left offensive messages about homosexuality at several churches in one west metro community due to "his anger with God." Police in Buffalo say doors and windows were broken with rocks between noon and 3 p.m. Monday at four church buildings -- St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Seventh-day Adventist, Hosanna Lutheran (Missouri Synod) and Buffalo United Methodist. Posters with inflammatory messages dealing with religion and sexual orientation were...

More than 1,000 pastors will challenge the IRS on October 7 by preaching sermons that present biblical perspectives on the positions of electoral candidates. In so doing, they will exercise their constitutionally protected freedom to engage in religious expression from the pulpit despite an Internal Revenue Service rule known as the Johnson Amendment that activist groups often use to silence churches by threatening their tax-exempt status.Groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State have taken advantage of the vagueness of the tax law and have reported churches to the IRS in an attempt to remove their tax-exempt...

A local church will close its doors after a final worship service on Sept. 30, less than two years away from its 100th anniversary. Oakland Presbyterian will join at least 28 other mainline protestant churches that have been disbanded or consolidated in Clark County since 1980, according to data from the Association of Religious Data Archives. The loss of mainline protestant congregations in Clark County mirrors trends at the national level, where rolls dropped by more than 7 million members between 1980 and 2010. Gloria Sesslar has been a member of the Oakland congregation since 1980. She said many current...

Gunmen have attacked a church and killed at least 19 people including the pastor in central Nigeria. Armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, the assailants stormed the church in Kogi state, near the city of Okene, during a service. ... The attack comes amid a growing insurgency by the Islamist group Boko Haram in the north of Nigeria, which has targeted churches, schools, police stations and state institutions. The latest assault surprised security forces because Otite is in the south. The group wants Sharia law imposed

Jim Garlow is the pastor of a large Methodist Church in La Mesa, California. On October 7th, just weeks before the 2012 presidential elections, he plans to endorse a presidential candidate (and maybe congressional candidates) from the pulpit. While I cannot confirm that he will endorse Mitt Romney, I can confirm that he was an advisor to former Speaker Newt Gingrich. An initiative known as Pulpit Freedom Sunday began on a Sunday morning in October 2008, and has continued on that same Sunday each year since. In June, Garlow began meeting with other pastors across America to encourage them to...

I just listened to Bill O'Reilly discuss Michelle Obama's comment that "there is no place better than church to talk politics." My first thought was to agree with the First Lady and to ask why she doesn't do something about her Democrat party which believes the First Amendment's so-called "separation" of church and state means, among other things, that churches cannot take a political stance. The IRS disallows politics in the pulpits and pews across America. Why? Because some Americans oppose tax-exempt faith-based-religions and find it distasteful when they are forced to fund a politically religious ideology. It is necessary...

Christians in India's semi-autonomous province of Aceh faced a tense Sunday, July 1, after local authorities ordered the demolition of 20 churches. Razali Abdul Rahman, the acting regent of Aceh Singkil Regency in Aceh, signed the letter already on April 30, but details recently emerged. He ordered the closure of 17 Protestant churches, two Catholic churches and one place of worship belonging to followers of a local nondenominational faith... Rights activists said the announcement came after 16 smaller Christian places of worship were recently closed in the same district. Rahman ordered members of the targeted congregations "to tear down" the...

  Empty Churches – Where Should We Draw The Line? May 9th, 2012by Gary Zimak.  “Religion is popular only when it ceases to be truly religious. Religion by its very nature is unpopular – certainly unpopular with the ego.” (Archbishop Fulton J Sheen)Recently, an interesting article was brought to my attention. Appearing in The Morning Call (Allentown, PA), the point was raised that organized religion was on the decline throughout the area. More and more, organized religion is coming under attack, as evidenced by the recent YouTube video “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus”. While the idea of individuals...

Pastors and Christian ministry leaders have a high calling to preach the truth from the Word of God. Speaking the truth is essential all the time but it is especially important to do so when we elect leaders who will make law and policy that affect our faith, our families and our freedom. There is an ongoing struggle for the soul of America. Many people look to pastors and Christian ministry leaders for guidance on important moral and social issues.

Imagine if Pat Robertson called for the demolition of all the mosques in America. It would be front-page news. It would be on every network and cable-news program. There would be a demand for Christians to denounce him, and denounce him they would — in the harshest terms. The president of the United States and other world leaders would weigh in, too. Rightly so. So why is it that when Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al al-Sheikh, the grand mufti of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, declares that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches in the Arabian Peninsula,” the major...

That is what is contained in the 2 Nephi 26-30, the section of the Book of Mormon that will be studied this Sunday in the LDS Church. This critique is set in the context of its supposed prophecy of Joseph Smith finding and translating the Book of Mormon. These chapters contain quite a few condemnations of Christian churches. One that is emphasized and the one that I will be focusing on is its condemnation of the position held today by millions of Christians that the Bible alone is God’s revealed Word. Following are a couple of quotes from these chapters...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (BP) -- Religious leaders in Maryland say citizens will get the final say on a gay "marriage" bill that is set to become law -- with churches playing a critical role in possibly overturning it. The Maryland Senate passed a bill Thursday (Feb. 23) by a vote of 25-22 that would redefine marriage, less than a week after the House of Delegates approved the same bill, 72-67. Democrats control both chambers, and Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley -- who endorsed the bill in his State of the State address -- is expected to sign it. Maryland is but the...

The information in this section comes largely from The Urban Character of Christian Worship, by Rev. John Baldovin, S.J. Footnotes refer to the pages in his text where further information can be found.Station Churches 2012 Each year, the North American College follows the ancient tradition of the Roman stational liturgy. All are invited to join us for the celebration of Mass each day. Using the side bar on the left, you will find the schedule and listing of the churches. Each page contains a short description and history of each church. At the bottom of each page, you will find...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The nation's largest protestant denomination will definitely remain "Baptist," but leaders are thinking about whether it will be "Southern" for much longer.

Although the New York State Senate has passed an amendment that would reverse the New York City Board of Education and Mayor Michael Bloomberg's decision to evict nearly 70 churches from the public school spaces they have been renting, many of them for years, most of these congregations are already packed up and prepared for an exodus as the deadline for departure is this Sunday, Feb. 12. The state Senate overwhelmingly voted Monday 52-7 in favor of Bill A8800A/S.6087A but the NY State Assembly also has to approve its own version of the bill to successfully block the City and...

Because of a court’s ruling against one particular small church in the Bronx, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has now decreed that come February 12, 2012, all churches and fellowships meeting in public schools – 160 in total - have to be evicted. This terrible decision against religious freedom could impact the souls of thousands of people in New York City. And if this precedent is allowed to stand, the cancer could spread to other cities as well. These churches generally have great relationships with the community. They provide services and revenue for the city. But it seems that is trumped by...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Sir, I would ask that you would reconsider your decision to evict the houses of worship from public schools in New York City. Do you have any idea of what is going on in your city – let alone the rest of the country? This is not the time to be evicting churches, the lifeline of worship and hope, from the people of your community. Are you deliberately trying to sabotage your own community and increase the crime? Why would you take away something positive, that brings money into your system, when you have nothing to replace...

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has offered the Palestinians a powerful tool of propaganda: the comparison with Jesus’ passion. “We are to be freshly attentive to the needs of those who, like Jesus himself, are displaced and in discomfort”, Archbishop Vincent Nichols said during his Christmas Mass sermon at Westminster Cathedral. “A shadow falls particularly heavily on the town of Bethlehem tonight … We pray for them tonight”. It would have been more in keeping with Nicholas’ mission to mention hundreds of Christians losing their lives to Islamic terrorism and oppressed by Palestinian Muslim...

A drastic exodus from the church is underway in the Netherlands. With two churches shuttered each week, one man has become the country's top advisor on how to repurpose the once holy buildings. Some are demolished, while others find new life as mosques, stores and even recreation centers. The church pews will be sold according to size. The shortest ones, at 3.6 meters (12 feet) long, can be purchased for €40 ($52), the longer six-meter pews for €60. Churchgoers in the Dutch town of Bilthoven have already carried 17 pews out of their sanctuary. The pews will not be a...

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County, California is buying Robert Schuller's celebrated Protestant Crystal Cathedral megachurch for $57.5 million, the LA Times reports. The spacious, light-filled house of worship is a "a monument of 20th century modernist architecture," the Times writes.

An Orange County bankruptcy judge ruled Thursday that the Crystal Cathedral, a monument to modernism in faith and architecture, will be sold for $57.5 million to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, which plans to consecrate it as a Catholic cathedral. The ruling was a blow to Chapman University, which had fought bitterly down to the final moments of the bankruptcy case for the right to buy the property as a satellite campus. It also marked the end of a remarkable chapter in the history of American Christianity, one that was written in glass and steel by the Crystal Cathedral's...

Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, MD has penned an interesting Op-ed on the respective church communities of President Obama and Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain. Both worship--worshipped in the case of the President--in a predominantly black church. [quote] Like President Obama, Mr. Cain belongs to a mostly black congregation with a black pastor. But that is where the similarities end. Stark differences between the political philosophies of these two men may be rooted in their profoundly different theological heritages. The churches both men are (or in the case of Mr. Obama, were) longtime members of are...

Pulpit Freedom Sunday, sponsored by the Allied Defense Fund is in its fourth year.   This year has seen participation up nearly five times as many participants as last year's total of 100 pastors.  Pulpit Freedom Sunday is a demonstration, of sorts, and a test of freedom of religion as an IRS law says pastors endorsing political candidates from the pulpit can mean forfeiture of their 501(c)(3) tax exempt status.   Forbes reports: The 1954 version of the Internal Revenue Code added restrictions on 501(c)(3) organizations such as churches so they couldn’t participate in political campaigns.   For many of us who grew...

Nairobi (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Chinese companies are building churches in Africa for all the various Christian denominations, taking over a job in the past occupied by Europe, and more recently by U.S. companies. At the Basilica of the Holy Family in Nairobi, for example, the Zhongxing Construction company is building a new building for the offices of the archdiocese of Nairobi. "We worked with them previously, and we had a positive experience. We held a public competition, and they presented the best offer," said an official of the diocese. In the past, countries that sent missionaries to Africa also...

A new faith coalition out in Cleveland, Ohio, raises some interesting questions about the intermingling of organized religion and leftist politics. The founding of the Greater Cleveland Congregations (GCC), a group that describes itself as “a non-partisan coalition of faith communities and partner organizations in Cuyahoga County working together to build power for social justice,” claims that its focus is uniting the masses to improve local neighborhoods. While many would see this as a worthy endeavor, others — mainly those with fears about the use of faith to progress the liberal agenda — are questioning the GCC’s motivations. The central...

A member of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s government is calling for a ban on marriages at Christian churches if they refuse to also perform same-sex unions. “As long as religious groups can refuse to preside over ceremonies for same-sex couples, there will be inequality,” wrote Mike Weatherley, the Conservative MP for Hove and Portslade, in an August 21 letter to Cameron. While Weatherley’s proposal is currently a “minority view,” it “could quickly become a main stream point of view,” warned Neil Addison, national director of the U.K.‘s Thomas More Legal Centre. The U.K.‘s 2004 Civil Partnership Act, which legalized...

We ask all who read these words to keep the parish family of St. Andrew, Los Angeles, CA in their prayers during these difficult days. In the early morning hours of 15 August, an intruder broke into the parish Church and desecrated the Holy Altar, Tabernacle, Iconography and the entire altar and sacristy area. The most devastating aspect of this horrendous crime was the scattering of the Reserve Sacrament on the floor among and beneath the various altar crosses, candles and vestments strewn throughout the church. The Holy Altar itself was pulled from its foundation and dragged through the Royal...

Destruction, 1931-1990The site of the Cathedral is a very important one for urban developers. After the revolution this, along with ideological principles, became the reason for the decision to destroy the Cathedral. The plan entailed constructing a grandiose Palace of Soviets on the site of the Cathedral. This palace was meant to be the largest building in the world - a monument to victorious socialism and Lenin - the leader of the world proletariat. A new Moscow, with no vestiges of the "cursed past and its' monuments" was to arise around this Palace. A massive wave of propaganda preceded the...

Scroll down on the Divinely Designed Church entry for this bonus entry: Stephen Huneck’s Dog Chapel, complete with statue of a man walking his dog After his dogs (and loving wife!) helped him recover from a serious illness that doctors thought would kill him, artist Stephen Huneck decided to build a chapel in honor man’s best friend. Huneck built the dog chapel on his mountain-top farm in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Inside, there are four pews with dog sculptures, a fantastic dog stained-glass window and other interesting dog-themed arts.

  Antivirus − Not for Computers, for Ourselves David C. Stolinsky Aug. 22, 2011 Viruses infect computers and cause serious harm. But some viruses attack not computers but human minds. They do similar damage – they interfere with information processing, corrupt memory, and ultimately may cause a crash. The WeShrinkEm Virus. The “core” inflation rate understates real inflation, because it omits food and fuel − hardly an insignificant omission. But beyond this, it omits shrinking value. Paper towels now come in a “Big Roll,” which is half the size of the old roll. A laundry detergent became watery, then...

Edged out by corn dogs and chocolate-dipped bacon, one of the few remaining church dining halls at the fairgrounds is calling it quits. File this one under E, for End-of-an-Era. Or at least the beginning of the end. When the State Fair opens for its 148th year next Thursday, it's going to be the last season for the Epiphany Diner. The landmark dining hall, operated by the Church of the Epiphany in Coon Rapids and one of the fair's three remaining church-run operations, is closing up shop after this year's fair. Its space will be used for tasting Minnesota wines....