Free Republic

John Maynard Keynes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, "When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?" My favorite example of a change of mind was Norman Mailer at The Village Voice. Norman took on the role of drama critic, weighing in on the New York premiere of Waiting for Godot. Twentieth century's greatest play. Without bothering to go, Mailer called it a piece of garbage. When he did get around to seeing it, he realized his mistake. He was no longer a Voice columnist, however, so he bought a page in the...

Slavery still stalks the American consciousness, its wounds yet festering in many hearts. If Barack Obama were to set his mind to it, he could heal much of the damage this peculiar institution wrought on our national soul. This great and tragic error that must be given justice. Obama is the best person in the world who can recognize, remember and honor the deaths of 125 million and the enslavement of tens of millions of people. His unique qualifications can be found in his names. Until he was 20 years old, he went by the first name Barry. Then he...

Hollywood, Sep 1, 2008 / 08:51 pm (CNA).- The author of the dark thrillers "Basic Instinct", "Jagged Edge" and "Showgirls" is about to release a book unlike any script he has ever written. It is the story of his spiritual conversion from a party-lifestyle to one devoted to Christ and his family. In his book, "Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith", the former senior editor of the Rolling Stone, Joe Eszterhas, explains his conversion. Eszterhas grew up in refugee camps in Hungary during World War II before living in the back alleys of Cleveland. It was there that he worked as...

Article published Saturday, August 23, 2008 A HOLLYWOOD PLOT TWIST 'Basic Instinct' author writes book about faith Joe Eszterhas' latest book is a shocker, but not the kind that made him rich and famous. The upcoming release from the man who penned dark thrillers such as Basic Instinct and Jagged Edge tells the story of his spiritual conversion and his newfound devotion to God and family.

HEPWORTH: In the paragraph, "we accept the ministry of the Bishop of Rome" and the quote from Vatican II and from John Paul II's encyclical to the separated churches is sufficient indication that we are accepting contemporary statements of Catholic Doctrine and he explicitly made that statement ex cathedra. Secondly we signed the catechism of the Catholic Church which includes contemporary Catholic teaching on the papacy and we state in the letter we signed that we accepted this as the most perfect statement of Catholic faith in the world at the present time and that it is the faith we...

Mosab Hassan Yousef is an extraordinary young man with an extraordinary story. He was born the son of one of the most influential leaders of the militant Hamas organization in the West Bank and grew up in a strict Islamic family. Now, at 30 years old, he attends an evangelical Christian church, Barabbas Road in San Diego, Calif. He renounced his Muslim faith, left his family behind in Ramallah and is seeking asylum in the United States. The story of how his life unfolded is truly amazing, whether you agree or disagree with his views. Below is a transcript on...

The life of an Afghan Christian By Bill Connor Wednesday, July 16, 2008 During a two-week combat operation in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, I had the honor of befriending an Afghan Christian. As you will discover in his story, being a Christian in Afghanistan is quite dangerous and hard. To protect his identity I will call this man “Paul” to limit what he already faces on account of his faith. Interestingly, when I first arrived in Southern Afghanistan, some Afghan Muslims told me there were no Afghan Christians. That they sincerely believed this was quite telling about the numbers of Afghan...

<p>'Conversion' to Islam means they cannot be 'restored to their family of origin'</p> <p>A Pakistani judge has ruled two young girls from a Christian family who were reported kidnapped cannot be "restored to their family of origin' because they "converted" to Islam.</p>

Conversions to Judaism among African-Americans are growing in a way that could affect the presidential election. Atlanta - Like many of the growing numbers of Protestant blacks in America and Africa converting to Judaism, Elisheva Chaim grew up believing she had a "Jewish soul." As a black woman and a Baptist in the South, that was a peculiar, somewhat troubling realization. But when she turned her doubts about Christianity into a search for answers, the truth became evident: She had to go deeper than the Old Testament. She had to convert. "It's odd to see black people convert to Judaism,...

A cross-dressing Nazi racist has converted to ISLAM in jail because he's terrified of being killed in a revenge attack. Hitler fanatic Martyn Gilleard, 31, was caged for 16 years last month for possessing 39,000 sick child porn images - and making four nail bombs. The pervert, who kept pictures of himself in women's underwear, planned to target mosques or places where black and Asian people gathered. But now he has seen an imam at Wakefield Prison in West Yorkshire and says he has become a Muslim. A prison source said: "Gilleard was kicked into touch by far-right parties for...

There were two recent news items which had to do with Islam. The first seemed to indicate that Islam is in the ascendency, while the second gave a slightly different perspective. The first story involved a statement from the Vatican which said that for the first time, Muslims now outnumber Catholics. Muslims make up 19.2 per cent of the world’s population, compared to Catholics who make up 17.2 per cent. This is mainly due to demographics: Muslims tend to still have large families, while Catholics are having much smaller families. Of course if all Christians are considered together, they make...

After graduating from college, Lois left the US for another country. She was going to see that Dan was converted to Christ, no matter what. He had dated her off and on, arriving from his home abroad to her place for a day or two’s visit. He told her he loved her. She loved him. But she was a Christian. He was adamant in not being a Christian. She would see him saved. Yes, she would. It would be her mission. So she left her parents, home church and all that was familiar. At first she had nowhere to “camp...

he London Telegraph learned on Saturday evening that some senior conservative Church of England bishops have been in Rome holding secret meetings with members of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. The Telegraph knows the identities of the bishops but has agreed to hold them in anonymity. Following the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem and with the Lambeth Conference soon to be held, the content of the talks is assumed to be focused on the departures from orthodox Christianity within the Anglican Communion. Right now the Church of England is holding its General Synod where women’s...

During each program, “A Muslim Journey to Hope” presents the true stories of people who have had a life-changing experience. Each story is true, and each story is different. Yet they are as different as the lives of each person: Women and men. Young and old. Rich and poor. From many countries in the world. But each story tells how each of these people has found hope. Link is to Testimony #47 at muslimjourneytohope dot com by a man simply identified as “Afshin”. body of comment An Authentic Encounter with Jesus

Jeff had so many Operating Under the Influence breakings of the law that he spent too many years of his young life behind bars. “I’m the black sheep of the family,” he said one Friday evening when I visited him in jail. Many of my Friday evenings were spent in that ugly visitors’ room. But it was worth it. At least that’s what Jeff told me. He had no other ones to call on him except one young woman, Yonna. “The rest of my family made something of themselves, but the bottle got to me over and over again.” However,...

Motorcycle. Massages. Pimp. Husband. Sons. Travel. It went on and on for years — ten years, in fact. Sarah and her husband, Dick, went all over the country on the back of their motorcycle. He the pimp. She servicing various men here and there. Then were born to them two sons. Yet they continued moving around from one place to another. Dick was lazy. Though he had a college degree, he did not want to report to work anywhere. There was no 9-to-5 job in his future. Dick depended on Sarah to provide the income. She was steady at it....

Glenn was faced with 20 years in prison. I met him while on staff at the jail. I noted Glenn carrying a Bible to his stint at the laundry. “Why are you reading that?” I asked as the devil’s advocate, having never conversed with Glenn prior. “Because it helps me,” he said low-key. “Good,” I responded, then went my way. On another day, I asked Glenn the same question. Still on another day. Then I finally whispered to him: “I am like you—a believer.” That opened up our friendship that has lasted now for years. “Though faced with 20 years...

President Bush may follow in the footsteps of his brother Jeb and convert to Catholicism, several European papers are reporting. In the wake of the president’s visit to see Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, Italian newspapers, citing Vatican sources, said Bush was open to the idea of converting to Catholicism. The Italian newspaper Il Foglio referred to such talk about Bush’s possible conversion and stated that “anything is possible, especially for someone reborn like Bush.� Noting that Tony Blair converted to Catholicism after leaving office as Britain’s prime minister last year, the paper also stated that “if anything happens,...

Biography of Tom Cabeen My parents were baptized as Jehovah’s Witnesses in the spring of 1954, shortly after my fourth birthday. My father, a old-fashioned cattle rancher and cowboy, had grown up mostly without church of any kind. My mother had been a nominal Methodist, but did not attend church very regularly. They were attracted to the Watchtower version of Christianity and embraced their beliefs very enthusiastically. Within two years, believing the end of the world (Armageddon) to be imminent, they sold their new home in Phoenix, Arizona and volunteered to move “where the need is great.” In 1956,...

A TRIUMPH AND A TRAGEDY James Akin I broke off a piece of the popsicle in my hand and placed it carefully in the mouth of my dying wife. Renee lay on her back, restless in the hospital bed, suffering from an advanced case of colon cancer which we had discovered a little more than a month before. She ate several more pieces of popsicle as I broke them off for her, then said she could eat no more, so I let her rest. When our parish priest arrived, he and I went into a conference room down the...

Editor's Note: Today over one billion persons — about one-sixth of the world's population — are followers of Islam, a religious movement, which began in the early seventh century. While found living virtually everywhere in the world, Muslims are concentrated in a belt of countries on both sides of the equator, stretching from Morocco to the Philippine Islands. These countries — notes historian Geoffrey Parrinder in World Religions: From Ancient History to the Present — "occupy territory of great historical and strategic significances, as they lie across the most important lines of trade and communications between the Old World and...

Archbishop Sheen emphasizes the role of Our Lady of Fatima with regard to the Muslims Welcome back to “What’s New” on the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen website. In our last feature, we presented evidence of an extraordinary prophetic statement by Archbishop Sheen. (If you missed it, see the Archives.) This present feature presents his insight regarding the part Our Lady of Fatima would play in the conversion of the Muslim people. At a special “Peace Congress” in Lisbon, Portugal in 1951, Archbishop Sheen offered a new and very striking observation: “Our Lady has been chosen to be known by the...

As best as I can determine, my same-sex attraction began in reaction to my father, who was a violent alcoholic. He often drank, came home to throw things around the house and abuse my mother in addition to threatening me and my brother. I thought he hated us. Consequently, I didn’t want to be anything like him. In my sorrow, I started looking for the love of my father in thearms of other men. At age 17, a predator took advantage of me under the teacher/pupil dynamic and I became completely mixed up about human sexuality. Over the years, one...

The relationship between Muslims and Christians received added attention this past Easter when Pope Benedict XVI publicly baptized Magdi Allam, the most prominent Muslim journalist in Italy.  Allam knew that publicly renouncing his Islamic faith would bring attempts on his life from angered Muslims, but expressed conviction that his newfound faith would sustain him through any difficulties. "You asked me whether I fear for my life, in the awareness that conversion to Christianity will certainly procure for me yet another and much more grave death sentence for apostasy. You are perfectly right. I know what I am headed for but...

February 16, 2004 - Reported in Spirit Daily.com online newspaper. "In 1992 my life changed dramatically," says Father Donald Calloway. "I had a profound conversion experience after reaching rock bottom."Rock bottom indeed! Now a 31-year-old priest who serves as assistant rector at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Father Calloway had been a runaway youngster who was immersed in everything from drug abuse to theft."I had gone through all a boy could do up to the age of twenty," he says. "My mother had been married three times and we had no religion. The family...

What should our reaction be when others pray for our conversion?  There recently was a story about a German Jewish leader, Charlotte Knobloch, who criticized Pope Benedict XVI for allowing a traditional Easter prayer that calls for the conversion of the Jewish people.  Her reaction raises an interesting issue, as praying for conversion isn't unique to Catholics any more that taking offense to it is unique to Jews.  And to start this topic off, I'd like to pose a question: Who do you think would be more likely to take umbrage at being the object of such a supplication,...

Magdi, Ayaan, Salman, and Us. Michael Ledeen March 23, 2008 My friend Magdi Allam, the deputy editor of the Italian newspaper il Corriere della Sera, has converted from Islam to Catholicism and was baptized the night before Easter in a service conducted by the pope in St. Peter’s in Rome. It’s a courageous act, but then Magdi Allam is a brave man. His outspoken criticism of Italian Muslim radicals–especially their support for the Muslim Brotherhood and for Hamas–had already produced threats to his life several years ago, and, ever since, the Italian Government has protected him, his home, and his...

Magdi Allam Recounts His Path to Conversion Benedict XVI Baptized the Journalist at Easter Vigil VATICAN CITY, MARCH 23, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Magdi Allam’s account of his conversion to Catholicism. The Muslim journalist was baptized by Benedict XVI at Saturday's Easter Vigil Mass in St. Peter's Basilica. An abbreviated form of this account appeared as a letter to Paolo Mieli, the director of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Allam is the paper’s deputy director. The Italian version of the complete text is available at magdiallam.it. * * * Dear Friends, I am particularly happy to...

Italy's most prominent Muslim commentator is converting to Catholicism by being baptized by the pope at an Easter vigil, the Vatican announced Saturday. Magdi Allam is the deputy editor of the Corriere della Sera newspaper and writes often on Muslim and Arab affairs. Born in Egypt, he has described himself as a non-practicing Muslim. He has long spoken out against extremism and in favor of tolerance. Pope Benedict XVI was baptizing seven adults during the service, which marks the period between Good Friday, which commemorates Jesus' crucifixion, and Easter Sunday, which marks his resurrection. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico...

The Pew Report should not be a cause for alarm but an invitation to engage in the New Evangelization of the Church and then to engage the New Missionary Age.

On St. Augustine's Conversion "A Journey That Remains a True Example for Each One of Us" VATICAN CITY, FEB. 26, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the greetings Benedict XVI gave today at St. Peter's Basilica to those who could not be accommodated in Paul VI Hall for the general audience, and a translation of the catechesis he delivered in the Vatican auditorium. This is the fifth and final address the Pope has dedicated to the figure of St. Augustine. * * * [Greetings at St. Peter's Basilica in English] Dear Brothers and Sisters, I am pleased to welcome...

Through an acquaintance, I learned today that Allen Hunt, an Atlanta area Methodist minister has recently been received into the Catholic Church. Hunt has been serving as pastor at an Atlanta Methodist church, and has also been steadily growing his Allen Hunt Show radio ministry, which currently is syndicated on 13 stations with eyes on growing to 75 stations by the end of the year. The show airs on mainstream stations, out of a desire to be, well, mainstream and therefore reach a larger audience. I emailed Hunt to find out if what I had heard was indeed true, and...

CAIRO, ILL. — For a block or two in every direction from Arbell Matthews' home, 50 or so African-Americans could be heard belting out the Shema, an ancient Hebrew prayer, gospel-style. They had spent a year and a half traveling almost weekly to Rabbi Lynn Goldstein's home in Maryland Heights, a journey that would bring them back to this cramped white house in this dying city and to their new lives as Jews. Former drug dealers, infants, factory workers, old ladies, former gang leaders, lawyers, gunshot victims, high school football players, barge workers, crack addicts, nurses and musicians — a...

<p>LYING in a pool of his own blood, a Gold Coast doctor sobbed that he had lost his baby daughter after a fight over her conversion from Islam to Christianity, a court has been told.</p> <p>Yesterday saw the reopening of a committal hearing against Kaihana Tahseen Hussain, 18, who stands accused of murdering her mother and stabbing her father at their Southport unit just days after they moved to the Gold Coast in October 2006.</p>

Monrovia - An evangelical pastor described the atrocities he and his men committed during the Liberian civil war, including magical rituals that involved slaughtering children and eating their hearts. Joshua Milton Blahyi spared no details on Tuesday as he told Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of his years with one of the most feared militias of the war. Dressed in an immaculate suit, Blahyi, 37, said it was for the TRC to decide whether he should be given an amnesty or prosecuted. "I am willing to go to court if necessary," he said. "And I will repeat just what...

Millions of older and disabled Americans in nursing and adult-care homes are excluded from a government program that helps people convert their TV sets to receive a new digital signal next year. The reason? A federal program that pays for digital converter boxes for older televisions -- necessary when all TV broadcasting goes digital early next year -- specifically requires recipients to live in a "household" as recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau. Adult-care and nursing homes are considered "group quarters" instead of households by the census bureau, a spokesman for the bureau said. That means those residents might lose...

Tony Blair was on the brink of announcing his conversion to Catholicism on a visit to the Pope until a last-ditch intervention by Britain's Roman Catholic leader.   Tony Blair at an audience with Pope Benedict XVI The former Prime Minister was planning to make the historic statement on a trip to the Vatican, but was persuaded not to at the 11th hour.Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, advised Mr Blair that it would be unwise and inappropriate to use such a high-profile occasion for such an important private event, particularly coming just days before he was due to...

We have a number of candidates who've had conversions. Other people throughout history have had conversions, religious, social, and political. Ronald Reagan had one about abortion. Chuck Colson had one on just about everything. John McCain claims one about illegal immigration. Mitt Romney claims one about pro-life. WHAT would you look for to prove to you that a conversion is real?

WASHINGTON, DC, November 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Mitt Romney's campaign for President received a major shot in the arm on Monday in the form of an official endorsement from well-known conservative leader and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, Paul Weyrich.  Despite a lingering uncertainty for many conservatives about Romney's authentic conservative persona due to his notorious 'flip-flopping' in recent years, Weyrich's endorsement joins a growing number of similar Romney endorsements from other notable conservative leaders. Weyrich is the founder of the Heritage Foundation and current chairman of the Free Congress Foundation.  He is considered a major leader by...

In the fall of 1985 I was a rather complaisant Evangelical Protestant. If not quite fat, dumb, and happy--well, at least I was happy. Or so I thought. I was confident in my Evangelicalism and took it for granted that I possessed the truth absolutely. I had had a vivid conversion nearly thirteen years before. I studied the Bible diligently, and I belonged to a solid, growing, thoroughly Evangelical church. I had many well-educated Evangelical friends; I had a sense of purpose in pursuing apologetics as my ministry. Then I chanced upon a slim little book by Thomas Howard entitled...

LITTLE ROCK - Gov. Mike Huckabee Thursday denounced a bill by Sen. Jim Holt that would deny state benefits to illegal immigrants as un-Christian, un-American, irresponsible and anti-life. Holt, R-Springdale, replied later that Christian charity does not include turning a blind eye to lawbreaking. Senate Bill 206, filed Wednesday, also would require proof of citizenzhip to register to vote and would require state agencies to report suspected cases of people living in the country illegally. "Somebody needs to ask Sen. Holt what welfare this bill would stop," Huckabee said in a question-and-answer period with reporters on Thursday morning. Many aid...

Originally this was going to be a story about my own journey to the Catholic Church, but due to my own procrastination in getting it written, it is now happily the story of my whole immediate family’s journey to the Church. My father was a cradle Catholic and my mother was raised Methodist. At my father’s insistence she became a Catholic. By her own admission, this was strictly an external act for her; inwardly she remained unconverted. My brother, sister, and I were baptized as infants in the Catholic faith, but my father died at the age of thirty-one, which...

You have no doubt gleaned, if you have been visiting our site and reading my posts and articles, that I have a problem with the left. Simply put, I believe that the ideology of the left is the most corrosive and destructive body of intellectual information ever created in human history. Heck, I could just cite Mao's 60 million dead and stop there, but there is so much more in this rich, hideous tapestry. Marx started the ball rolling in 1848, and the ideology that has resulted has been the source of more misery, murder, and mistakes than anything else...

CBNNews.com - SEATTLE, Wash. - Many former Muslims are now involved in efforts to convert believers in Islam to Christianity. CBN News met with some of them as they linked up with other Christians at the Seattle Revival Center. They trained in how best to reach Muslims and then went out to do just that at the city's annual Arab Festival. For some reason, Christians think Muslims are particularly hard to witness to. But these Muslims-turned-Christians pointed out they have the exact same spiritual needs as everybody else. George Saieg, leader of Arabic Christian Perspective, advises Christians to dig into...

One night while diving for lobster on the island of Mauritius, an Australian named Ian McCormick was stung on his forearm by what local Creole fishermen call "invisibles": extraordinarily poisonous but hard to see "five-box" jellyfish, in the nomenclature of the trade. Medics were called -- urgently. It was an emergency if ever there is an emergency. "Found in the waters off northern Australia, the box jellyfish Chironex fleckeri is not the only marine invertebrate to use venom, but it is the possessor of arguably the most lethal venom in the world," notes one expert. "In the past half...

Why I Returned to the Catholic Church (Al Kresta) . . . Including a Searching Examination of Various Flaws and Errors in the Protestant Worldview and Approach to Christian LivingPart II: Doubts (edited and transcribed by Dave Armstrong; originally uploaded on 16 November 2004). [Part breakdown and part titles by Annalex] Lo and behold, after three years of darkness -- light. During my stay down there I had three visions, or images, if you will, which were the only rays of light that had given me any sense of meaning or purpose through that terrible period of darkness. I...

I was raised in the Oneness Pentecostal movement until I was twelve years old. My mother was more devout, and my dad had stopped attending church by the time I was around six or seven. The Oneness Pentecostals are a very, very strict sect of the Pentecostal churches. I remember when we had no television in the house, we couldn’t wear short-sleeved shirts, no make-up for the women, long hair for the women, and a myriad of other rules applicable to every facet of life. I was baptized in “Jesus’ name,” for the Oneness churches do not believe in the...

Why I am who I am My earliest religious memory is that of a 6 year old, standing in the vestibule of the 2nd Baptist Church in Fairfield, Texas. My Aunt was discussing with me the merits of Jesus Christ, and my need for his Saving Grace. I vaguely knew who Jesus was but did know that I wanted to go to Heaven, so the generic sequence that followed, most Christians in the United States will recognize; "Dear Jesus, please come into my heart, be my Lord and Savior. I ask this in the name of Jesus, Amen." That...

I started to write about how I found the Church, but that isn't what happened. The Church found me. Reached out and grabbed me as I was muddling through my life half-asleep. Grabbed me twice, I think. There have been two times in my life when everything changed with astonishing speed. The second was this last year, the first was when I met my wife Charlene. We got married, bought a house, joined a church and had our first child, all in the year 1985! My background was Evangelical, and she was a cradle-Catholic, though long estranged from the Church....

I was born into a nominally Jewish family, but we practiced only rarely. My parents divorced when I was about 5. I was a latch key kid and was influenced by the neighbors kids - the most stable families were Catholic. I had a "Sunday school" education where I learned all about the old testament and zero about Christianity. It was a dispassionate historical approach, very few of my classmates believed in God at all. At that time I was an agnostic, not hostile to religion, because I had no grievance against the believing world. That's not to say I...