http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/culture-religion/ en-us Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:47:29 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2051105/posts Pope Benedict XVI's refusal to address the European parliament for fear it is becoming "militantly secularist" initially struck me, a humanist MEP, a triumph of equality and rationality for the EU. But on deeper reflection, I think it's a cop-out of the grandest scale, setting a dangerous precedent for other cultural and religious leaders to "opt out" of EU proceedings if they are dissatisfied with their values and methods. By refusing to take part in the parliament's Year of Intercultural Dialogue, the pontiff is effectively holding the EU to ransom. Declining to speak to MEPs, giving the excuse of other... The Guardian http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2051105/posts#comment Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:47:29 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2051050/posts THREE PROPHETIC PARALLELISMS CONCERNING ISRAEL. By Rev. JAMES C.SMITH, of Dufftown (At the Glasgow Conference, June, 1894.) To understand the the Old Testament you must understand Israel; to understand the New Testament you must study the Church. The great subject of the Bible is sin, and the great doctrine of the Bible is the putting away of sin by the grace of God. All other subjects fall under this great line of study. If the Bible casts its teaching in any special form or mould more than another, it is in the form of parallelism, and this is one of... Things To Come -- A Journal of Biblical Literature http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2051050/posts#comment Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:37:23 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050761/posts It is no doubt that television is the true American Idol. One commenter on a blog I frequent said it best: if you were to sit down and tally up the amount of time you watch TV and the amount of time you spend in prayer and Bible reading which would be larger? May we step back and assess our lives and realize that idols are everywhere and can so quickly become our god. This video presentation should cause all of us to step back and assess…. soli Deo Gloria http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050761/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:00:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050749/posts University of Minnesota professor Paul Z. Myers made good on his pledge to desecrate the Eucharist today. According to his statement on the subject, “I pierced it [the Host] with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash.” Saying he did not want to “single out just the cracker,” Myers also tore pages from the Koran along with a few pages from Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and nailed them to the Host. He then said, “They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. (His emphasis.)... Catholic League http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050749/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:26:41 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050744/posts This is a powerful little clip from a sermon by Paul Washer. Its not always easy to remember in the middle of loss or continuous physical pain that these things we endure are not only helping to mold us into the man or woman of God, which is our eternal destiny if we be in Christ, but that they are a testimony to God’s Name and Glory: how? by our steadfast faithfulness to Him through it all…and how the world witnesses this. Even chastisement we receive by the hand of God is a ‘witness’ that we ARE a child of... Sola Dei Gloria http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050744/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:20:00 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050692/posts This all began a few days ago, when Jeff Miller at the Curt Jester blog posted this comment regarding RC women who seek to be ordained. I do enjoy it when my own humor sparks others to their own hilarity.  I jested the other day: "If women are being called to the priesthood then why is it only dissident women that are being called?  Where are the women being ordained that have a preference for the extraordinary form of the Mass?  Why do they always have a preference for Hippy stoles and not beautifully embroidered ones.  Where are the traditionalist... WDTPRS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050692/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:45:18 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050551/posts What are the things Christians want most in life? According to a recent national survey by the Ventura County-based Barna Group, “it depends upon what type of Christian you ask.” Catholics, in particular, show marked differences from Protestants in what they want most in life. The survey was based on telephone interviews Barna conducted in May with a random sample of 1003 Americans from across the U.S., ages 18 and older. Sampling error was plus or minus 3.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. According to the July 21 Barna Report, Barna researchers divided respondents according to various criteria.... California Catholic Daily http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050551/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:03:40 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050334/posts The Bishop of Rochester Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, one of just two bishops in the Church of England to boycott the Lambeth Conference entirely, insisted today that he is being true to biblical authority. Explaining a decision that he admits has been painful for a man who sought refuge in Britain from persecution, and who has been at the heart of the two previous convocations at Canterbury – first as Coordinator in 1988 and then as a Member of the Steering Committee in 1998 - he said it was a matter of ‘conscience and logic’. He said that ‘persistent false teaching’... Lapido Media http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050334/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:48:28 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050318/posts Two weeks ago I spoke with Bishops Mar Sarhad Jammo and Mar Bawai Soro about their plan to protect Iraqi Christians from violence and ensure religious liberty. The bishops expressed hope that one day the provisions of the Iraq Constitution protecting all religious minorities from discrimination and persecution could be implemented. In speaking with Manny Miranda, who recently returned from 12 months in Iraq, I found out that in the short term, legal remedies are not the answer. Miranda served at the embassy in Baghdad for the U.S. Department of State as director of legislative statecraft, advising the country on... Inside Catholic http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050318/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:24:31 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050293/posts Sydney certainly knows how to throw a party. The extraordinary scenes played out on the city's streets over the course of the World Youth Day week, and relayed on television screens for huge world audiences, or reported in newspapers or on radio bulletins, have been in some respects reminiscent of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In other ways they have surpassed them. For this was a party quite unlike any other: five days and nights of peace, love and Christianity, enjoyed by young pilgrims from around the world; no alcohol, little trouble, barely even a hint of disorder. To cap it... Otago (NZ) Daily Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050293/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:45:48 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050290/posts History's humongous wheel turns and turns and turns again. Over time, mud and sludge accumulate on even the sprucest institutions. Take the 500-year-old Anglican family of churches, Christianity's third-largest, after Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy. With Anglicanism's biggest family event under way - the every-10-years gathering of bishops and archbishops in England - what the world sees, accurately or not, is a family in moral and spiritual disarray. --snip--For all that, Anglicanism's public troubles proceed from the takeover of Western Anglicanism by theological activists whose purpose is the remolding of Christianity into something less like the old-time religion than like the... The Washington Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050290/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:38:18 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050235/posts We are not contending against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12). “This combat rages fiercely even today, aided and abetted by well-known secret sects, Satanic groups and New Age movements, to mention but a few, and reveals many ugly heads of the hideous anti-God monster: among them are notoriously secularism, which seeks to build a Godless society; spiritual indifference, which is insensitive to transcendental values; and relativism, which is contrary to the permanent tenets of the Gospel. “All... Catholic Online http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050235/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:49:10 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050162/posts When Gov. Alfred E. Smith ran for president in 1928, his candidacy was derailed in large part by anti-Catholic prejudice. It has been nearly 48 years since John F. Kennedy became the first (and so far only) Roman Catholic president, but experts say that anti-Catholic sentiment — much of it originating in, or as a response to, immigrants in New York — remains an enduring force in American culture. That was the consensus of a panel assembled at the Museum of the City of New York on Tuesday night to consider the question, “Is Anti-Catholicism Dead?” ...The Rev. Richard John... NY Times City Room Blog http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050162/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:47:21 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049994/posts I appeared Monday on the Riz Khan show on Al-Jazeera with Richard Dawkins, and guess what? We had a civilized three-way dialog. No one erupted into Hitler-type yells. The Gestapo didn't show up, nor the Inquisition police, to drag Richard Dawkins from the studio. Host Riz Khan interviewed me for the first half of the show on the compatibility of Darwinism and religion, and on the issue of how to teach evolution in the schools. Then Khan interviewed Dawkins for the second half, mainly on why he encounters resistance to evolution and also why he rejects arguments for God as... AOL News Bloggers http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049994/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:19:27 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049979/posts A Marriage in Full by Gary A. Anderson Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (May 2008). In 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a letter from his prison cell in Nazi Germany to a young couple who had just married: Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, through which he wills to perpetuate the human race until the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God... First Things http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049979/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:50:06 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049943/posts After years of being booed offstage, the curtains have again opened and God is being greeted with tumultuous applause. World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney was a triumph for the Catholic Church and its 81-year-old head, Pope Benedict XVI. About 400,000 people attended a final Mass on Sunday (July 20), briefly making the pilgrims’ destination bigger than the nation’s capital, Canberra. Some baffled journalists described it as a Catholic Woodstock – the 1969 orgy of, drugs and sex and rock ‘n roll which became an iconic moment for baby-boomers. But 40 years later, the world has moved in an unexpected... Mercator Net http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049943/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:25:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049936/posts NORTH Shore churches are likely to see a wave of new worshippers following the successful World Youth Day.Sister Monica Cavanagh, from the Sisters of St Joseph at North Sydney, said the event had been a wonderful opportunity to talk to people about living a "religious life"."Some of the sisters have been approached by people who are interested in being baptised," Sister Monica said."There are lots of vocational opportunities within the Catholic church such as being a teacher, nurse or working in social welfare."The Sisters have been "kept on their toes" for the past week following Pope Benedict XVI's visit to... North Shore Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049936/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:16:14 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049778/posts Does Contraception Foster Love? — Part 2 of 6 July 22nd, 2008 by Christopher West We continue a series of reflections on the issue of contraception in light of the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. When Pope Paul VI issued this document on July 25, 1968, it fell like a bomb. Many people wished the issue would just go away. It hasn’t. And it won’t. In fact, it can’t “go away.” This encyclical takes us to the very foundations of human life (humanae vitae).In the last column, we looked at how contraception has played a key role in the cultural... CatholicExchange.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049778/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:16:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049688/posts SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 21, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI told pilgrims at the Youth Day closing Mass not to fear a call to the priesthood or consecrated life. One statistic indicates his words fell on fertile soil: An average of 2,500 pilgrims an hour visited the Vocations Expo in Sydney. This and other statistics reveal the most spiritual and the most simple aspects of the 23rd World Youth Day, which concluded Sunday. More than 400,000 people attended the closing Mass. And 500,000 welcomed the Pope to Sydney for his official arrival on Thursday. The number of international and local pilgrims was... ZNA http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049688/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:53:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049687/posts The Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan today declared that Gene Robinson, the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire, "should resign for the sake of the church." In a press conference at the decennial Lambeth Conference, the Most Rev. Dr. Daniel Deng Bul said that homosexual ordination "is not what is found in the Bible" and that it is "not the norm of the Anglican world." Catholic Online http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049687/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:53:07 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049686/posts In Part 1 of this series, I wrote of the great elephants of India, who, although they have the physical capacity to uproot trees during the day, can be restrained all night long by a piece of twine and a twig. How is this possible? The elephant’s training begins when it is still young and considerably less powerful. Removed from its mother, the elephant is then shackled with an iron chain to a large tree. For days and weeks on end, the baby elephant strains against its restraints, only to find that all exertion is useless. Then slowly, over a... The Rebelution http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049686/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:51:52 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049629/posts Address written for entering students of Wabash College, Class of 2012 Christians believe that God became human in Jesus Christ. If so, it follows that there is something called humanity. That is, humans have a nature, a shared or common nature. Human nature is not just a social construction. Human nature is real. And if it is real, then it is the same everywhere and at every time. It is, in a word, universal.The idea that human nature is universal might seem simple to you, and it is. All true ideas are simple, because anyone can grasp them. Yet,... First Things http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049629/posts#comment Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:08:45 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049536/posts In the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate (NA), “Declaration On The Relation Of The Church To Non-Christian Religions,” birthed from apostate Roman Catholicism we can trace the very rotten root of The Ecumenical Church Of Deceit (ECoD) of postevangelicalism. And this document also spawned the current apostasy festering within evangelicalism as well. For you see it was NA that would open the door for Trappist monk Thomas Merton, one of most highly prized Golden Buddhas of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism, to openly pursue his own antibiblical interspiritual “dialogues.” As we point out below he wasn’t alone and, just as previously shown in... Apprising Ministries http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049536/posts#comment Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:50:09 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049529/posts July 2008 In view of the present tensions and divisions within the Anglican Communion, and out of deep concern for the unity of the Church, we consider it important to express clearly the position of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS) concerning human sexuality. We believe that God created humankind in his own image; male and female he created them for the continuation of humankind on earth. Women and men were created as God’s agents and stewards on earth We believe that human sexuality is God’s gift to human beings which is rightly ordered only when expressed within the... Anglican Mainstream http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049529/posts#comment Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:41:43 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049421/posts "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst" Matthew 18:20 For some time, through FReepmail, several FReepers have provided each other with a way to share prayer requests and praises. Now that the Non-denominational category has been established at FR, we are offering a weekly thread in which posts of your requests and praises are welcome. Anyone, regardless of denomination, is welcome to bring their concerns here. The one thing that we hope to establish here, is that at a set time on Sunday evening, 11:00 p.m. in the Eastern time... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2049421/posts#comment Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:17:44 GMT