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“How can you call yourself a Christian, let alone a minister?!” I get asked that question frequently and the questioner is hostile more often than not. Still, I like to answer it if I believe the questioner is sincere. Though I self-identify as a Christian and I am an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I raised eyebrows a few years ago when I posted an article on my website about how my personal beliefs don’t align with those of most Presbyterians. For example, I believe that: - Religion is a human construct - The symbols of faith are...

The people all said to Samuel, “Pray to the LORD your God for your servants so that we will not die, for we have added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king.” “Do not be afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless. For the sake of his great name the LORD will not reject...

Video evidence released Friday indicates that New York City's Cardinal Timothy Dolan may have ordered the removal of reporters who dared to criticize him during a press rally at the city's famous St. Patrick's Day parade held last Tuesday. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York became persona non grata among faithful Catholics last September when he supported the St. Patrick's Day parade committee's decision to allow openly gay group OUT@NBCUNIVERSAL to march in the parade under their own banner while rejecting pro-life Catholic groups who wished to do the same. Cardinal Dolan called the decision "a wise one" with which...

A shipment of 83,723 Spanish-language Bibles are headed for Cuba and will be distributed to a number of Southern Baptist churches in both Western and Eastern parts of the island nation, SBC's International Mission Board announced this week. IMB, which is an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention, announced that the shipment of three 40-foot containers filled with Bibles left from the ports of South Florida and is being distributed this week to various churches throughout Cuba. The announcement added that the Bibles will arrive in the capital of Havana on March 25. The shipment is the third since 1999...

If Catholic leaders do still believe in sin, many sure don’t act like it. A secular dictionary defines sin as “an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains the following definition in paragraph 1850: Sin is an offense against God. . . . Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become “like gods,” knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus “love of oneself even to...

Capital punishment is cruel, inhuman and an offense to the dignity of human life. In today's world, the death penalty is "inadmissible, however serious the crime" that has been committed. That was Pope Francis’ unequivocal message to members of the International Commission against the death penalty who met with him on Friday morning in the Vatican. Listen to Philippa Hitchen’s report: In a lengthy letter written in Spanish and addressed to the president of the International Commission against the death penalty, Pope Francis thanks those who work tirelessly for a universal moratorium, with the goal of abolishing the use of...

For the first ten or fifteen years after my reversion, my main apologetical interest was in debating and discussing with Protestants. These days, I rarely engage the Protestant/Catholic debate, and I focus more on the "culture wars" by debating secularists and atheists. Protestants are fellow Christians, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and the Church is very clear on that. However, every so often, I revisit the issues that divide Protestants and Catholics because Truth matters, and because the Church is a stronger witness to the world when we are undivided. At the Last Supper, hours before His death, Jesus prayed that his followers all be...

[1]A crowd of naysayers that ranged from her cousin in the state of Washington, to Buddhist leaders in Boise, Colo., to a rabbi in Nevada has called on Idaho Sen. Sheryl “Sherry” Nuxoll (R) to apologize for calling Hinduism a “false faith with false gods.”While the self-described mother, housewife and co-manager of a farm/ranch in Cottonwood, Idaho, has admitted she could have turned a better phrase, she has refused to say the words many people want to hear: “I’m sorry.”Senators Not Happy with Decision to Open with Hindu Prayer Nuxoll and two other Republicans refused to attend the opening...

An Iraqi bishop says waging war against ISIS fighters is the only way to save the Christian Church in IraqThe leader of one of Christianity's oldest communities reluctantly says that waging war against ISIS - killing their fighters - is the only way to stop the radical Islamists from destroying Christianity in Iraq. Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil speaks to Lara Logan for her report on the plight of thousands of Christians forced to flee ancestral homes from ISIS. Her story will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, March 22 AT 7 p.m. ET/PT. The situation with ISIS in Northern...

The Presbyterian Church (USA) is the Radio Shack of church denominations. It’s been in free fall for so long that it’s sometimes difficult to believe the church is still around. It makes news only when it makes bad news. This is a church that has long embraced a culture of death by accepting abortion on demand. Indeed, church materials have declared that abortion can even be “an act of faithfulness before God,” and church policy states: “The considered decision of a woman to terminate a pregnancy can be a morally acceptable, though certainly not the only or required, decision.”...

SOMMERVILLE, NJ, March 18, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Catholic high school in New Jersey has suspended a 30-year veteran theology teacher for making comments on her personal Facebook page supporting the Catholic Church's position on homosexual "marriage" and family. Controversy struck when Patricia Jannuzzi, a theology teacher at Immaculata High School in Sommerville, New Jersey, said that she opposed the legal arguments homosexual activists used to persuade the Supreme Court to redefine marriage. “One minute they argue hey [sic] are born this way and it is not a choice to get 14th amendment rights equal protection” – which was intended...

NEWARK, New Jersey, Apr. 4, 01 (CWNews.com/LSN.ca) - Father Peter West, a staff member at the Priests for Life group in New Jersey, was recently physically thrown out of a Catholic school hall while a pro-abortion politician was being honored inside.    While not a Priests for Life-sponsored event, Father West and a group of 15 pro-lifers protested the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Newark on Sunday, March 18. Their complaint was that pro-abortion politician Jim McGreevey, the Democrat candidate for governor, was appointed grand marshal of the parade. Father West noted that much of the parade and events afterward...

Tributes are pouring in for Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C, who led Notre Dame University as its president for 35 years before retiring in 1986.President Barack Obama, who received an honorary degree from Notre Dame despite his adamant stand in favor of abortion, praised Father Hesburgh in a statement at his death, part of which reads: His belief that what unites us is greater than what divides us made him a champion of academic freedom and open debate. There is much to admire in Father Hesburgh’s legacy, which includes 150 honorary degrees and 16 presidential appointments. He stood with Martin Luther King...

You will not read this address on news.va, the official Holy See news service, controlled by the Holy See Press Office. I have written in the past that the Holy See Press Office is corrupt, and pushing a heterodox agenda. They were busy at it during the October Synod of the Family, pushing the Adulterist and Homosexualist Party positions. They were busy away distorting the Pope's words last October 3rd, when he addressed the Council of the Bishops' Conferences of Europe. At that time, The Holy See Press Office released this document. But the actual words of the Pope were...

The battle for San Francisco’s Catholic schools has been joined. Will Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone or a public-relations expert survive? Last month, the  archbishop called for changes to the staff and faculty handbooks of the archdiocese’s four high schools in the 2015-2016 school year—Sacred Heart and Archbishop Riordan in San Francisco, Marin Catholic in Kentfield, and Junipero Serra in San Mateo. The proposal would add a detailed statement on Church teaching about sexual morality and the sanctity of life. According to Catholic SF Weekly, the archbishop explained his proposals this way:   "At the outset, I wish to state clearly...

There has been an less-than-productive discussion on this thread regarding the last words of Christ on the Cross. It could be because it started with the suggestion--right in the title--that Catholics don't understand Jesus. Not a great way to initiate dialogue and ecumenism. I would like to take a different approach here. I would like to hear my Protestant brethren explain these words of Christ from the Cross:My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What does it mean? Why did He say it?

Finding the International Museum of the Reformation is almost as complicated as explaining the historical movement it chronicles. You must first navigate the labyrinth of Geneva’s Old Town, down narrow, cobblestone streets and then up a long flight of stone stairs, skirting the shadows cast by a towering 13th-century cathedral. Finally you arrive at the tranquil courtyard of the Maison Mallet, the 14-room 18th-century mansion housing the museum, which opened in 2005. [SNIP] Given how practices have changed, museum officials set out to create a space that contemporary visitors, Protestant or not, would find appealing and meaningful, with creative high-...

Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah says Christian religious sites in Arabian Peninsula must be razed in accordance with Muslim lawSaudi Arabia’s top Muslim cleric called on Tuesday for the destruction of all churches in the Arabian Peninsula after legislators in the Gulf state of Kuwait moved to pass laws banning the construction of religious sites associated with Christianity. Speaking to a delegation in Kuwait, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, who serves as the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, said the destruction of churches was absolutely necessary and is required by Islamic law, Arabic media reported. Abdullah, who is considered to...

Teachers in Cranston, Rhode Island, have filed a lawsuit against the city's school department after their requests to observe Good Friday were denied in a move they say violated their civil rights. About 200 teachers contacted the union to report that they were being prevented from taking the day off, although they had provided more than the contractually required 24 hours' notice, said Liz Larkin, president of the Cranston Teachers' Alliance. However, teachers' requests to observe the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah in the fall were approved, Larkin said. "That's my big concern here, is equity," Larkin said. School superintendent...

Global Catastrophe Rising: So now what do we do?by Hillary White Wednesday, March 18, 2015 I don’t have any answers for the questions I will pose below, but I think, with less than eight months to go before the next installment of the Synod to End the Family, now might be a good time to at least open the discussion: what do we do when the Cardinal Kasper’s New Paradigm is officially in place? Simply put, can a Catholic in good conscience continue to attend a parish where the priest has agreed to go along with the New Paradigm? And...