Free Republic

Regard this essay as a qualified mea culpa. I have long maintained that there is no point in arguing against “gay marriage,” because there are no arguments for it. To argue that a “homosexual” has no right to marry another man is not unlike arguing that a unicorn has no right to be a computer programmer. The proposition is absurd on its face, and so to argue against it is to offer it unwarranted credibility. As evidence, I have remarked that at no time before the late twentieth century—at least within the boundaries of Western civilization—had anyone contemplated marriage between...

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:1-4)

Q: In Latin America, the Pope delivered a sharp speech against capitalism, calling the relentless pursuit of prophets the "dung of the devil." A lot of people are wondering, will he bring a similar message to the United States this September? A: I don't know if the Pope wants to repeat that kind of speech.

This country talks a lot about terrorist attacks—and rightly so. Almost anybody in America can give you some kind of a listing of the most destructive acts of terror that have happened in our country. But let me suggest to you this: The two greatest attacks of terror on America were perpetrated by the Supreme Court. Not by any Muslim, but by the Supreme Court of the United States. The first one was the legalizing of abortion. Subsequent to that, there have been millions of babies slaughtered in the wombs of their mothers. It’s incalculable to even comprehend that. The...

NORMAN VINCENT PEALE: APOSTLE OF SELF-ESTEEM Republished September 16, 2009 (first published April 26, 1997) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) – Norman Vincent Peale died on Christmas Eve, 1993, at the age of 95. He was one of the most popular preachers of the twentieth century. His famous book The Power of Positive Thinking has sold almost 20 million copies in 41 languages. It was on the United States best-seller list...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Pope Francis' favorability rating in the U.S. has returned to where it was when he was elected pope. It is now at 59%, down from 76% in early 2014. The pontiff's rating is similar to the 58% he received from Americans in April 2013, soon after he was elected pope.After Pope Francis was elected the leader of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church in March 2013, he attempted to focus the church on a renewed sense of protecting the poor, on interfaith relations and on respecting gay and lesbian members of the church. He was lauded in...

Baghdad prelate calls for serious action against Islamic terrorists, seeks to ease suffering of familiesVATICAN CITY — The Chaldean Patriarch of Baghdad, Louis Raphael Sako, says he is personally “very worried” about his nation’s future and warns that the so-called Islamic State, ISIS, “is growing” in strength and influence each day and nowadays the militant group is “like a real state.” In a recent gesture of solidarity, the Iraqi Patriarch donated food and medical supplies to displaced Muslims living in a refugee camp near the city of Ramadi. Accompanied by other members of the Church and representatives of Caritas Iraq,...

Have you seen the Gallup Poll on Pope Francis’ popularity? HEREHis favorability has, essentially, crashed.Laudato NO!Back in February 2015, Pew Research showed that 70% of all Americans and 90% of Catholics viewed Francis favorably.Today, according Gallup, his favorability is at 71%.So, in about 6 months – half a year – Francis’ popularity in these U.S.A., has, among Catholics, fallen nearly 20% (19% to be exact). That’s in only 6 months.Let us ask:What happened between February and now?Laudato si’.There’s more.Francis lost 14% among liberal Americans.Let us also ask:How do these numbers compare with polls from the beginning of Francis’ pontificate in...

THERE is a crisis coming—and it is already here—for our Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ. It was foretold by Jesus when He said, …everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined. (Matt 7:26-27) That is, whatever is built on sand : those interpretations of Scripture that depart from the Apostolic faith, those heresies and subjective errors that have divided Christ’s Church...

Writing for The Daily Beast Monday, a former Roman Catholic Priest, who left in November 2014 after "coming out" as homosexual, went on yet another dime-a-dozen rant against Catholic teaching on homosexuality, employing the all-too-common trope that bishops need to stop calling homosexual "love" wrong or sinful while still finding ways to maintain Church teaching, which essentially means "move the goal posts further back until you have nothing left to defend." Every point Bill Dickinson makes as to why the Catholic Church should change up their approach towards the LGBT community serve as basically a trojan horse to lower the...

The BBC announced enthusiastically Wednesday that “what may be the world’s oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham.” This news is not only of interest to scholars and Muslim intellectuals; it appears to buttress the Islamic claim that the Qur’an’s text has remained unchanged for 1,400 years – which is purported to be proof of its divine origin. There is only one problem with all this: the BBC article raises more questions than it answers, and reveals more about the wishful thinking of the academic and media establishments than it does about the...

Two universities that belong to the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, an organization dedicated to delivering Christ-centered education at all of its schools, will now allow the hiring of professors who are married to a partner of the same sex. Goshen College in Indiana and Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia announced on Monday that they will now hire faculty who are in same-sex marriages. "We have spent several years reviewing our hiring practices," said Goshen College's Director of Communications Jodi Beyeler to The Christian Post on Monday. "There's been prayer. We've listened to a variety of voices from our...

...The future of Christianity in the region of its birth is now uncertain. ‘‘How much longer can we flee before we and other minorities become a story in a history book?’’ says Nuri Kino, a journalist and founder of the advocacy group Demand for Action. According to a Pew study, more Christians are now faced with religious persecution than at any time since their early history. ‘‘ISIL has put a spotlight on the issue,’’ says Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, whose parents are from the region and who advocates on behalf of Eastern Christians....

Pakistan’s Supreme Court today agreed to review the case of a Christian mother sentenced to death on a blasphemy charge, temporarily suspending her execution.Aasiya Noreen, commonly known as Asia Bibi, is the first woman to be sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan. The three-judge bench of the Supreme Court at the Lahore Registry admitted for hearing her petition challenging the sentence.Attorney Saif-ul-Malook told Morning Star News that he had a strong case for demanding Noreen’s acquittal.“Asia Bibi has claimed that she had not made any blasphemous remarks, and that rather her fellow villagers had leveled the allegation against her...

After five members of our military were killed in cold blood—and two others wounded—on our own soil in an act of domestic terrorism in Chattanooga, evangelist Franklin Graham dared to say what many in America were thinking:"We are under attack by Muslims at home and abroad. We should stop all immigration of Muslims to the U.S. until this threat with Islam has been settled. Every Muslim who comes into this country has the potential to be radicalized—and they do their killing to honor their religion and Muhammad," Graham said."During World War II, we didn't allow Japanese to immigrate to America,...

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision creating gay “marriage” nationwide, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., is leaving it unclear for now whether they intend to allow employees in same-sex “marriages” and offer them same-sex spousal benefits. In a blog post on June 26, the day of the ruling, Cardinal Donald Wuerl indicated the archdiocese is struggling over the issue.“On a very practical level, there is a concern about the new definition of ‘spouse’ and its legal ramifications,” he said. “In this area for example, we must find a way to balance two important values, the provision of appropriate...

In a place called Magdala, along the sea of Galilee, something amazing has been going on for the past nine years.  The story begins in 2004 when Rev. Juan M. Solana, director of the Pontifical Institute Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center, a guest house for Christian pilgrims, was inspired to build a retreat center in the Galilee region where much of Jesus’ ministry took place.   Four plots of land were acquired on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee near the small Israeli town of Migdal and the destroyed Arab village of Al-Majdal—both named for the ancient town...

I would love to have an audio Bible recorded by Michael Savage. How about anyone else here?

Gallup has conducted a poll on the Pope's popularity, two months before he is due to visit New York, Washington and Philadelphia. Francis’ favourability rating in the US has dropped since February 2014 He is still popular, but not super-popular as he was a year ago. This is the picture that emerges from a poll conducted in the US between 8 and 12 July by consulting company Gallup. The results were published on Wednesday 22 July, just two months before Francis is due to arrive in the US, where he will be visiting New York, Washington and Philadelphia after his stop-over...

At last week’s annual NAACP convention in Philadelphia, one pastor protested the group’s support for legal abortion, using a huge, attention-grabbing poster of the confederate flag side by side with the picture of an aborted child. Under the confederate flag were the words: “Evil done to us?” while the words under the 10-week-old fetus were: “Evil done by us?” Rev. Clenard Childress, the black pastor of the New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, N.J, is campaigning to have the NAACP reverse its 2004 decision to endorse abortion, asking pointedly whether the black lives of aborted children matter to the NAACP....