Free Republic

Throughout November, The Huffington Post UK is featuring its Beyond Belief series, chronicling those who've taken on faith to create a force for change."You’re the anti-Christ, you will be destroyed,” screamed an incensed heckler during a speech by Barack Obama in June this year. It was not the first time Obama had heard this very pointed line, nor was he the first President to hear it. Anti-Obama rallies are often decorated with signs or t-shirts carrying overtly religious messages, whether it’s likening him to the Devil, demanding that Christian prayers be returned to schools or suggesting that America has a...

About 120 international Christian students attending a Bible college in Ohio could possibly face deportation after their school was recently denied recertification with the U.S. immigration exchange student program. Although President Barack Obama plans to announce Thursday night an immigration overhaul that could allow nearly 5 million illegal immigrants to remain in the country, the 120 foreign Christian students at Marietta Bible College are in a bind after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to issue the school recertification into the the agency's Student and Exchange Visitor Program. In doing so, the school's international students must either find a new...

Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore and megachurch pastor Rick Warren denounced the sexual revolution at a Vatican conference Tuesday and encouraged Christians to not waver on the Biblical truth about sexuality and marriage. "Western culture now celebrates casual sexuality, cohabitation, no-fault divorce, family redefinition, and abortion rights as parts of a sexual revolution that can tear down old patriarchal systems," said Moore, who is the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission during the "Complementarity of Man and Woman" colloquium led by Pope Francis. "The Sexual Revolution is not liberation at all, but simply the imposition...

World renowned evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, the founder and chairman of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said that our children are growing up in a “lawless and wicked age,” infused with the “philosophy of the Devil, who says, ‘Do as you please.’” Further, rearing children in this culture is difficult because “we have taken God out of our educational systems and thought we could get away with it,” said Rev. Graham. “We have sown the wind, and we are now reaping the whirlwind. We have laughed at God, religion and the Bible.” Reverend Graham’s commentary, first broadcast in August 1955,...

In Latin America, they're pulling millions of faithful away from the Catholic Church. But the pope has only words of friendship for them. This is his way of doing ecumenism, unveiled here in two of his video messages by Sandro Magister ROME, November 19, 2014 - With the mastery for which it is known all over the world, the Washington-based Pew Research Center has conducted a survey on a massive scale that gives substance to a fact that was already known in general terms, the startling decline of Catholic membership in the Latin American subcontinent:> Religion in Latin America. Widespread...

He is probably known among Catholics almost entirely as the man who last July gave the Holy Father a high five. I happened to meet the Evangelical evangelist James Robison recently at a gathering to discuss a common project, and was surprised when he said, to a group mixing conservative Evangelicals and Catholics (two of us converts), “I’ve met the pope. I love that man.” The high five, which left some Catholics I know muttering, he explained in the Huffington Post a few days afterward. At a three-hour meeting at the Vatican, Francis listened to several Evangelical leaders talk...

A New York high school has rejected a student's request to have a Christian club on campus, prompting possible legal action by a Texas-based organization. Wantagh High School of the Wantagh Union Free School District recently denied official recognition for Elizabeth Loverde's proposed club "Dare to Believe." In response to the rejection, Loverde and her family contacted the Plano, Texas-based Liberty Institute, which sent a letter Monday to the principal, as well as to other school district officials. "Once a secondary school such as yours creates a limited open forum, it cannot deny equal access to student groups on the...

Warren Cole Smith is the associate publisher of WORLD Magazine. He is the author or co-author of several books, including A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church and Prodigal Press. We asked him to give us 10 things he wishes everyone knew about evangelicals.1. Evangelicals share a common belief. Being an evangelical actually means something doctrinally and theologically, namely that salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Evangelicalism is not, or not merely, a demographical subset or sociological tribe. An evangelical is someone who both believes and wants to share with others this evangel, this...

What’s Christian about evangelical authors using shady business tactics in a bid to boost visibility on bestseller lists? In January 2012, former megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll’s book Real Marriage went to the top spot on the Hardcover Advice section of The New York Times best-seller list. In March 2014, it was disclosed by evangelical magazine, World, that Driscoll’s publishing success was aided by a consulting firm called ResultSource, which purchased books on behalf of Driscoll in a coordinated effort to spike sales and give the impression that the book was popular with thousands of book buyers. Driscoll recently resigned from...

What the Talking Heads Are Not Telling You In last week's midterm elections, the Republican Party scored historic victories at the national, state, and local levels of American government. Thus, the American political landscape and balance of power is vastly different today than it was before the November 4th election. While a wave election, such as what we saw last week, does not solve all of our national problems, it certainly will go a long way toward slowing down the progress of evil that has dominated our nation over the past six years. However, very few of the pundits and...

“Return of the Prodigal Son” (detail) by Murillo Have You Been Saved? In Acts 4, St. Peter delivers a powerful sermon. He concludes by saying, “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”I have written before in these pages of the time when I was growing up in the southern part of the United States and how I would from time to time encounter young, protestant teens and adults who would excitedly take to the streets to witness for Christ.Now...

In the memorable Olivet Discourse, our Lord Jesus Christ answered the searching question of His disciples, “What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?” (Matt 24:3). The major event predicted by the Lord as a sign of the second advent was the great tribulation. He urged those living in Palestine in that day “to flee unto the mountains” (Matt 24:16). He exhorted them, “Let him that is on the housetop not go down to take out the things that are in his house: and let him that is in the field not return...

The state’s response to this resurgence of faith is an escalating campaign of repression As he stood in the hot sun and watched a dozen earth movers smash through the walls of the Sanjiang church, Mr Dai felt a great sadness and also fear – for himself and for the future of his fellow Christians. “There were so many police blocking the road and surrounding mountains. They had cut off power to the whole area and blacked out mobile phone coverage and they were trying to stop anybody coming near,” he says. By pretending to be part of the demolition...

The term “fundamentalist” is a pejorative term today, used to label someone the speaker believes is an irrational religious extremist of some kind. But a hundred years ago, the term was taken as a badge of honor by theologically conservative Protestants to distinguish themselves from liberal Protestantism. While liberal Protestants in mainline denominations were denying basic Christian teachings like the authority of the Bible and the bodily resurrection of Jesus, conservative Protestants called for going back to the “fundamentals” of the faith – hence the term. There are obviously a lot of issues on which Catholics and fundamentalists disagree, but...

A new Pew survey found that Latin American Catholics are increasingly leaving the Catholic Church, either to join evangelical Protestant churches or are abandoning religion altogether. The survey participants cited a search for a personal connection with God as the biggest reason for their shift. The wide-ranging survey, released on Thursday, reported that although 69 percent of adults across the region identify as Catholic, in almost every country surveyed there was a reported net loss of Catholics in terms of people raised Catholic and currently Catholic. Overall for Latin America as a whole, 84 percent of the population was raised...

He was called the “Father of Jesus Rock.” Everyone who was an Evangelical or Pentecostal Christian in the 1970s knew who he was. He wrote such songs as “I Wish We’d All Been Ready,” “U.F.O.,” “One Way,” “I Am a Servant,” and “Righteous Rocker, Holy Roller.” He was the one who lamented playfully, “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” He had brilliant lyrical and musical gifts. He could hold audiences in the palm of his hand, easily making them roll with laughter, rock with praise, or be quiet and thoughtful.His name was Larry Norman — and he...

An estimated 5.8 billion people now have all or some of the Holy Bible translated into their first language, and the Bible is now in more than 2,800 different languages, according to a recent announcement by Wycliffe Bible Translators USA. "Last year, Wycliffe Global Alliance reported that 4.9 billion people could access at least part of the Bible in their first language. This year the number has grown to 5.8 billion," Bob Creson, president and CEO of Wycliffe, told The Christian Post. "This represents tremendous progress toward our goal of starting a translation project in every language needing one by...

Before I speak about the ominous trends in America to curtail freedom of speech, let me tell you about Dr. Charles H. McVety, president of Canada Christian College in Toronto, whose television program was removed from the air because he had the temerity to preach against homosexuality. Later, he was allowed back on television, but now he has to submit his program to the Canadian Broadcast Standard Council every Wednesday for review by the censors on Thursday, and then, if approved, can be broadcast on Sunday

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. – James 1:12 (NIV) Today’s commentary by Dave Whitehead, Senior Pastor, GraceNYC.org We must remember that there is a reward for those who are willing to endure the ridicule of others who don’t understand the ways of God. The gospel is so radical to our human experience that it turns our way of living upside down. The gospel causes the rich to humble themselves and exalts the poor; it...

The Mystery of the Translation of the Saints The doctrine of the translation of the saints has been often neglected in the discussion of the millennial question. It has been assumed that the Scriptural revelation of the translation of the saints has no vital bearing on the debate concerning the millennium. Allis, for instance, does not discuss the main passage of 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 at all in his attack on premillennialism.1 Premillenarians have not always been aware of the strategic force of this revelation in support of the premillennial position either. Much of this neglect has accompanied a failure to...