Free Republic

By ALEXIS ZOTOS 6 News Reporter KNOXVILLE (WATE) - Next week is the deadline for most people who qualify to sign up for the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. But alternatives exist to either traditional insurance or the plans offered through the health insurance exchange. Hundreds of thousands of Americans participate in Christian healthcare sharing ministries across the country. Sarah Lewis is self employed and for years paying for health insurance was a financial burden. "My husband and I own our own business and the cost of insurance was so high and they kept raising it. So we...

The Foreign Ministry's workers union has called for a general strike Sunday as part of an ongoing labor dispute. All 103 of Israel's embassies, consulates, and diplomatic delegations across the world will be closed, including the ministry's headquarters in Jerusalem. The workers union added that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will not be able to enter his office. The Foreign Ministry's employees have been engaged in a struggle to improve their working conditions for more than a year, and the struggle has led them to lock horns with the Finance Ministry, whom they claim refuses to acknowledge diplomats' rights and improve...

If you were given unquestionable proof that neither heaven nor hell existed – no rewards or punishment after death and no afterlife - how would you live your life? Would right or wrong really matter? Would morality be an issue or would amorality be the norm?

In the First Book of Samuel which we are reading now in daily Mass, we see are rather stunning portrait of poor parenting and poor priestly leadership in the person of of High Priest of the Sanctuary at Shiloh, Eli. Consider this line from the Scriptures: Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORD where the ark of God was. The LORD called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.” Samuel ran to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.”“I did not call you,” Eli said. “Go back to sleep.” …..At that time Samuel was not familiar...

The Affordable Care Act runs more than 2,600 pages and now hundreds of thousands of regulations. No one knows every single provision that is in the law, which Congress did not even bother to read before passing it. Among its most controversial provisions is the mandate forcing Americans to purchase health insurance or face fines from the IRS. Those fines can even take the form of wage garnishment. Americans who fail to comply and pay the fine can end up in jail. There is, though, a provision buried in Obamacare that provides a way out of having to comply with...

“The instructor said AFA could be considered a hate group because they don’t like gays,” the soldier told me. “The slide was talking about how AFA refers to gays as sinners and heathens and derogatory terms.” The soldier, who is an evangelical Christian, said the chaplain defended the Christian ministry. “He kept asking the instructor, ‘Are you sure about that, son? Are you sure about that?’” he said, recalling the back and forth. Later in the briefing, the soldiers were reportedly told that they could face punishment for participating in organizations that are considered hate groups. That considered, the soldier...

In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther formulated the concept of the priesthood of all believers. Contrary to widespread misconceptions of this doctrine, Luther did not mean to reduce the supernatural concern of personal redemption to a core or essence of social concern. In reaction to the modernist-fundamentalist controversy, many evangelicals, zealous to retain the biblical concern for personal redemption, began to minimize or even reject the social agenda of the New Testament. Social concern and relief ministry became identified with liberalism. Ministry to the poor, the homeless, the hungry, and the imprisoned was often all-too-willingly surrendered to the state or...

Unintended Consequences: How the “relevant” church and segregating youth is killing Christianity. I recently spent six-months doing a rotation as a hospital chaplain. One day I received a page (Yes, hospitals actually still use pagers). Chaplains are generally called to the rooms of people who look ill: People gray with kidney disease, or yellow with liver failure, discouraged amputees, nervous cancer patients. In this room, however, was a strikingly attractive 23 year-old young lady sitting up cheerfully in the hospital bed, holding her infant daughter and chatting with family and friends. Confused, I stepped outside and asked her nurse, “Why...

Vid at link.

U2 frontman Bono, who moonlights as an activist for the poor and sick in Africa, is crediting evangelical Christians and former President George W. Bush for saving 9 million from the ravages of AIDS, a campaign the musician said is blessed by God. "This should be shouted from the rooftops. This is a heroic American story," Bono said in a remarkable radio interview with Jim Daly, the president of Focus on the Family, to be broadcast by the group Tuesday. Talking freely about God, his marriage, and his relationship with Jesus in the interview provided in advance to Secrets, Bono...

A Christian group that once promoted therapy to encourage gays and lesbians to overcome their sexual preferences has closed its doors and apologized to homosexuals, acknowledging its mission had been hurtful and ignorant. Exodus International billed itself as the oldest and largest Christian ministry dealing with faith and homosexuality, operating since 1976. It announced it would cease operations in a statement on its website on Wednesday. The Irvine, California-based group’s board unanimously voted to close Exodus International and begin a separate ministry, the statement said. …

UPDATE: Hours after apology, Exodus International announces plans to close and begin a separate ministry. Melissa Steffan Update (June 19): Exodus International announced Wednesday night it will shut down and start a separate ministry for a "new generation." “We’re not negating the ways God used Exodus to positively affect thousands of people, but a new generation of Christians is looking for change – and they want to be heard,” said board member Tony Moore. The announcement came hours after issuing an apology to the gay community. At the time, Exodus leaders had shared little about their next steps, and the...

<p>On Wednesday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said President Barack Obama needed to clear up and "renounce" the "un-American" and "amoral" reports from the Pentagon that U.S. soldiers could be prosecuted for promoting their Christian faith. She called on Obama to do so "today, right now."</p>

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an inter-denominational student ministry that builds communities across campuses in the U.S., revealed that one of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing was involved with their organization. Chinese national Lingzi Lu, 23, was one of the three people who lost their lives in last week's twin blasts that rocked the Boston Marathon, which also injured more than 170 others. "(Lu) was involved with the international student ministry we have at Boston University. She attended a retreat that we sponsored last fall. She was friends with people in the InterVarsity International Student ministry with the graduate and...

So I turn on the TV and this guy, with a horrible toupe' is talking about sowing and money. He keeps going on and on about anointing people with oil, as if it has any effect and Low and Behold "We got $400k and then we got a check a few days later for $1 million!" "Send me $1,000 now. I just received instructions from God that led me to more miracles in my life than I'd had in three years. In fact, I bought a Cessna Citation and a few weeks later I bought an even more expensive one!"...

There has been “an alarming rise in the number of attacks against Jewish targets” over the past year, according to a new report issued by the Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Ministry on Sunday. The 2012 report on anti-Semitism, which was presented to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein during Sunday’s cabinet meeting, indicated that the confluence of extreme rightwing political movements and Islamic radicalism have been responsible for a new wave of anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe. The report’s release was timed to coincide with the commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on...

Hamas is about to establish its own “Defense Ministry” in the Gaza Strip as part of lessons drawn from Operation Pillar of Defense, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad announced on Wednesday. Hammad, who is in charge of the Hamas security apparatus in the Gaza Strip, made the announcement during a ceremony to honor policemen and security officers for their role during last month’s IDF air offensive. Hammad did not say when the new ministry would be established. This would be the first time that the Palestinians set up a Defense Ministry. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank does not...

Before Sheldon Bruck told his orthodox Jewish parents he was gay, the teenager looked for a way out of homosexuality. His search led him to JONAH -- Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing -- which claimed on its website to help people "struggling with unwanted same-sex sexual attractions." JONAH co-director Arthur Goldberg promised Bruck, then 17, that "JONAH could help him change his orientation from gay to straight," according to a consumer fraud lawsuit filed Tuesday against JONAH, Goldberg and a JONAH counselor.

Ministries in Appalachia are bracing for a tough winter as hundreds of residents have been furloughed or lost their jobs because of cutbacks in coal production amid the nation's changing energy industry. A single employer, Arch Coal, laid off 750 workers across Appalachia in August. Other companies have been forced to idle employees or close operations.

Phoenix officials have until next Friday to apologize for the actions of a code enforcement officer after he stopped Christians from giving out water bottles to city festival participants on a day that reached 112 degrees. A legal team that fights for religious and civil rights is also demanding a commitment that the city will no longer interfere with the Christian group’s acts of charity. According to a letter to the city from the Rutherford Institute, the case developed in July during a “First Friday” festival when Dana Crow-Smith was giving “free bottles of cold water to passersby” on the...