Free Republic

SHOULD CHRISTIANS FIGHT COMMUNISM? Yes or No? By: Henry R. Pike Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. (Pas. 33:12) Before any attempt is made to answer this question, we must first clearly understand the term "Christian." Let's see what a Christian is not, then what a Christian is. A true Christian is not a "non-Jew, a do-gooder, a nice guy, one who goes to a church building, pays dues, sings hymns, provides for his family, etc." You should go to a place where God's word is faithfully preached and practiced, but going into a church building wil...

HONG KONG (Christian Examiner) - The leader of Catholics in Hong Kong, one of China's most densely populated cities, has issued a pastoral letter to his congregants encouraging them to elect candidates for local public office who hold traditional views on the family and marriage and oppose proposals to open Hong Kong to same-sex marriage. In the letter dated Nov. 5, two days before Hong Kong's annual gay pride parade, Cardinal John Tong wrote "extreme liberalism, individualism, sexual liberation and the gay rights movement, under the guise of equality and the fight against discrimination, have all along been advocating the...

Tasmania's anti-discrimination commissioner has begun a probe into the Catholic Church over an anti-same-sex-marriage leaflet that was published in mid-2015. Some human rights campaigners criticize the move as an attack on free speech. The leaflet, titled 'Don't mess with marriage' and published by the Australian Catholic Bishop's Conference, authorized by Hobart's Catholic Archbishop Julian Porteous, was sent to thousands of families through Church schools. The leaflet pointed out the church's opposition to changing the Tasmanian Marriage Act to include same-sex couples into it. "Same-sex friendships" differ a lot from "real marriages," the leaflet distributed across Australian schools said. "Marriage includes...

The EU cares more about the interests of the financial oligarchy than the real concerns of the poor.  At the same time they are aiming at the  Islamization of Europe. These are the words of Msgr. Tadeusz Pieronek, Emeritus Auxiliary Bishop of Sosnoviec and former Secretary General of the Polish Episcopal Conference. The Professor of Theology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow is considered an expert in canon law and was a great friend and confidant of Pope John Paul II.   Msgr. Pieronek is titular bishop of Cufruta in the former Roman province Bycancium in present-day Tunisia, which has been under Islamic rule since 698....

"All members of the Marquette Community are invited to participate" Marquette University is offering a monthly LGBT Mass on campus. Marquette University is a Catholic institution founded in 1881 by the Society of Jesus, more commonly known as the Jesuits. It is one of the most famous Catholic universities in America, and is lauded for both its academic and sports programs. However, like other Jesuit universities, its theological formation has grown far from its staunchly Catholic roots. In December 2014, a teacher told a student not to say anything opposed to gay "marriage" because it might offend other students, and...

Jackie Biskupski, the openly gay mayor-elect of Salt Lake City, isn't happy that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a group better known as the Mormons, clarified its stance on its membership requirements. Under policies disclosed last week, the LDS Church won't accept as members or missionaries children of same-sex couples. She now wants a meeting with church leaders to discuss "policies." The move evoked echoes of Houston's Mayor Annise Parker who, in a two-year battle over a human rights bill, at one point subpoenaed sermons from local pastors opposed to the measure and sought a public vote....

Seoul - A delegation of 150 religious leaders of different communities paid a visit to North Korea: during the short trip on 10 and 11 November, the leaders of seven major religions in South Korea, gathered under the aegis of "Korean Conference of Religions for Peace" (KCRP) and reached Mount Kumgang, where there is the well-known Buddhist temple Singyesa, founded in 519, and was destroyed during the Korean War (1950-1953) by American bombing and rebuilt in 2004 thanks to a project between the two Koreas. In this symbolic site the rare meetings between religious delegations from North and South are...

The Iraqi parliament has approved a new law that will require children in non-Muslim families to convert to Islam if one of their parents converts. Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako led protests against the new law, which he termed "unacceptable" and a flagrant violation of the Iraqi constitution. The Chaldean prelate led a protest meeting in Baghdad, attended by Christians and representatives of other minority faiths. "Leaving aside the fact that a parent betrays his bond with his children, it is unacceptable that this implies the second party is deprived of the opportunity to fulfill the promise made...

Hundreds of Mormons plan to resign from the church in Salt Lake City this weekend at a protest against a church policy barring the children of married same-sex couples from receiving baptism, organizers said on Thursday. The policy, approved last week by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, added same-sex marriage to the list of acts considered to be a renunciation of the Mormon faith and thus subject to church discipline, including excommunication.

The new chairman of New York City’s iconic Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, who has proposed eliminating the honoring of Saint Patrick from the parade’s bylaws, is “a director” of a foundation that financially supports medical experiments that use fetal tissue harvested from abortions and acquired for a fee from a company at the heart of the Planned Parenthood video scandal that has horrified the nation.Dr. John Lahey, who took control of the parade’s board of directors in July, called a meeting for Oct. 29 with agenda points designed to secularize the traditional celebration of Irish Catholic heritage.Matthew Hennessey, writing in...

Before the Planned Parenthood human body part trafficking scandal was even a month old some 50-plus pro-abortion and pro-homosexual purportedly “faith-based” groups sent a letter urging the U.S. Senate to disregard efforts to defund the abortion giant. “A world without Planned Parenthood would be disastrous for many women and their families,” the letter stated. “Planned Parenthood touches the lives of millions of young people with education programs and online information that helps foster health and safety;” the letter claimed, “it provides women with quality medical services, including abortion; and it embodies the highest of standards of medical and ethical care.”...

Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, the chairman of United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, called for prayer as the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether religious nonprofits should be forced to comply with the HHS mandate. "Charitable ministries across the nation simply want to provide life-affirming health care for their employees, without fear of massive government penalties," said Archbishop Lori. "At stake is nothing less than their freedom to serve others. Let us pray for justice for those who offer mercy."

Jeremy Pemberton, first member of CofE clergy to enter same-sex marriage, claimed church was in breach of Equality ActAn NHS hospital chaplain who accused the Church of England of discrimination when he lost his job after marrying his gay partner has lost his case at an employment tribunal. Jeremy Pemberton, who was the first member of the CofE clergy to enter into a same-sex marriage, said he would appeal against the ruling. The Nottingham employment tribunal dismissed all claims by the clergyman after hearing his case in June. Pemberton had claimed the church was in breach of the 2010 Equality...

Pope Francis has said it is "useless" to seek solutions to evils and problems in the Church through "conservatism and fundamentalism" and warned against a faith that is "locked in subjectivism"... ...both Pelagianism, a heresy that denies original sin, and Gnosticism, which denies Christ's divinity, are temptations that "defeat" a true Christian humanism. Pelagianism..."prompts the Church not to be humble, selfless and blessed. And it does so with the appearance of being a good." Such an approach..."brings us confidence in structures, organizations, in perfect planning because it's abstract." But often "it leads us also to take a controlling, hard, regulatory...

As European countries continue to struggle to absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria and other parts of the Middle East and Africa, two Syrian Christians are worried that now that they’ve made it to Italy, after jumping many hurdles, they will end up having to go back to Syria.Europe was not even their first choice. Natives of Aleppo, the economic capital of Syria, which is witnessing violent battles between regime and rebel forces and the Islamic State group, these two young men, who wish to remain anonymous in order to protect their families, feel they are on...

Isaiah 45:24 In Jehovah is All my Righteousness and Strength.

An Instagram account run by Serbian activists who were posting pictures of Christian places of worship in Kosovo which had been demolished by the region's Albanian Muslim majority population has been removed; the site's administration explained that the group had been posting "disturbing images." Hoping to foil Kosovo's attempt to become a member of UNESCO, ethnically Serbian student activists in the self-proclaimed state created a page on Instagram called “No to Kosovo's Membership in UNESCO.” There they posted photos of numerous Orthodox Christian places of worship and significance, including monasteries, churches and cemeteries, which were demolished in the years after...

Highly restricted church is minuscule, but is it genuine?For more than 65 years, the Catholic Church in North Korea has been known as the "silent church." Then dictator Kim Il-sung purged and executed leading church figures after the communists took power in the north in 1948, severing ties with the Vatican. Contact between North Korean Catholics and the outside world remains rare. Following one such meeting last week, a delegation of a dozen Western and South Korean Christians to North Korea confirmed the church remains minuscule. Nonetheless, a few hundred Catholics can worship within the narrow confines imposed by the...

The call for "violence against objects" culminated in physical violence (including murders) in Germany in the 1970s. What has happened in the last two weeks against two well-known pro-family activists in Germany, is showing worrying parallels. On October 14th, a play called FEAR premiered in Berlin. In it, people known for publically speaking out against the sexualization of children and gender ideology are the protagonists: Birgit Kelle, Gabriele Kuby, Hedwig von Bevoerfoerde, Beatrix von Storch and Frauke Petry. Actors appear on stage under their names with pictures of them covering their faces, behaving as hateful and aggressive zombies. Two people...

American Christians have become a lot more tolerant of homosexuality over the past eight years, according to a landmark study released by the Pew Research Center on Tuesday that showed big gains in acceptance since the last time the study was conducted in 2007. The 2014 Religious Landscape Study, a survey of more than 35,000 Americans, examined a vast array of religious and social issues, including immigration. The study concluded that nearly all major religious groups have become significantly more accepting of homosexuality -- and almost all Christian groups are more accepting than they were in 2007. It holds true...