Free Republic

A local church will close its doors after a final worship service on Sept. 30, less than two years away from its 100th anniversary. Oakland Presbyterian will join at least 28 other mainline protestant churches that have been disbanded or consolidated in Clark County since 1980, according to data from the Association of Religious Data Archives. The loss of mainline protestant congregations in Clark County mirrors trends at the national level, where rolls dropped by more than 7 million members between 1980 and 2010. Gloria Sesslar has been a member of the Oakland congregation since 1980. She said many current...

April 13, 2007 — Sanctuaries are designed to make us feel safe. They provide us peace and a place to pray. Bells call the good to worship and warn the evil to stay away. This is the kind of American church that a young Christa Brown was drawn to. As a teenager in the 1960s, Brown learned to love music and her God. She grew up in the church, sang in the choir and played the piano. But as Brown would find out, churches don't always protect the innocent. Sometimes these sanctuaries shield the guilty and even lure predators to...

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, April 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Several homosexual “churches” in the Indianapolis area have begun a month-long advertising campaign of misinformation to distort the clear biblical prohibitions against homosexual behavior of Christian tradition. The Jesus Metropolitan Community Church of Indianapolis, Faith In America and Metropolitan Community Churches started the campaign this week, placing five different billboards around the Indianapolis area distorting the biblical foundation of Christianity’s clear prohibitions against sodomy. The “Would Jesus Discriminate?” Campaign, funded nationally by Faith in America, Inc., features such signs as “Jesus Affirmed a Gay Couple”: Matt. 8:5-13; “The Early Church Welcomed a Gay...

While many people were aware that the United Church of Christ voted earlier this week to endorse same-sex marriage, they may have missed another controversial decision made at the biennial conference of the 1.3 million member US church. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that in the closing minutes of the conference on Tuesday, attendees approved a resolution that called for members "to use 'economic leverage' to promote peace between Israel and Palestinians." The Washington Post reports, however, that the group did reject resolutions calling for "divestment in companies that supply Israel with bulldozers and military equipment." The approved resolution did...