Free Republic

SNIP The 59-year-old unmarried vicar had arrived last July at the parish of St Mary’s in the quiet medieval market town of Thornbury in south Gloucestershire. It was to be, the former barrister had said, a “retirement posting”, closer to his extended family in Dorset than his previous incumbency in Essex. But that didn’t mean he was cutting any corners in his ministry. In a sermon last October, Mr Suddards spoke of what he called “his Christian duty” to open the door of his vicarage to all vulnerable strangers and offer them shelter and support. “It’s a bit risky,” he...

Based on the love story of two devout Christians, the movie version of "The Vow," starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum, strips the tale of its overt religious themes, which has some Christian reviewers concerned. The film is based on the true life story and book, “The Vow” by Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, which draws heavily on that couple’s Christian beliefs and the power of God to heal and shepherd a marriage through difficult times.

Animated to inspire Faith in God and His Son Jesus! Child singing voice is unknown and is from the Black Pond Baptist Church fellowship. Inspirational message given by an animated red-shoulder hawk in flight.

Covering something that comes out of Joy Behar's mouth makes one feel a little dirty. Analyzing Behar is like analyzing a Kardashian, only Behar isn't that smart. If science could somehow harness energy from the brainwaves that come out of this dolt's head, we might be able to light a small birthday candle. But trudge through the muck we must, to deliver such wisdom unto the masses... Via NewsBusters: The shrill, extremist comments coming from the co-hosts on The View continued, Thursday. Liberal comedienne Joy Behar trashed Virginia for passing abortion restrictions, saying the new law makes the state like...

During a routine practice with the New York Knicks, Jeremy Lin took a minute to talk to a reporter from Fuse TV about his favorite music. Lin, who makes no efforts to hide his religion, named the popular Christian rapper, Lecrae Moore. Lecrae, whose six studio album, "Rehab: The Overdose," was the highest charting Christian Hip Hop album ever on iTunes and debuted at #15 on the Billboard 200, is already a celebrity within the world of gospel-rap and will perform alongside Hip Hop supergroup, The Wu-Tang Clan at the "Paid Dues Festival" this April. ...A talented rapper from an...

A senior Scientologist was locked up, beaten and tortured by the controversial religion's tyrannical leadership, a court has heard after an attempt by the Church to silence her spectacularly backfired. Debbie Cook, who was one of the organisation's most respected executives before she quit in 2007, testified that she was held for 45 days in a crowded, ant-infested trailer in the California desert. The 50-year-old also claimed to have witnessed Scientology chairman David Miscavige, a friend of celebrity follower Tom Cruise, punch another senior executive in the face before wrestling him to the ground.

Holly Chen is a former first-grade teacher, just over 5 feet tall, with a taste for sequins... "The most powerful weapon is to move somebody emotionally," she says... Today, Ms. Chen directs one in every 10 Amway reps—getting a cut along the way. Her total haul is estimated by one direct-sales magazine at $8 million a year. "I don't even know how much I make," she says to the group gathered in Las Vegas, part of the U.S. branch of chao fan. Turns out these are flush days for Michigan-based Amway, which sells its own brands of cosmetics and personal...

I belong to a women's club (bit like Junior League AKA sorority for grown-ups) in our area where we raise money for various charities. We have normally given to the Komen Foundation in the past. Today, the President of the club said that we now are going to give to "Relay for Life" because of the controversy (thank God!) Does anyone know about this organization? Do they also contribute to the destruction of life? Someone in the meeting said they are tied to the American Cancer Society and that it was "OK"....but reading online.....not so much. Any insight, greatly appreciated.

After getting into a 170 comment Facebook argument with one of my lovely friends from school about a status I posted with a joke about Atheism, people came up to me in the following days and questioned my reasoning for doing something like that. People advised me to keep all political and religious ideas off of Facebook, to avoid conflict. This incident made me realize how much people hate conflict. But on another level, this advice bothered me. People will forgo any talk about religious or political views just to avoid a conflict or to make sure they don't offend...

Last Friday, the White House announced that it would revise the controversial ObamaCare birth-control mandate to address religious-liberty concerns. Its proposed modifications are a farce. The Department of Health and Human Services would still require employers with religious objections to select an insurance company to provide contraceptives and drugs that induce abortions to its employees. The employers would pay for the drugs through higher premiums. For those employers that self-insure, like the Archdiocese of Washington, the farce is even more blatant. The birth-control coverage mandate violates the First Amendment's bar against the "free exercise" of religion. But it also violates...

Animated to inspire Faith in Jesus! Child singing is grandson and at videos end the child’s singing voice is unknown and out of the Black Pond Baptist Church fellowships.

Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down Just a song.

This video is a repeat to inspired and to bring awareness of the soon coming of Jesus for His Church. All scripture was taken out of the (KJV) Bible!

US filmmaker Sean Stone, son of Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, converted to Islam on Tuesday in Iran, where he is making a documentary, he told AFP. "The conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with. It means I have accepted Mohammad and other prophets," he said in a brief telephone call from the central Iranian city of Isfahan, where he underwent the ceremony. Sean Stone's famous father is Jewish, while his mother is Christian. The 27-year-old filmmaker did not say why he converted. According to Iran's Fars news agency, Sean Stone had become a...

I have a great wife and love her very much. She knows that I love her greatly. But more than just love her, I appreciate her and all that she does for me and has done for me, above and beyond what is expected of her. I also respect her, and admire her, and I am very proud to be her husband. She is very pretty and sexy, but not revealing herself in her clothes, always easy and tasteful with the make-up, though I don’t think she needs any at all and she’s always a class act around people. She...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on what happened last night at the Grammys:Nicki Minaj, fresh off looking like a fool with Madonna at the Super Bowl, showed up last night on the red carpet at the Grammys with a guy dressed like the pope. This was just a prelude of what was to come.Minaj’s performance began on stage with a mock confessional skit. This was followed by a taped video depicting a mock exorcism. With stained glass in the background, she appeared on stage again with choir boys and monks dancing.Perhaps the most vulgar part was the sexual statement...

A cemetery owner is speaking out after someone made a horrific discovery at her cemetery. Esther King recently went to the Lincoln Memorial Park to visit some deceased relatives when she found a baby's stone tomb cracked open. "That's a baby. That's a baby that's about six to seven months old. That's a baby," King said. King looked inside the grave and discovered that the child's body was still there, but the baby boy's head was missing. King said, "That is not godly." The boy's tomb was one of many found with its concrete cover removed at the cemetery along...

Jeremy Lin may have come out of Friday night's game against the Lakers a star with a career-high 38 points, seven assists and four rebounds. But he's not letting the "Linsanity" overcome the country without giving proper credit to God. "I just give all the praise to God," Lin said after the game. Point guard for the New York Knicks, Lin has become a household name overnight. He's being recognized for not only saving the season, but for being the first American player in the NBA to be of Chinese or of Taiwanese descent and for his outspoken Christianity.

Crammed uncomfortably in the front seat of a van, forced to sit at a 45-degree angle to avoid a head-on collision between my knees and the gear box, I'm surprised and relieved when my seatmate notices my pained grimace and graciously offers to share his legroom. "Stretch your legs out, there's room here," says Rabbi Yitzchok Meyer Landau, the spiritual leader of the famed Khal Veretzky (fondly known as "Rav Landau's") at the corner of Avenue L and East 9th Street in Midwod, Brooklyn. Sharing tight quarters is part of the Landau heritage, as I would soon see for myself....

This no-talent woman like Gaga will sink to any despicable level to gain attention and she can't sing enough to to wipe the dust off Whitney Houston's booths. This is one forgettable bitch. http://www.rap-up.com/2012/02/12/nicki-minaj-rolls-with-the-pope-to-the-grammys/

On Tuesday, a high school student walked into the Nation Centre with her parents. The student in Form Two at Chogoria Girls in Meru County was still in her school uniform: a maroon skirt, white blouse, maroon pullover and white socks in black shoes. But in addition to this, Tabitha Wangui, 17, wore a white headscarf, the reason she claimed she wasn't at school then. According to her father Gabriel Macharia, the student was told to go home and bring her parents because she refused -- then supposedly incited her colleagues -- never to remove the headscarf. Coming from the...

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the government should require a church or religious organization to provide contraceptives for women even if it violates their deeply held beliefs. Fifty percent (50%) disagree and oppose such a requirement that runs contrary to strong beliefs, while 10% more are undecided. [...] Sixty-five percent (65%) of Catholic voters oppose this requirement, as do 62% of Evangelical Christians, and 50% of other Protestants. Most non-Christians (56%) support the Obama Administration ruling.

Sarah Charles’ life stopped when Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake two years ago. She was possessed by fear and anguish thinking about her son who was in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake. “I was going crazy not knowing where my son was,” said Charles of Hallandale. Her anxiety grew as time passed without news about her son. But there was something that helped Charles cope with her anguish – Voodoo. “The [Voodoo] ceremonies brought all my spiritual brothers and sisters together and helped us share our pain, making it less severe,” said Charles, 40, who was...

Now on Cavuto. Obama struck-out twice as badly as before on mandating contraception coverage for religious institutions. First, analysis. Pat Caddell indicates that Obama is in twice the trouble he was yesterday with religious groups, esp. Catholics. Today's decree from Obama just doubles-down on mandating that Catholic organizations offer contraception to all its members. Organizations are pissed! Second, business. Insurance companies are outraged that they now have to pay for universal contraceptive coverage without ever even being asked. This just drives the insurance companies farther from the Libs/Dems. Third, religion. Mons. Jim Lisante on Cavuto. He says the Church is...

Is it a fair question to ask... Is Mormonism Christian or is it not? If you care enough to respond and tell me it's not a fair question, please explain why not.

If Catholics are forced to pay for abortions, will Muslims be forced to have and pay for porcine heart valve replacement surgery?

Better technology yields better data. The bad news is the extra water from 2003-2010 would fill Lake Erie eight times By Jason Koebler February 8, 2012 RSS Feed Print Nearly 230 billion tons of ice is melting into the ocean from glaciers, ice caps, and mountaintops annually—which is actually less than previous estimates, according to new research by scientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder. If the amount of ice lost between 2003 and 2010 covered the United States, the whole country would be under one-and-a-half feet of water, or it'd fill Lake Erie eight times, researchers say. Ocean levels...

Cardinal-designate Edwin F. O'Brien said in a strongly worded letter that the Archdiocese of Baltimore will not comply with federal law requiring churches to offer birth control coverage even it means dropping health insurance for its 3,500 employees. "We cannot – we will not – comply with this unjust law," O'Brien wrote in the letter, which was read during last Sunday's Mass at the area's 153 Roman Catholic parishes. O'Brien's letter highlights a continuing dispute over federal health care reform, and a policy that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says is designed to improve care for women....

A Michigan pastor has opened a tattoo parlor inside his church. Rev. Steve Bentley says he’s doing everything he can to reach out to people who have never felt comfortable at a traditional house of worship.

ore than 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began in March. The number of dead in Homs alone is now over over 200 and climbing. The Assad regime says terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy to destabilize the country are behind the uprising, not people seeking to transform the authoritarian regime. He’s right, it was Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood that claimed responsibility in December 2011 for two suicide bombings in Damascus that killed 44 people. Yet, you have Israeli politicians like Moshe (Boge) Ya’alon telling Army Radio that the end of Assad’s regime could bring ‘relatively moderate’...

According to Michael Walsh, almost 20% of both Republicans and Indepedents along with 30% of Democrats have vowed that they will not vote for a Mormon for president. Yet the Republican establishment naively and foolishly believes this a non-issue. By November, chances are that many Americans will be given a first class education on the history of Mormonism, which will be very difficult to overcome at the ballot box ...

Are Women to lead churches? Is this out of order according to scripture? Tony Smith lays down a convincing argument.

Obama's abortion rules for the Catholic religion are no different than requiring Muslims to eat pork.

At the end of Sunday mass at the church this writer attends in Washington, D.C., the pastor asked the congregation to remain for a few minutes. Then, on the instructions of Cardinal Archbishop Donald Wuerl, the pastor proceeded to read a letter. In the letter, the Church denounced the Obama administration for ordering all Catholic schools, hospitals and social services to provide, in their health insurance coverage for employes, free contraceptives, free sterilizations and free "morning-after" pills.

Increasing violence in Nigeria has only strengthened local Christians’ faith, even sparking a revival at the Deeper Life Bible Church in Gombe, where nine Christians were martyred in a Jan. 5 attack on the church. During a funeral service on Jan. 19 for those killed, many believers rededicated their lives to Christ, and others came to faith in Christ for the first time, according to a VOM worker. Weeping and singing on their knees, a choir led about 500 attendees and 50 pastors in worship. The martyrs’ relatives and other dignitaries — including the deputy governor speaking on behalf of...

One Smart Doctor I think this just may be the best pro-life message I've seen. A Point well made!!! A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said: 'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help! My baby is not even 1 year old and I'm pregnant again. I don't want kids so close together. So the doctor said: 'Ok and what do you want me to do?' She said: 'I want you to end my pregnancy, and I'm counting on your help with this. The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said...

This is an encouragement to all my "Freepers" keeping the faith and hanging on. Breaking down how we must be the change , we can't wait on government

The ascendancy of Mormonism as a world religion once seemed inevitable. The year was 1984, and sociologist named Rodney Stark made a startling projection: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would grow to 267 million members by 2080. ..................................................... But new data suggests that Mormonism may no longer be (as it is often described) among the fastest growing faiths in the United States. Instead, American Mormons appear to be settling into the twenty-first century as a maturing minority having an increasingly hard time holding onto younger members.

GOING INTO MATTHEW THE 20TH CHAPTER , TO SEE IF WERE ENTITLED MORE THAN THE NEXT IN THIS TRUTH ? IS MY GIFT GREATER THAN YOURS ??? OR VICE VERSA ??? LET'S FIND OUT , THUS SAITH CHRIST NOT ME !

Welcome home, Mr. Governor. You have fought the good fight. You have earned a few scars, gained a few wrinkles, and absorbed a few blows. And you have nudged the country, ever so slightly, in the right direction. For that we are grateful. You brought the straightforwardness of Texas to the national limelight. You captured the resoluteness of Texans and reminded us that unambiguity and resolve are qualities that all Americans should employ. You showed us that slow talk can be straight talk, that truth is simple, that reality is easily explained. No, you can't add regulation and jobs at...

Lately, the Obama regime has thrown all pretense to the wind when it comes to religion and religious freedom. Most recently, the regime mandated a new federal requirement that will force many Catholic organizations to provide insurance coverage for sterilizations and contraceptives. (There are currently ongoing FR threads about this.) The regime continues to vigorously attack religious people (especially Christians) and institutions who refuse, for example, to provide abortions on demand or provide other welfare / socialist government-decreed services and products, even if those individuals and institutions and have legitimate, traditional religious objections. Tough luck. Government IS God. Here is...

The e-mail said that the following article was published in a Spanish newspaper on January 15, 2008 and was written by Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez--- I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth – Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, and talent. We destroyed the Chosen People, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world. The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above...

This video is from a previous ABC Yahoo sponsored GOP debate. I believe this moment was what made conservatives take notice of Newt. Whoever is the presidential candidate ought to take note of Newt's rhetorical skills and use this as a weapon in his debate against Obama (hope it will be Newt himself. Nobody can do it better). HHS Secretary Katherine Sebelius is even now FORCING the Catholic Church to comply with HHS rules that would REQUIRE Catholic Hospitals and Healthcare services to provide sterilization and contraception services to people who request them. What's next? Abortion? CLICK on this link...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Saudi cleric Sa'd Bin Al-Shathari which aired on Al-Resala TV on October 8, 2011, and was posted on the Internet. Interviewer: There is a great deal of interest in the death of Steve Jobs, the founder and owner of Apple and its former CEO. I'd like you to comment on two matters. First, is it permissible to be sad over the death of an infidel? Second, is it permissible to ask for Allah's mercy for an infidel? There was a lot of debate on Twitter and Facebook about this. Sa'd Bin Al-Shathari: With...

Dear Mr. Joseph Smith, Is it a good work to vote my conscience or must I vote for elder Romney? Has anyone polled the mormon vote? Will the mormons vote their conscience or will they vote for Romney because he is a mormon? I voted for Romney because he's a mormon = I voted for Obama because he is black.

“Quinn is a former professor at LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University who was excommunicated in 1993 for apostasy based on his historical writings. Instead of trying to deny Joseph Smith’s penchant for occultic activities, Quinn—who says he “remains a DNA Mormon”—concluded that Smith’s background truly did involve divining rods, seer stones, a hat to shield his eyes in order to see hidden treasures, amulets, incantations, and rituals to summon spirits. “Smith was a magician first class, Quinn believes, but he holds that Mormonism’s founder was also a man of God who used his magical tools to communicate with the Almighty...

I need sme help. Usually I am good at finding this sort of thing online but lately I am foggy-brained or something. I know a lot of you FReepers know this stuff. Where can I find a comparison of the forces between warsaw pact and nato countries in 1946? Population, GDP, and the number of tanks, planes, submarines and all that.

You may have heard of this case. For about 25 years high school teacher Bradley Johnson had banners in his class that said: "In God We Trust" "One Nation Under God" "God Bless America" But then, someone complained. It went to court. In the first round - Federal District Judge Robert T. Benitez sided with the teacher. (He said the Poway School District was opposing Johnson's First Amendment rights.) But then the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision. The banners came down. But now, the Thomas More Law Center, has "taken up a petition with the Supreme Court"...

Men are dreaming animals, and the incapacity to dream makes a man less than human. Indeed, we have no knowledge of any human community where men do fail to dream. Which is to say, we know of no human community whose members do not have a vision of perfection—a vision in which the frustrations inherent in our human condition are annulled and transcended. The existence of such dreaming visions is not, in itself, a problem. They are, on the contrary, a testament to the creativity of man which flows from the fact that he is a creature uniquely endowed with...

Hi everyone. My 78 year old mother fell this past week, severely breaking her hip at the femural head (where the abductor muscles attach) and her shoulder in two places. They did surgery (rod and pins) for the hip, but are slinging and swathing the arm/shoulder. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated.