Free Republic

Maybe America was once a Christian nation with Christian values and a Christian way of looking at life. Or maybe it wasn’t. I don’t even care where you stand on that controversy; the fact is most American churches assumed it was true. The crazy thing is, most American churches still act as if it were true.And it’s killing us. It’s been strangling us slowly for decades. We preach and teach as if we all lived in comfortable Christendom, when we ought to be praying and preaching and training like missionaries in a hostile foreign culture. Because that’s exactly where we...

To adapt former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's famous 2002 press statement, the world's next big shooting war will be a consequential event masked by known unknowns. The human historical record tells us a major armed (kinetic) conflict involving powerful nations will eventually erupt. Given contemporary economic interdependence and the lethality of modern weaponry, the conflict will have disruptive global consequences, many of them grim. However, what geopolitical issues shape and misshape The Next Big War; who wages the hostility and for what reasons; how the combatants prepare to wage it; where and how the combatants engage; and how the...

The shift in American society from admiring Christians to fearing and criticizing them provides an opportunity for self-reflection. How have we been presenting the message we believe in? Might there be a more grace-filled way?Some want to focus on personal morality and leave public morality to secular politicians. Others seek ways to guide the broader culture while still communicating grace. Rather than propose a single path, I will instead make some observations and suggestions for Christians to consider as we interact with a world that does not always share our views.Clashes Between Christ and Culture Are UnavoidableJohn Howard Yoder recounted...

There's an article recently written on a website Quillette titled The Psychology of Progressive Hostility which is very well written, I highly recommend it. One part of the article asks the following question: "So how and why have these activists become so intolerant and horrible to deal with?" It is questions like that that this blog are built around. Due to the progressives' complete dominance of academia(history) and media(journalism), I think it is safe to say that progressivism is the least understood ideology of modern history. For what the article is and how it is set out to examine what...

Recently, I arrived at a moment of introspection about a curious aspect of my own behavior. When I disagree with a conservative friend or colleague on some political issue, I have no fear of speaking my mind. I talk, they listen, they respond, I talk some more, and at the end of it we get along just as we always have. But I’ve discovered that when a progressive friend says something with which I disagree or that I know to be incorrect, I’m hesitant to point it out. This hesitancy is a consequence of the different treatment one tends to...

Trump confidant Roger Stone talks about what one of his "operatives" uncovered by attending a planning session for ...groups planning to protest Donald Trump's inauguration. "Secret Service take notice," Stone said. "I'm happy to share this with anyone from the service who takes notice."... ROGER STONE: I do want to talk about what is coming in Washington, because it is scary. We had an operative who infiltrated the J-20 Committee planning session.... what these folks have in mind, because this is not a benign civilly disobedient protest. They intend to march from McPherson Square to Columbus. ...during the lunch period...

President Barack Obama says years of knee-jerk GOP hostility toward him has fueled Donald Trump’s rise, arguing Thursday that Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. Trump’s GOP rivals headed into their final debate before next week’s key primaries wondering if it was already too late to stop him from claiming their party’s nomination. Relishing the opportunity to ridicule what he called the GOP “circus,” Obama sought to tie Trump to his primary election opponents by claiming they see eye to eye on the issues — even if the flamboyant billionaire puts on a more provocative act. The president...

Attorney General Eric Holder today announced that the Department of Justice will open a civil rights investigation into the death of Eric Garner, the man who was killed in July during the course of an NYPD arrest. Sean Hannity pointed out tonight on "Hannity" that Holder has no problem investigating a case in which a grand jury has made a clear decision, but when it comes to the violence in Ferguson, he won't look into Michael Brown's stepfather potentially inciting riots. J. Christian Adams said that this Justice Department has "an enormous hostility toward the police," from Holder prejudging the...

In a fiery speech to social conservatives Friday, Virginia lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson blasted the media for questioning his positions on social issues. Jackson, a bishop, said that when he first got into the race he was asked by reporters about controversial statements he has made concerning Planned Parenthood (which he once compared to the Ku Klux Klan) and gay marriage. “Well, I want to go on record here,” Jackson said, speaking at the Values Voter Summit. “I didn’t apologize then, I don’t apologize now and I will never apologize for standing up for the truth.”

Foreign Policy: With Israel's two most important allies in the Muslim world now conspiring against her, we must act to help our strategic friend and avert a costly Mideast war. The White House has to do more than just make phone calls and statements of concern. Yet that's all it did when Egypt's police and army last week let a mob sack Israel's embassy in Cairo following a flare-up on the Egyptian border. Terrorists trekked across Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and sneaked into Israel, killing eight Israelis. In response to the attack, Israel killed five Egyptian police and soldiers along with...

A liberal protester at the “One Nation Working Together” march physically assaulted a HUMAN EVENTS reporter who was videotaping Rep. Charlie Rangel (D.-N.Y) at the event at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The reporter, Emily Miller, was first hit from behind while she was taping Rangel as the Harlem congressman glad-handed supporters in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Miss Miller is heard on the video saying, “Please don’t hit me.” The protester proceeds to yell at the reporter, “Well get out of the way! What do you think this is? A$$hole.” The activist was attempting to meet Rangel herself....

Uganda's Asian elite face fresh hostility By Lucy Hooker Business reporter, BBC World Service, Kampala, Uganda Some Asian residents were targeted by the protesters On 12 April an environmental protest in Kampala turned racial. The crowds began chanting anti-Asian slogans. Some held placards with slogans praising Uganda's former dictator Idi Amin. "For one tree cut five Indians dead," said one poster. Violence targeting Asians led to the death of one young Indian man. Shops were ransacked and many Asians sought refuge in the Hindu temple or barricaded themselves in their shops. Pent up frustration over the inequality between Uganda's Asian...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men with high levels of hostility, anger and depression show increases in a key marker of inflammation over time, which may put them at greater risk of heart disease, a new study shows."This is further data suggesting that this stuff is bad for your health," Dr. Stephen H. Boyle of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health. "It's not good to have high levels of hostility, anger and depression."Such psychological factors have long been linked to heart disease, but the mechanism through which they harm the heart...

China is a nation without true friends Sergei Karpukhin, Reuters President Hu Jintao visited Russia, really only a fair-weather pal, this week. Internal reform, not charm offensives, will make its neighbours less anxious (Mar 31, 2007) Like the emergence of Germany in the 19th century and of United States in the 20th, China's rapid rise to superpower status generates as much fear as admiration. The fears are most acute in its own neighbourhood.Yet from a historical perspective, one of the more remarkable developments of recent years may be China's submission to the tiny threads of international constraint, especially in its...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's father accused the news media of "personal animosity" toward his son and said he found the criticism so unrelenting he sometimes talked back to his television set. "It's one thing to have an adversarial ... relationship -- hard-hitting journalism -- it's another when the journalists' rhetoric goes beyond skepticism and goes over the line into overt, unrelenting hostility and personal animosity," former President George Bush said. The elder Bush, the 41st U.S. president, had a relatively collegial relationship with the press but things turned sour during his losing 1992 re-election campaign. He got...

Mike Hatch’s aggressive reputation showed through Thursday for one of the few times in this year’s heated gubernatorial race. Hatch lashed out at Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Republicans for attacking his running mate, Judi Dutcher, over a recent incident in which the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party lieutenant governor candidate appeared to know nothing about E-85 ethanol. “This governor is afraid to debate me on issues,” said Hatch, the current attorney general who recent polls show is narrowly leading Pawlenty in the governor’s race. “He wants to beat up on a woman.” Hatch’s anger overflowed during a Thursday morning telephone interview. A Forum...

PROPOSALS INVITED TOWARD A MORE CIVIL DISCOURSE RE RELIGIOUS FIGURES AT ODDS WITH VARIOUS SENSIBILITIES The current thread regarding Pat Robertson is but the latest in a long tradition of certain flavors of evangelical Christian and particularly Pentecostal/Charismatic religious figures being thoroughly shredded by what--90% or more of the posts--usually in the harshest, most hostile, even demonizing wording possible. It seems that when folks are perceived to be in such Pentecostal/charismatic categories, all bets are off, no holds barred--the most viscious attacks are the minimal Standard Operating Procedure. Instead of exhorting one another in Christian Love, the worst attitudes normally...

Anti-Christian Hostility Driving 'War on Christmas,' Attorney Says By Jim Brown December 7, 2005 (AgapePress) - A Christian attorney says recent acts of censorship indicate Christmas is under attack in public schools across the United States. One Ohio high school principal, for example, recently renamed the school's Christmas tree and concert a "holiday tree" and a "holiday concert." Similarly, a Missouri school superintendent informed fine arts teachers in his district that an upcoming winter assembly may not include "direct references to Christmas or the birth of Jesus," and a Wisconsin school district has banned all Christian Christmas songs. Such phenomena...

Will Agreement Shake Cooperation Between Seoul and WashingtonThe second part of the fourth round of the six-party talks, which reconvened on Sept. 13, went through considerable ups and downs prior to the announcement of a joint statement Monday. The South Korean government spent the last week engaging in last-moment negotiations to find an agreement over the light-water reactor issue, which North Korea would not abandon to the end, despite considerable tensions between Seoul and Washington. Some, however, are wondering whether Seoul’s assumption of a mediating role between the United States and North Korea might become a burden on South Korea-U.S....

I recently returned from eleven days in Iran. Before I went, friends told me I was crazy to go. They said I'd meet a lot of anti-American hostility. I'd be in danger, even. I met zero hostility. I don't want this article to become a list of what Iran isn't. That reminds me too much of my first interests in the country. I write fiction books for children and young adults. In 1999, I decided to write the tale of Beauty and the Beast from the lion's point of view. My searching through older versions of the story led to...