Free Republic

British reporter Robert Fisk was on hand when the city was liberated and wrote: “The Greek Catholic Church of Our Lady is a place of shame, of burnt copies of the New Testament, paintings slashed with knives – many were lying in strips of gold and red fabric beside the altar’s broken cross – and mosaics chiselled from the walls.” Fisk also mentioned that the terrorists had “gouged out the eyes of the mosaic saints.”What is on display in these photos is not merely abomination and sacrilege; it is loathing and hatred of the spirit of Christ; it is...

It was a hot day in July, a Saturday afternoon, and Kim James was bored. Her older sisters had taken her to a church event in their small hometown in Indiana, where the girls were spending their summer. Her parents were back in Bangladesh, working at the remote Baptist missionary compound where the family had lived, on and off, for five years. For an adventurous and high-spirited 13-year-old like Kim, Indiana seemed dull compared to Bangladesh. She missed her friends, the dozen or so missionary kids everybody called “MKs.” She missed the menagerie her parents let her keep: goats, cows,...

At the heart of Christianity is the doctrine of the mystical union of the believer with Christ. The New Testament does not only call us to believe in Christ, but to believe into Christ. Faith links us directly into Christ. We become in Him and He in us. This mysterious union is carried over into the relationship between Christ and the church. The church is His bride, whom He has brought into a real, profound, and powerful union. We normally assume that the image of the church as the bride of Christ is a metaphor borrowed from the institution of...

Karen Oliveto clutched a friend's hand, closed her eyes and wept when she learned last year she had been elected a bishop of the United Methodist Church. Oliveto, who is married to another woman, had become the denomination's first openly gay bishop.

Tim Keller founded one of the most influential urban churches in America, Redeemer Presbyterian, which is theologically conservative, racially diverse and growing across its three New York City congregations. He was set to receive an award from Princeton Theological Seminary, also a Presbyterian institution in the Reformed tradition, for his contributions to the “Neo-Calvinist vision of religious engagement.”

Researchers looked at 22 Protestant churches in CanadaA study of Protestant churches in Canada has found that growing churches tend to be more orthodox, while shrinking ones are theologically liberal.Terry Mattingly, author of the Get Religion blog, covered the findings of the study, which appeared in the peer-reviewed journal, Review of Religion Research.The researchers, David Millard Haskell, Kevin N Flatt and Stephanie Burgoyne, looked at 22 mainline Protestant churches in Canada. Nine of the churches were growing in attendance, while 13 were declining. The researchers found that when other factors were controlled for, ”the theological conservatism of both attendees...

Treasure hunters have apparently found the 500-year-old remains of a naval expedition led by a colonizer who could have changed Florida's history, making it French-speaking at least for a while. The big question is if the shipwreck is that of "La Trinite," the 32-gun flagship of a fleet led by Jean Ribault, a French navigator who tried to establish a Protestant colony in the southeast US under orders from King Charles IX. They probably are, say authorities in Florida, the French government and independent archeologists. And if they in fact are, this is an unparalleled find, said John de Bry,...

The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a dynamic, activist minister with a loyal following at her Protestant congregation in suburban Toronto. She is also an outspoken atheist. “We don’t talk about God,” Vosper said in an interview, describing services at her West Hill United Church, adding that it’s time the church gave up on “the idolatry of a theistic god.”

The Surprising Reason Why More Americans Are Not Going To ChurchThe standard narrative of American religious decline goes something like this: A few hundred years ago, European and American intellectuals began doubting the validity of God as an explanatory mechanism for natural life. As science became a more widely accepted method for investigating and understanding the physical world, religion became a less viable way of thinking—not just about medicine and mechanics, but also culture and politics and economics and every other sphere of public life. As the United States became more secular, people slowly began drifting away from faith.Of course,...

In what has to be a new low for the New York Times, the Gray Lady (or should we now say the Bearded Lady?) has published an op-ed piece titled “Is God Transgender?” by a New York rabbi named Mark Sameth. Cousin to a man who “transitioned to a woman” in the 1970s, Sameth contends that “the Hebrew Bible, when read in its original language, offers a highly elastic view of gender.” He marshals many purported examples of gender fluidity in the Hebrew scriptures, in order to argue that religion should not be put in service of “social prejudices” against...

TURKEY'S Islamist government has stepped up its war on Christianity by seizing all the churches in one city and declaring them state property. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken control of six churches in the war-torn southeastern city of Diyarbakir in his latest move to squash freedom of speech and religious movement. The state-sanctioned seizure is just the latest in a number of worrying developments to come out of increasingly hardline Turkey, which is in advanced talks with the EU over visa-free travel for its 80 million citizens. Included in the seizures are Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches, one of...

TORONTO, February 2, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- Canada’s most celebrated homosexual activist minister has been charged for allegedly sexually abusing a boy in the mid-1970s. Rev. Brent Hawkes, 65, of the Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto, has been charged with indecent assault on a male and gross indecency. He was summoned to court in Kentville, Nova Scotia yesterday to face the charges. Local police have refused to provide further details.   Hawkes, who lives with his male "husband," has become a major icon of homosexual activism in Canada. He famously flouted Canadian law by illegally "marrying" a homosexual couple in his Toronto church...

Twenty Protestant families have been forcibly displaced from their homes in western Mexico because of their faith after the government refused to prevent the deportations, an advocacy official told BosNewsLife Friday, January 29. Threats of expulsion have been ongoing since December 6 last year when a resolution was adopted by the village assembly saying that the Protestant members of the community would be expelled if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism, described as "the traditional faith", Christians said.

The Anglican Communion voted to censure its American branch, the Episcopal Church, during a meeting in Canterbury, England, called to reflect on the future of the communion. The vote Thursday (Jan. 14) to suspend the Episcopal Church from voting and decision-making for a period of three years was leaked a day ahead of a press conference that had been scheduled for Friday.

In the 500 years since its inception, the Protestant revolt has evolved from the erroneous opinions of a single mad monk into a thousand-headed hydra of heresy, with each head snapping at the other almost as frequently as at the Catholic Church itself. Nonetheless, the many heads have remained joined at one common point - a point which Protestant theologians such as Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer desired to see writ large on the flag of modern Protestantism: Ecclesia semper reformanda est, i.e. "The Church is always to be reformed." Today, speaking to bishops and faithful gathered in Florence, Pope...

On October 31, much of the culture will be focused on candy and things that go bump in the night. Protestants, however, have something far more significant to celebrate on October 31. It’s Reformation day, which commemorates what was perhaps the greatest move of God’s Spirit since the days of the Apostles. But what is the significance of Reformation Day, and how should we consider the events it commemorates? At the time, few would have suspected that the sound of a hammer striking the castle church door in Wittenberg, Germany, would soon be heard around the world and lead ultimately...

1] The Roman Pontiff claims for himself [in the first place] that by divine right he is [supreme] above all bishops and pastors [in all Christendom]. 2] Secondly, he adds also that by divine right he has both swords, i.e., the authority also of bestowing kingdoms [enthroning and deposing kings, regulating secular dominions etc.]. 3] And thirdly, he says that to believe this is necessary for salvation. And for these reasons the Roman bishop calls himself [and boasts that he is] the vicar of Christ on earth. 4] These three articles we hold to be false, godless, tyrannical, and [quite]...

Before a judge today ordered her release, Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee announced their plans to meet with Kentucky clerk Kim Davis whose refusal to worship at the First Church of Justice Kennedy and sign her name to same-sex marriage licenses landed her in jail over the Labor Day weekend. Had her stand happened a few short centuries ago, Huckabee and Cruz would likely have been joined by a few notable figures from Christian history — men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox — the men who first put the “protest” in “Protestant.” They would have understood her...

Planned Parenthood, which makes money from selling dead baby parts, has a Clergy Advocacy Board, which released a statement defending the abattoir.I tried to find the names of the board members, but came up with this when I clinked their link.  HEREI want to know who the Catholics are.A commentator (below) found it. I dates to April 2015, but we can assume it is still accurate for the most part.Here is a screen shot.

Christian minister Tony Campolo's recent announcement that the church should accept gay couples is highlighting the growing division between Christians over the issues of homosexuality and gay marriage. In a statement issued this week, Campolo said he's tried to approach people on both sides of the issue with grace and understanding while struggling with his own beliefs. Finally, he said, it was his own relationship with his wife and the many same-sex couples they know and spend time with that persuaded him that the primary purpose of marriage is about spiritual growth. He also wrote that homosexuality is "almost never...