Free Republic

Monica Lewinsky, the anti-bullying activist who found herself at the centre of a 90s media storm after an affair with President Bill Clinton, has been signed by a major fashion brand. . Ms Lewinsky was chosen by women's fashion house Reformation to lead the company's latest voting campaign. . The "You've Got the Power" work wear campaign was launched on Monday in partnership with Vote.org.

On the 21st or perhaps the 20th of May in 1525, the peasant rebel Jakob Rohrbach — more commonly known as Jäcklein (“Little Jack”) Rohrbach — was chained to a stake and burned alive as the nobility celebrated its victory in the German Peasants’ War. Rohrbach was by history’s acclamation the most bloody-minded of the peasant revolutionaries — for Jakob perhaps had learned the lesson of the Jacquerie that rebels against the lords must vanquish or perish. (Jakob Rohrbach was literate.) When the peasantry rose to shake Germany, Rohrbach was elected a leader in the environs of Weinsberg, in Baden-Wuerttemberg....

is well known that Charles Spurgeon came to Christ when he ducked into a small church to escape a snowstorm and heard the gospel proclaimed. Some wrongly think Spurgeon was thus suddenly converted to Christ out of a life of sheer paganism. Spurgeon himself used to talk about how he had suffered for a long time under the weight of sin before he finally found Christ. Because of the way he described himself as a great sinner utterly in debt to divine grace, many who heard him preach came away with the impression that he was a man who had...

I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, "As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his...

“A Reformation in Liturgy and Hymnody” (John 8:31-36) Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Friends, this is really what the Reformation was all about: that people would abide in the living, life-giving word of Christ; that they would know the truth of the gospel, which had been obscured by the errors that had crept into the church; and that this truth would set people free from the slavery they had been laboring under. Luther himself had labored under that slavery,...

Demands from Rottenburg I wonder what the Pope will say about this? Rottenburg - The long-prepared Council Day of the protest, "Reforms now - Council from below" will take place on Saturday, 24 September. More than 400 participants from parishes of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, church associations, religious, members of the Diocesan Council and others are expected. In the meantime, numerous delegates have registered for the Council Day. The initiators are the initiative pro concilio and the AGR, the solidarity group of priests and deacons in the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart. Supporters include the Federation of German Catholic Youth, the Catholic...

E Pluribus Unum worked in the past but now multiculturalism has turned it around on itself, so that many voices out of one (Plures Ex Uno) are a Babel of sins destroying The West. A conservative reformation is the path I see to save us. Harnessing the inherently good faiths values of more than one culture to oppose stupidity and reassert true human life in God, family and community.

“Eleutherios: Free Indeed!” (John 8:31-36) Today, October 31, along with millions of other Christians around the world, we are celebrating Reformation Day. Why? What’s so special about this day? Well, 504 years ago today, on October 31, 1517, Dr. Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses against the sale of indulgences on the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany. And what Luther did that day started the movement known as the Reformation, which corrected many bad practices that crept into the church. Ever since, we observe the last Sunday in October as Reformation Day, and we thank God for using...

One of the most famous Kings in the world has to be Henry VIII of England. He is most known today for the fact he had 6 wives, and the fact he ordered the execution of 2 of these, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. Henry VIII's love life certainly was turbulent, and it caused chaos across the country. After being refused a divorce for his first wife Catherine of Aragon, he split from Rome becoming the Supreme Head of the Church of England. This began the English Reformation, which changed the face of religion forever.We know much about Henry's wives,...

Part I An Introduction Overview of the Renaissance Never in history has one man’s thesis so rattled the powers that be, than did Martin Luther’s ninety-five grievances he nailed to the Church door at Wittenberg. It was an act of defiance that would eventually topple a church state organization that held sway over kings and paupers alike for a thousand years. Every history class that covers the reformation will tell you that it was Johann Tetzel’sselling of indulgences that pushed Luther into action that day, Tetzel’s action was only the final straw, not the cause of the revolution. At the...

istory is the account of vast social movements and cultural changes. To be sure, individuals play their part. But they are usually understood to be products of their times. The Reformation, though, whose five-hundredth anniversary we observe this year and whose impact on not only the church but the world has been monumental, was largely precipitated by one man: Martin Luther. Yes, vast social movements and cultural changes were at work in sixteenth-century Europe. But Luther caused many of them, such as the educational explosion that would lead to universal literacy, the rise of the middle class, and eventually democratic...

“Inculcating the Reformation through Catechesis” (Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36) First, let me tell you my title for this message. It’s “Inculcating the Reformation through Catechesis.” Now the next thing I want to tell you is this: Don’t let that title scare you off! Don’t worry, I’ll explain each of those terms: “Inculcating the Reformation through Catechesis.” So here we go. The first one I’ll explain is “the Reformation.” What is the Reformation? This term refers to the much-needed reforming of the church--straightening it out where it had gone wrong--the reforming movement undertaken by Martin Luther and his associates in the...

Wheaton theology professor Jennifer Powell McNutt, in her article An Unsung Inspiration for the Protestant Reformation: the Ethiopian Church, recounts how the Reformation–far from being an exercise in individualism–saw itself in the context of the historical church and global Christianity.  The Reformers looked to the Orthodox churches of the East and of Africa as providing a precedent for many of their reforms. When Rome insisted that there can be no church without a Pope, the Reformers pointed to the Orthodox churches, which have no Pope and whose practices pre-date those of Medieval Catholicism.  Those churches do not emphasize Purgatory and do not...

On this date in 1600, Bavarians thronged to a half-mile-long procession in Munich for the horrific execution of the Pappenheimer family. They were marginal, itinerant types: the father, Paulus Pappenheimer, cleaned privies (“Pappenheimer” would remain as Nuremberg slang for a garbageman into the 20th century, according to Robert Butts); the mother, Anna, was the daughter of a gravedigger. They wandered, begged, did odd jobs. They were Lutherans in a Catholic duchy. So they were vulnerable to their extreme turn of bad luck. Fresh to the throne of Bavaria, young Catholic zealot Duke Maximilian I wanted a crackdown on the infernal...

...It was on this date in 1540 that the Machiavellian minister of Henry VIII fell by the instrument he had wielded so ably against so many others. While Henry strove to get his end away, Thomas Cromwell made the Reformation, setting his energetic hand to the needfully violent reordering of England. In almost a decade as the king’s chief minister, he had dissolved so many monasteries, annulled so many noble prerogatives, backstabbed so many courtiers, and sent so many of every class to the scaffold that most at court had some reason to hate him. (Cranmer was the only one...

Dr. Rodney Stark has written nearly 40 books on a wide range of topics, including a number of recent books on the history of Christianity, monotheism, Christianity in China, and the roots of modernity...His most recent book is Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History (Templeton Press, 2016), which addresses ten prevalent myths about Church history... CWR: You begin the book by first noting your upbringing as an American Protestant and then discussing “distinguished bigots”. What is a “distinguished bigot”? ... Dr. Rodney Stark: By distinguished bigots I mean prominent scholars and intellectuals who clearly are antagonistic to the...

On OCTOBER 31, 1517, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther posted 95 debate questions or "theses" on the door of Wittenberg Church, which began the movement known as "the Reformation." Luther's initial objection was to the methods employed by Johann Tetzel to sell indulgences. He was then fiercely attacked by Johann Eck. In 1521, 34-year-old Martin Luther was summoned to stand trial before the most powerful man in the world, 21-year-old Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Charles V of Spain had an empire that spanned nearly 2 million square miles, across Europe, the Netherlands, the Far East, North and South...

William Tyndale (ca. 1494–1536) made an enormous contribution to the Reformation in England. Many would say that he made the contribution by translating the Bible into English and overseeing its publication. One biographer, Brian Edwards, states that not only was Tyndale “the heart of the Reformation in England,” he “was the Reformation in England.” Because of his powerful use of the English language in his Bible, this Reformer has been called “the father of modern English.” John Foxe went so far as to call him “the Apostle of England.” There is no doubt that by his monumental work, Tyndale changed...

John Wycliffe has been called “The Morning Star of the Reformation.” The morning star is not actually a star, but the planet Venus, which appears before the sun rises and while darkness still dominates the horizon. The morning star is unmistakably visible. Darkness dominated the horizon in the fourteenth century, the century of Wycliffe, who was born in 1330 and died in 1384, almost exactly one hundred years before Luther was born. By his teenage years, Wycliffe was at Oxford. Thomas Bradwardine (known as “Doctor Profundus”) taught theology and William of Ockham (famous for “Ockham’s Razor”) taught philosophy. Before long,...

“Justification Is the Article on Which the Church Stands or Falls” (Romans 3:19-28) There is a saying attributed to Luther that, in the Latin, goes like this: “Justificatio est articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae.” Which, being translated, means: “Justification is the article on which the church stands or falls.” Dear friends, on this Reformation Day I submit to you that this is what the whole Reformation was about, namely, the doctrine of justification. This is the article of doctrine on which everything else depends. It is the article on which the church stands or falls. What’s more, it is the...