Free Republic

This will teach those Islamophobes that Islam is a religion of peace: a professor is facing death threats for suggesting otherwise. Nicholas Damask, Ph.D., has taught political science at Scottsdale Community College in Arizona for 24 years. But now he is facing a barrage of threats, and his family, including his 9-year-old grandson and 85-year-old parents, is in hiding, while College officials are demanding that he apologize – all for the crime of speaking the truth about the motivating ideology behind the threat of Islamic jihad worldwide. Damask, who has an MA in International Relations from American University in Washington,...

What Mothers Need To Make Us Strong When families are strong, the nation is strong. What makes families strong is love and that love is centred on the mother. Australia’s most conservative recent Prime Minister was a staunch opponent of unnecessary taxes. But he had his own proposal to tax big business to protect and nurture the family. He wanted every mother on incomes up to $AUD150,000 (much closer to $100,000 in US dollars on typical exchange rates) to be able to have 6 months fully paid leave to be with a new baby. The $AUD150,000 cap was reduced to...

“But Joy Comes with the Morning” (Psalm 30:5) Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!) This is our traditional Easter greeting. But this year has been anything but traditional. When last we met here, eight weeks ago today, it was still Lent. Easter Day was four weeks ago, so we didn’t get to say it then. But today we are still in the Easter season, and this is our first opportunity to say it together, so let’s do it again with gusto: Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!) Amen! And this reality is what gives...

The Founding Fathers wisely added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution to explicitly prohibit Government from doing things it isn't authorized to do. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the most important provisions: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The Constitution doesn't authorize using a pandemic to prohibit the free exercise of religion or to...

Joan of Arc was amazing. At the age of 19, coming from a very poor family, she played a significant role in turning round a very long war. This was a world where faith counted for something.

The far-Left anti-Trump propaganda organ masquerading as a news source and operating under the name the Washington Post on Thursday published an inspiring op-ed entitled “As American Muslims fast this Ramadan, maybe the rest of America should consider joining in.” The Post’s articles exhorting people to keep the Lenten fast or the Yom Kippur fast have not yet been published, but I’m sure that they will be when the appropriate times for them roll around again. Won’t they?

A Kansas City phased reopening guideline requiring churches to keep “lists” of attendees, has alarmed many who see it as an infringement on religious liberty and privacy. In the policy issued by Mayor Quinton Lucas, houses of worship are treated with the same restrictions as “non-essential” businesses in terms of keeping records of who attends a service, or even anyone who enters the building. “Never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined Nazi-like measures designed to surveil, track and spy upon what was once a FREE American people,” Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver said. “Yet that is exactly what...

“The Real Normal” (Acts 2:42-47) We’re hearing a lot of talk these days about “the new normal.” “The new normal”: It means that the way we’ve been living these last seven weeks is how we’re going to have to continue to live for the indefinite future. Depending on the state you live in and who your governor is, you’re going to have to stay at home, self-isolating, and not do any unessential travel. If you do go out for anything deemed essential, you’re going to have to practice social distancing--stay six feet apart from anybody. You’re going to have to...

ROCKFORD - An Evangelical Christian church in Lena, Illinois, is suing Governor “JB” Pritzker for discriminating against churches and people of faith with his latest stay-at-home executive orders issuing and enforcing unconstitutional edicts during the coronavirus pandemic. Thursday, Thomas More Society attorneys filed a federal complaint and motion for temporary restraining order on behalf of The Beloved Church and Pastor Steve Cassell with the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Rockford. Cassell and his church have been forced to shut down due to Pritzker’s Executive Orders. They were issued “cease and desist” orders and have...

When I was around six years old they showed "The Outer Limits" on independent television from Channel 5 in Washington DC, now Fox 5. In those days we had over the air signals and in York, PA if you were high up the antenna brought in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC signals etc. etc. etc. Right now DC 19 controls the horizontal but they are going to "restart the economy" and give us a "new normal" as they control the vertical. We will remain under control and restriction even if business is "reopened". Limits on people in buildings like restaurants...

On Tuesday night, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared war on New York’s Jewish community. The very same mayor who went to the gym the day after closing New York City’s schools, restaurants, and bars and who took a stroll in Prospect Park on Saturday, as news was breaking that 28 New York City schoolteachers had died from the virus, has ventured out yet again into a crowd. This time, he went to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where a large number of Satmar Hasidim had gathered. The mayor went to personally “ensure the crowd was dispersed,” the mayor explained in a tweet. And...

Many academic disciplines have gotten “woke” in recent years, especially in the humanities and social sciences. For the most part, this transformation has occurred in plain view as colleges created departments for (and offered degrees in) “Women’s and Gender Studies,” “Black Studies,” “LGBTQ Studies,” “Latino Studies,” and the rest of the intersectionality parade. One discipline, however, sports an innocent-sounding moniker—“Religious Studies.” Studying religion would seem to be immune to the current trends in higher education, focusing instead on theological concerns. That impression, however, is inaccurate. Religious studies—one of the most “woke” disciplines on America’s college campuses—is an ideological wolf in...

“A Walk to Emmaus” (Luke 24:13-35) I hope you can see the painting I posted on my Facebook page to go with today’s Gospel reading. It’s called “Gang nach Emmaus,” “The Road to Emmaus,” and it was painted by a 19th-century Swiss artist, Robert Zünd. It’s one of my favorite paintings. It’s like I want to put myself into the picture and get up there and walk alongside Jesus as he opens up the Scriptures. What a Bible study that must have been! Well, maybe today we can zoom in (no pun intended) and hear what Jesus has to say....

Here is still more of the general European tendency to ascribe all Islamic jihad activity to mental illness. But no European authorities have any cure. “The death of pensioner Detlef in Offenburg: a murder based on Islamic motives,” translated from “Der Tod von Rentner Detlef in Offenburg: Ein Mord aus islamischen Motiven,” by Michael Stürzenberger, PI News, April 21, 2020 (thanks to Medforth Blog): As is so often the case, a murder based on Islamic motives is pushed back into the psychiatric area in Offenburg. Muslim Ali. M, a “refugee” from Somalia, gave the classic Islam battle cry “Allahu Akbar”...

As the Muslim celebration of Ramadan arrives (April 23 to May 23), many of the faithful will expect to attend worship services at their local mosques. Will local and state governments treat Muslim worshipers at Ramadan the same as they treated Christian worshipers at Easter?

We can't know what Mark Twain, who died 110 years ago today, would have said about the Coronavirus but here is what he had to say about truth in newspapers and about buying life insurance for railroad travel: https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2020/04/21/remembering-mark-twain-and-media-driven-fear-of-death/ “Where we have one newspaper that does good, I think we have fifty that do harm.” “....... the stupid people — who constitute the grand overwhelming majority of this and all other nations — do believe and are moulded and convinced by what they get out of a newspaper, and there is where the harm lies.” Was Mark Twain better than...

On Easter, Kentucky State Police were circling the parking lot of a church that’s packed for Easter service — defying state orders — and issuing warnings, if not citations. Following Governors’s license plate order, which applies anyone who attends an in-person church service or any mass gathering, police will refer those motorists to local health departments, which will then order 14-day quarantines – although several attendees told The Courier Journal they have no intention of following the order. While situations like this are happening all over the country on Christians, Muslims can hold their daily prayers in the “epicenter” of...

Earlier on Saturday President Trump retweeted reporter Paul Sperry’s tweet on Ramadan and social distancing in the Muslim community. Paul Sperry tweeted: Let’s see if authorities enforce the social-distancing orders for mosques during Ramadan (April 23-May 23) like they did churches during Easter. President Trump re-tweeted this and the left had enough reasons to accuse President Trump of being Islamophobic. One female reporter asked President Trump about his Sperry retweet at the daily coronavirus press conference. Partial transcript: REPORTER: I want to ask you about one of your retweets from Paul Sperry:“Let’s see if authorities enforce the social distancing orders...

“What You Don’t See Is What You Get” (John 20:19-31) The doors were locked. They were in lockdown mode. They had quarantined themselves. They were self-isolating. Why? Because they were afraid. Who is it that I’m talking about? Americans in 2020? No, I’m talking about Jesus’ disciples, around the year 30. Those disciples had locked themselves in. They were in self-quarantine. They were isolating and keeping their social distance. And the reason was, they were afraid. They were afraid of the Jewish authorities, who had just had their master killed a couple of days earlier. Now, since they were known...

I think the idea that the word or Logos is God is amazing. But what does it mean?