Free Republic

One is often judged, fairly or unfairly, by the company they keep. Hang with someone who is a thief and it may be assumed that you are also a thief. Affiliate with an organization and those values espoused by that organization are assumed to be yours. Fair or not, it is what it is. While our Lord and Savior hung around with those judged not acceptable by society, He came to heal their spiritual shortcomings. Jesus healed the sick, both physically and spiritually. So, when Jesus sat down with prostitutes and tax collectors, He did so to heal their hearts...

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face...

FULL TITLE: HEY DISSENTERS! Pope Francis says negotiating away parts of the Faith is “the path of apostasy, of disloyalty to the Lord” Some people are all quivery about Pope Francis new humble style. “Isn’t he wonderful?�, they exclaim. “He’s getting rid of all that fancy stuff for liturgy! The days of that obviously arrogant old Pope Benedict are over. Now we have a nice Pope. He cares!�People who talk that way are also usually squishy on doctrine, if not downright dissenters.I want to see how dissenters rush to embrace what Francis said in a little sermon today.I read at...

SNIP Surely we must appear at times to be very amateurish when compared to the professional clergy of other churches. One doctrine presents a particular challenge. It is our firm conviction that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is...“the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.” (D&C 1:30) This doctrine often generates resistance and repels the casual investigator. Some have said, “We want nothing to do with anyone who makes so presumptuous a claim as that.” The early Latter-day Saints were...the butt of many clever stories. We, of course, are not free from...

SNIP The position that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church upon the face of the earth is fundamental. Perhaps it would be more convenient and palatable and popular if we were to avoid it; nevertheless, we are under a sacred obligation and a sacred trust to hold to it. It is not merely an admission; it is a positive declaration. It is so fundamental that we cannot yield on this point. Now to those who think us uncharitable, we say that it was not devised by us; it was declared by Him, for...

Up until now, the year’s big cable-ratings story has been the ever-growing success of zombie drama The Walking Dead on AMC. Sunday night, though, History channel had the highest-rated scripted drama on cable for the year, for the beginning of a story in which only one main character rises from the dead, and that not until nearly the end. The first two hours of History’s Mark Burnett miniseries adaptation of The Bible scored 13.1 million viewers, more than any fiction cable show of the year–and, as the New York Times notes, dwarfing anything on NBC for the past month. (The...

The FALSE POPE – Saint Hildegard Forewarned is forearmed! Saint HILDEGARD of BINGEN (d. 1179), the newest Doctor of the Church, wrote that when the new Pope is elected immediately before the Antichrist, a cardinal will kill the elected pope before he is crowned through jealousy, he wishing to be Pope himself. Then when the other cardinals elect the next Pope this cardinal will proclaim himself (anti) Pope, and two-thirds of the Christians will go with him. She notes that this Antipope as well as the Antichrist are descendents from the tribe of Dan. If this private revelation of St....

The Italian daily newspaper La Republica said the pope decided to resign on 17 December – the day he received a dossier compiled by three cardinals delegated to look into the so-called "Vatileaks" affair. Last May Pope Benedict's butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and charged with stealing leaked papal correspondence that depicted the Vatican as a seething hotbed of intrigue and infighting. The newspaper said the cardinals described a number of factions, including one whose members were "united by sexual orientation". It added that some Vatican officials had been subjected to "external influence" from laymen with whom they had links...

A couple of months ago I ran into a dear friend of mine. After exchanging pleasantries and walking along campus, she turned to me and said, “Does it feel that everyone you know is falling away from the church?” Relieved that someone could understand how I feel, I looked at her and sighed. It seems like more and more of my friends are losing their faith in God and leaving the church. She and I have a close friend who recently told us that she’s now an agnostic. Or maybe she’s an atheist. I’m not too sure at this point...

A Saudi court on Monday referred a rights activist to a higher court for alleged apostasy, a charge that could lead to the death penalty ... ... Sharia Islamic law strictly applied in Saudi Arabia stipulates death as a punishment for apostasy, but defendants are usually given the chance to repent and escape being beheaded. Saudi blogger Hamza Kashgari was deported in February from Malaysia to the kingdom and is being held in jail to face charges of blasphemy over Twitter comments deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed. Kashgari's comments triggered a wave of calls to execute him, although he...

An excerpt from How Close Are We?The Blessed Hope With Christ’s I will come again! still fresh in memories, the early Christians eagerly waited and watched for their Lord’s return. He had said that they were not of this world, but that He had chosen them out of it. Paul would soon write under His Lord’s inspiration: “For our conversation [citizenship] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body” (Philippians 3:20,21). The world held little interest for...

As reported by Exposing the ELCA in a previous blog (read here) the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Mark Hanson, and his liberal religious leader friends wrote a letter to the U.S. Congress seeking to stop military aid to Israel. Proud of their work, the church leaders publicized their letter on the newswire. Well, what do you know? Jewish leaders found out about Hanson’s letter and are not at all pleased. Here are some snippets from recent news articles addressing the situation: “The letter, signed by 15 Christian leaders, including representatives from the National Council of...

Obama, who like the pharaoh of Egypt that arose after Joseph's death, knew not Joseph, nor the God of his fathers, was wicked and a despot and enslaved the Israelites... Exodus 1:8-9 "There arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph." signifies he came to the throne; denoting his appearance in history, as in Deuteronomy 34:10. A "new king"; the other ancient versions, rex novus) is a king who follows different principles of government from his predecessors. Cf., "new gods," in distinction from the God that their fathers had worshipped, Judges 5:8; Deuteronomy 32:17. That this king belonged...

Affirmative action salvation~ when you have not found nor even believe the true power of what Jesus did for the world; to have real salvation and total freedom over sin. So you water down the message and lower the standard of salvation. That way you help make other poor souls who have also not found full freedom, to feel better about continuing in their sin state. The teachers who propagate this are blind and shame on all of them. How dare they water down the power of our Lord’s victory in order to assuage themselves and the masses! And of...

Yet a Republican ideology pitting the “makers” against the “takers” offers nothing. No sympathy for our fellow citizens. No insight into our social challenge. No hope of change. This approach involves a relentless reductionism. Human worth is reduced to economic production. Social problems are reduced to personal vices. Politics is reduced to class warfare on behalf of the upper class. A few libertarians have wanted this fight ever since they read “Atlas Shrugged” as pimply adolescents. Given Romney’s background, record and faith, I don’t believe that he holds this view. I do believe that Republicans often parrot it, because they...

I never thought it would be me. Yet there I was, sitting across the bed from my husband while he told me that he no longer had a testimony that the gospel was true. ...my husband just didn’t believe in the gospel anymore. He didn’t even know if God really existed. SNIP This wasn’t supposed to happen to me—not my husband, not my marriage. In my naiveté, when I had read or heard of accounts where a spouse turned away from the Church, I thought, “Thank goodness that would never happen to our temple marriage...." ...Despite the abundance of spiritual...

I was surprised to see Amey Schnabel's article "22 votes for a pastor -- for progress" (July 10), in which she shared what felt like personal information about the workings of her hometown church. She wanted the world to know that 22 people voted yes to calling a partnered gay man to serve as their pastor. [ . . . ] In my 17 years serving ELCA parishes as a lay minister, I both saw the tears and heard the angry words of those who believe, like Schnabel, that they "read deeper into the meaning of what was written in...

IN 1998, John Shelby Spong, then the reliably controversial Episcopal bishop of Newark, published a book entitled “Why Christianity Must Change or Die.” Spong was a uniquely radical figure — during his career, he dismissed almost every element of traditional Christian faith as so much superstition — but most recent leaders of the Episcopal Church have shared his premise. Thus their church has spent the last several decades changing and then changing some more, from a sedate pillar of the WASP establishment into one of the most self-consciously progressive Christian bodies in the United States. Go to Columnist Page »...

There is a power and technique that the church has missed. The quiet stillness where real salvation is gifted to us effortlessly is real prayer. Please find it so we can all fight for our nation and right much more effectively!

News Chopper 2 captured video of former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield’s belongings being removed from his Fayette County mansion. Holyfield’s 109-room mansion was sold in a foreclosure auction in March. The home sits on 235 acres located near Fairburn.

It was St. Peter Damian, a Doctor of the Church, who explained that the vice of sodomy "surpasses the enormity of all others," because, "Without fail, it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust: It leads to error, totally removes truth from the deluded mind . . . It opens up Hell and closes the gates of Paradise . . . It is this vice that...

The presidential race of Mitt Romney and the success of the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon have generated new interest in Mormonism. Stephen Mansfield's book The Mormonizing of America provides a careful study of this growing religion. The Book Stop blog is posting excerpts from the first two chapters of this book. The Mormons and the MediaNowhere in American society does this create an occasion of people talking past each other as when it comes to the media pursuing a prominent Mormon. Reporters naturally want to find something controversial about this visible person, so they ask about holy underwear....

The presidential race of Mitt Romney and the success of the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon have generated new interest in Mormonism. Stephen Mansfield's book The Mormonizing of America provides a careful study of this growing religion. The Book Stop blog is posting excerpts from the first two chapters of this book. What Matters to a MormonFor a Latter-day Saint, the heart of Mormonism is the restoration of priesthood authority. It is impossible to overstate this. At the core of everything Saintly is the unshakable belief that something lost for centuries was restored through Joseph Smith. It is now...

1. A cattleman at a school I just taught, during lunchtime conversation, shared a "mini lesson" that he teaches to children whenever he gets the chance. I think it is very wise, and worth sharing. It is simply this: EVERYONE HAS A STORY. And, SATAN IS REAL. 2. Building on that, I suspect many people out there are thinking this, but are too afraid to say it because they think that people will look down upon them as rednecks or stupid or unintelligent. Let me go out front as a person who doesn't give a crap what others think of...

You Have Left Your First Love Dean C. Haskins But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Rev. 2:4 You have probably heard this verse numerous times in your life, and, like me, were given an explanation of its meaning that was something like this—that the passage is speaking of “losing one's original zeal and fervor for the things of the Lord.” Now, don't misunderstand me; I know that can happen in one's life. However, is that really what John was saying about the vision he had on the island of Patmos? Before delving into...

The Ability to Believe Today's Scripture “...God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3, NKJV) Today's Word from Joel and Victoria One of the greatest abilities God has given each one of us is our ability to believe. If you believe God’s Word, you can be successful. If you believe God’s Word, you can overcome mistakes of the past. If you believe God’s Word, you can fulfill your God-given destiny. There is incredible power in what you believe. What you believe is greater than your circumstances, greater than your trials, greater than your medical report,...

Reprinted by permission from Mormonism and Early Christianity, vol. 4 in The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987),168—208. ...By its very definition church history requires unquestioning acceptance of the basic proposition that the church did survive. ...the normal reaction to the question—did the church remain on earth?—has not been serious inquiry in a richly documented field, but shocked recoil from the edge of an abyss into which few can look without a shudder. Yet today that question is being asked again... ...The purpose of this paper is to list briefly the principal arguments supporting the...

The Church...of Latter-day Saints affirms...there was a falling away...The long night of apostasy lasted well over a millennium. During this period, man-made creeds and practices were substituted for the plan of salvation that Jesus...taught. SNIP C. A universal apostasy occurred... “For over seventeen hundred years on the eastern hemisphere, and for more than fourteen centuries on the western, there appears to have been silence between the heavens and the earth. Of direct revelation from God to man during this long interval, we have no authentic record...The passing of the apostles was followed by...a universal apostasy...“...an absolute apostasy of the Church...”...

In my previous column, “How the Apostates Take Over, Part 1,� I explained how apostates used the cause of equality to gain a destructive foothold within the church.Some of my readers have missed the point of this 2-part column all together, thinking it is about women’s ordination. People will see what they want to see. The deeper point is that those who deny the core of the Gospel used an innocent issue, such the role of women in the church, to flood the church with non bible-believing men, women, and homosexuals.This is how it happened:Initially, whole denominations acquiesced and allowed...

The evangelical church is under constant threat to compromise its reliance on biblical truth. The human desire to be accepted, to not be seen as "outside the mainstream," can be overwhelming. But that desire is our weakness, our downfall. It does not always immediately destroy the dam we build to protect the waters of truth, but instead it leads to tiny fissures that grow until destruction is inevitable. Twenty years ago, I experienced the painful demise of the Episcopal Church, which once was a bastion of biblical truth. It was not a pretty picture. It was a picture painted in...

Notre Dame professor Gary Gutting, who teaches philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has declared in the New York Times that the faithful "decide the nature and extent of episcopal authority" and what is moral or immoral. He writes, "...haven’t the members of the Catholic Church recognized their bishops as having full and sole authority to determine the teachings of the Church? By no means. There was, perhaps, a time when the vast majority of Catholics accepted the bishops as having an absolute right to define theological and ethical doctrines. Those days, if they ever existed, are long gone....

While some may argue that Rick Warren’s efforts are in line with what they understand to be the mission of the Church, the slippery slope is seen in syncretistic expression and practices of the Insider Movement, which may truly be called “Chrislam.” While Warren and numerous other well-meaning Christian(?) missionaries who endorse and practice the C5 or Insider methodology believe that they are serving Jesus, their methods always lead to dishonesty, blurring the lines of truth, compromise and eventually outright heresy.

As the media were blanketing airwaves and newspapers with nonstop coverage of old controversial religion-related remarks by Rick Santorum, something happened that compelled the media to also raise questions about a far more controversial remark that President Obama had made regarding religion. Did you miss the widespread news coverage these past days in which that really odd comment that Obama made about religion came back to embarrass him and embroil him in great controversy? Yes, you missed it -- such coverage never occurred. It should have -- and the fact that it didn't tells yet another distressing story about the...

The Episcopal Church: The fruit of building with Satan's blueprints... "That if gold rust, what shall iron do?/ For if a priest be foul, in whom we trust,/ No wonder is a lewd man to rust." - Geoffrey Chaucer. Remember V. Gene Robinson, New Hampshire's Episcopal "Bishop" who said that the Vatican's ban on ordaining men with a homosexual inclination was "vile" and represented an "act of violence"? As I noted back in 2009, Mr. Robinson once opined that "the Episcopal Church and its proclamation of God's inclusive love" was something which appealed to young people who want to be...

And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled. And when Saul enquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor.(I Samuel 28:5-7)I have no problem believing that God sovereignly granted revival in the 1960′s -70′s, renewing faith in the...

[Editor's note: The article below is written by Eric Allen Bell, a filmmaker who was recently banned from blogging at the “Daily Kos” because he wrote three articles that ran afoul of the mindset there, specifically naming “Loonwatch.com” as a “terrorist spin control network.” This article first appeared in our Feb 7 issue and we have decided to rerun it due to the massive interest and reaction it received. Don't miss Eric Bell on Frontpage's television program, The Glazov Gang, which we will air in our Monday, Feb. 13 edition.]

Featured Term (selected at random):LIBELLUS Certificate of sacrifice, testifying that a person during the Roman persecutions had offered sacrifice to the pagan gods. The officials were requited to superintend the sacrifices on a fixed day, receive in writing a statement from the person, and countersign the testimony in the name of the emperor. Many Christians apostatized; others bought certificates or had them procured by pagan friends. There seems to have been wholesale connivance by the officials. Those who refused to sacrifice were sentenced to prison or even death. A papyrus copy of a libellus, dating from A.D. 250, was discovered...

Whenever we, as biblical Christians, think that things couldn't possibly become more preposterous in Christendom, we need to call to mind the Scriptures that tell us that the time will come when Christians will not endure sound doctrine, and many will corrupt the Word of God (2 Timothy:4:3For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;; 2 Corinthian 2:17; 2 Peter:3:16As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they...

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has offered the Palestinians a powerful tool of propaganda: the comparison with Jesus’ passion. “We are to be freshly attentive to the needs of those who, like Jesus himself, are displaced and in discomfort”, Archbishop Vincent Nichols said during his Christmas Mass sermon at Westminster Cathedral. “A shadow falls particularly heavily on the town of Bethlehem tonight … We pray for them tonight”. It would have been more in keeping with Nicholas’ mission to mention hundreds of Christians losing their lives to Islamic terrorism and oppressed by Palestinian Muslim...

The USA’s first openly gay Episcopal bishop, Gene Robinson, has responded to presidential hopeful Rick Perry's anti-gay TV promotion suggesting that "it must break God's heart to see religion used in a political campaign like this." Bishop Robinson of the Episcopal Church showed his distaste in a TV interview with MSNBC and also by writing an opinion piece in the Washington Post newspaper. Perry had stated in his commercial that “You don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t...

This is no nursery rhyme but rather the cast of characters lining up to appear at the 2012 Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly meeting in Pittsburgh. ACT I: An assault on marriageThe chameleon:  This character will attempt to lead commissioners to see marriage differently than the Church has historically defined it. Separating marriage from the Biblical narrative of creation and the Biblical witness of Jesus' affirmation between one man and one woman, the assembly will be asked to see a "new normal" that is inclusive of gay marriage. Presented plainly, the redefinition of marriage will arrive at the assembly through...

"In 1919, Georg Lukacs became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun regime in Hungary. He immediately set plans in motion to de-Christianize Hungary. Reasoning that if Christian sexual ethics could be undermined among children, then both the hated (traditional) family and the Church would be dealt a crippling blow, Lukacs launched a radical sex education program in the schools. Sex lectures were organized and literature handed out which graphically instructed youth in free love (promiscuity) and sexual intercourse while simultaneously encouraging them to deride and reject Christian moral ethics, monogamy, and parental and church authority. All...

Iranian pastor Yusef Nadarkhani will not face the death penalty for apostasy but is a traitorous “Zionist” who has committed “security crimes,” an official said on Friday, according to Fars news agency, amid a Western outcry over his sentence. Nadarkhani’s lawyer told AFP that the remarks by Gholam-Ali Rezvani, deputy governor general of the northern province of Gilan where the pastor’s case is being reheard, were the first time security offences had been mentioned. Rezvani’s comments were also the first public remarks by an Iranian official about Nadarkhani’s case. “The issue of crime and of capital punishment of this individual...

Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 3–4). I will never forget what one of my church history professors told us one day in class in the late 1970s...

Pastor Nancy Petty, the lesbian spiritual leader at Pullen Memorial Baptist church in Raleigh, N.C., has a message for her state: Legalize same-sex marriage — or else. Until gay unions are legislatively permitted, Petty plans to no longer sign marriage licenses — an action that will potentially have a profound impact on her congregation. In addressing same-sex marriage, Petty said the following to her congregation: “Do we, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, want to continue to participate in offering religious ceremonies that carry with them civil and human rights that are not afforded to all people? Or will it be our...

In March 2009, Christian roommates Maryam Rustampoor, 29, and Marzieh Amirizadeh, 32, were charged by the Iranian state with being “anti-government activists.” They spent 259 days in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison before being released in November 2009. In the first interview since their release, the two discussed their life in prison with Sam Yeghnazar of Elam Ministries. Sam: What was the worst thing that happened to you? Marzieh: One of the worst was the execution of two of my fellow prisoners. I had never experienced such a thing. One of those killed was my roommate. We had spent a lot...

Earlier this month, the national Presbyterian Church approved a change in its constitution to allow openly gay church members to serve as ministers and church leaders. It is a change that one local church pastor says has been a long time coming. "It's been a Presbyterian family quarrel for about 30 years," said Jonathan Smoot, interim pastor at Falls Church Presbyterian Church..."It's just ridiculous to lift up sexual orientation as a primary criterion for that person's character or suitability for ministry," Smoot said. "I hope this puts an end to it.""It needs to be read in its historical context and...

We Islamaphobes are truly a loathsome lot – sowing dissention and hatred wherever we go. But Peter Burr, M.D., recently elected chair of the Williamson County, TN. Democratic Party, is on our case. Last week, Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament and a trenchant critic of Islam, spoke at two events in Nashville. In a commentary in the Tennessean (“Outside Agitators Should Not Define American Values”) Burr excoriated Wilders in language Democrats usually reserve for the Tea Parties and the Boy Scouts of America. Anyway, I thought “outside agitators” became passé with Spiro Agnew’s departure from the national...

Washington D.C., May 12, 2011 / 12:39 am (CNA).- The Presbyterian Church USA has voted to remove clergy requirements of marital fidelity or single chastity, thus allowing the ordination of ministers and lay leaders who are openly homosexual or living in unmarried relationships.“This is a lonely day for Presbyterians who believe what the Bible and the Church have consistently taught: that God’s will is that we be faithful in marriage or chaste in singleness. Now we belong to a denomination that is no longer sure it believes that teaching,” said Allan Wisdom, a director of Presbyterian Action at the...

In a recent survey by pollster Gary Lawrence of how Americans view "Mormonism," a whopping 77 percent said they were not sure Mormons are Christians. Understanding how the public views us can improve our responses to gospel questions. SNIP 2. Ditch the lingo. Gary Lawrence is a respected pollster and adviser to the missionary department. He suggests we use simple terms to which our Christian friends will relate: Use "Christianity" instead of "gospel," "re-established" instead of "restoration," and "men changed" instead of "apostasy." 3. Stay on message. Only 12 percent of Americans know our central message. It is this: We...