Free Republic

A Pentecostal pastor in Florida reportedly pleaded guilty this week to crimes stemming from the years-long sexual abuse of a young girl. Rafael Cuevas, 55, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 10 years’ probation as part of a plea deal, according to First Coast News. He’ll also have to register as a sex offender. Cuevas reportedly pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted sexual battery of a minor. Sheriff’s deputies arrested Cuevas in April 2021, jail information shows. He has been held without bond since then in the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Department of Corrections. Authorities alleged in the...

As Christians mark Pentecost Sunday on May 24, various Assemblies of God district leaders responded to questions posed by PE News Editor John W. Kennedy. Those participating in the discussion are Tom Jacobs, superintendent of the Iowa Ministry Network; Stephen Tourville, superintendent of the PennDel Ministry Network; and James Braddy, superintendent of the Northern California and Nevada Assemblies of God. PE NEWS: How old and where were you when you received the baptism in the Holy Spirit? TOM JACOBS: I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit on my 14th birthday during a small Sunday evening youth service. Our...

Pentecostals were relatively isolated from mainstream Protestantism in the early twentieth century. When the Assemblies of God and other Pentecostal churches were invited to become founding members of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in 1942, it was a watershed event that paved the way for increased cooperation between Pentecostals and other theologically conservative evangelical churches. In 1947, Pentecostal Evangel Editor Stanley H. Frodsham recounted how participation in the NAE seemed to be a fulfillment of prophecy. Frodsham recalled that, years earlier, "a mature Pentecostal saint" made the following prediction: "The time will assuredly come when God will unite...

Over the last several months I have been responding to a series of YouTube videos produced by unevangelist, Chris Redford, a former Assembly of God youth group member turned atheist. Most of his videos are professionally made, and His soft-spoken manner and “Christian” music do not fit the stereotypical view of an angry atheist.  Nevertheless, his viewpoint in the latest videos I watched can be summed up this way: “I don’t like the God of the Bible.  I am smarter than Him, and I have better moral standards.”  Few of his arguments in Deconversion 2.3 and 2.4 discuss the existence...

For those of you who have not been following the dialogue Chris Redford and I have been having, this is the 2nd part of a series of answers Chris, an atheist, gave to questions about his beliefs. He chose to answer as he would have answered when he was a youth attending an Assembly of God church and as an atheist. The difficulty with this Sisyphean approach is the assumption that he can answer and "defend" a position he no longer holds. It is one thing to tell somebody what you believed, it is a whole other thing to...

Preliminary Remarks and Introduction A couple of weeks ago I posted a video by professed Christian-turned-Atheist Chris Redford, along with my arguments there is no evidence he ever was a Christian. After some email correspondence with Mr. Redford, he agreed to answer some questions for this site. Because of the length of his responses I have decided to give each question and answer a separate post, otherwise I give each of his answers in complete form without interruption. I will give my response only at the end of each question. I think this is the only fair way to...

This is dedicated to my first Assembly of God youth pastor, Greg Black, who shared the true gospel with me almost 40 years ago. Facebook's Evid3nc3 (E3[1]) is a bright and ambitious young man raised in an Assembly of God church whose aggressive and unrelenting efforts to reach his peers would be the envy of most any youth pastor. Except for one thing: he proselytizes not for his youth group or the Lord, but his most cherished belief: his atheism. The videos in his series have been watched over a hundred-thousand times, possibly by kids in your youth group. Updated...

A grainy YouTube video surfaced Wednesday showing Sarah Palin being blessed in her hometown church three years ago by a Kenyan pastor who prayed for protection from "witchcraft" as she prepared to seek higher office. The video shows Palin standing before Bishop Thomas Muthee in the pulpit of the Wasilla Assembly of God church, holding her hands open as he asked Jesus Christ to keep her safe from "every form of witchcraft." "Come on, talk to God about this woman. We declare, save her from Satan," Muthee said as two attendants placed their hands on Palin's shoulders. "Make her way...

A Washington Post "On Faith" religion blogger, Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, is so affected by PDS (Palin Derangement Syndrome) that she has launched a hate-filled screed against Palin's religion. This might seem an uncharacteristic thing for an ordained minister to do but not when you find out a bit more about Our Miss Brooks. Her bio on the Washington Post site describes Thistlethwaite's area of expertise as "contextual theologies of liberation." Liberation theology which is another way of saying Marxism wrapped in a phony religious wrapper to make it seem more palatable. Thistlethwaite launches a distinctly un-Christian snarky attack upon Palin...

Seventeen-year-old Stephanie Sanchez had been impregnated for the third time by Adrian Estrada, her youth pastor, when she was strangled and stabbed, prosecutor Scott Simpson told jurors Tuesday in Estrada's capital murder trial. Estrada had held Bible studies and ministered to Sanchez in his role as youth pastor at El Sendero Assembly of God church, Simpson said in opening statements. And in December 2004, when she was 16 and he was 21, he took her to abort her first pregnancy. By the time she was killed a year later, Simpson said, Estrada was interested in another young girl. "Rather than...

After more than 80 years in the inner city, San Bernardino (California) First Assembly has moved to the suburbs. Pastor Terry Henderson point outs, however, that the neighborhood isn't without a Pentecostal presence. A new AG church plant is already growing in the building Henderson's congregation vacated. Celebration City Church, led by Pastor Willie Ulibarri Jr., has been holding services in First Assembly's fellowship hall since last March. The fledgling church already has an average attendance of more than 100 people. On January 15, Celebration City Church took over all the facilities as First Assembly relocated to a growing suburban...

The Father and Jesus are well known - both have starred in movies and have been the subjects of countless books, paintings and music compositions. What about the third member of the Trinity? The Holy Spirit does lots of heavy lifting in the Bible by providing supernatural strength, direction and courage to scriptural heroes. When the world was created, when Jesus was conceived, when he was crucified, the Holy Spirit was there. When Saul was converted, when John baptized Jesus, the Holy Spirit was there. When the early Christian church was founded on the Day of Pentecost nearly 2,000 years...

<p>The fantastic one hundred member strong youth group from the Riverdale Assembly of God will rejoin the Fresno/Central Valley Chapter of Free Republic on Friday night for our weekly Pro-America Support our Troops rally. The group was with us last Saturday night when we had over one hundred and fifty patriots rallying their support for President Bush and our troops!</p>

Rabbi convicted of fondlingFriday, June 28, 2002By TOM DAVISStaff Writer </TD< tr> LANNER</TD< tr> A former Bergen County rabbi was found guilty Thursday of fondling a teenage student while he was principal of Hillel Yeshiva in Ocean Township during the early 1990s.However, the jury of six men and six women in Freehold acquitted Baruch Lanner of two charges relating to a second female accuser.Both women, who were teenagers when they were Lanner's students, testified during the trial against the nationally known rabbi.After two days of deliberations, the jury convicted Lanner on two counts of endangering the welfare of a child,...