Free Republic

“Contextualizing the Gospel in the New South.” That’s the title for this year’s Advance Conference, April 26-27 in RDU. Last year we called for a resurgence of the local church. This year we’re focusing on the major issues that are standing in the way of that happening here in the South. The South is changing. Urbanization and the vibrant growth of our cities have transformed the cultural landscape. Cities like RDU have become new centers of business and education, places where culture is being formed and made. And yet as our cities are advancing, the church is shrinking. For the...

he year is 732 A.D., and Europe is under assault. Islam, born a mere 110 years earlier, is already in its adolescence, and the Muslim Moors are on the march. Growing in leaps and bounds, the Caliphate, as the Islamic realm is known, has thus far subdued much of Christendom, conquering the old Christian lands of the Mideast and North Africa in short order. Syria and Iraq fell in 636; Palestine in 638; and Egypt, which was not even an Arab land, fell in 642. North Africa, also not Arab, was under Muslim control by 709. Then came the year...

Is Russian leadership more Christian than the United States? Is the Russian Government more Christian than George Bush ever hoped the United States to be? The answer is yes, and not only is it true, but thanks to born again Christians, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, Christian influence in matters of State is rapidly on the rise. Let's look at the facts.A couple of weeks ago Barack Obama skipped Church on Christmas Day while the President of Russia, Dimitry Medvedev, on January 6, 2010, attended mid-night mass services celebrating the Russian Orthodox Christmas in grand splendor in the traditional Vigil...

WATERTOWN {Connecticut} — A local spiritual leader's ties to Tanzania are shaping his ministries, both here and in the African nation. The ties between the Rev. Bryan Bywater, of New Hope Anglican church, and Anglicans in Africa also help illustrate the powerful bond between conservative Anglicans in the United States and the church in Africa. Bywater, who retains an affiliation with the Tabora Diocese in Tanzania, was ordained rector of New Hope on Saturday during a service in the auditorium at Swift Middle School. He has been the interim rector for the church, which formed after splitting from Christ Episcopal...

It is a vision most mainstream Canadian church leaders can only dream of: Sunday mornings in which parishioners dance and sing through three-hour services. Seminaries overflowing and unable to keep up with demand for pastors as the number of the newly baptized rises. The dream is a reality in such places as Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, where there is an explosion in Christianity. In the past decade, this demographic surge has started to spill out of Africa, as well as Asia and Latin America, in the form of missionaries to the West, a trend influencing everything from styles of worship...

December 24, 2009 This Christmas, 78% of Americans Identify as Christian Over time, fewer Americans identify as Christian; more have no religious identity by Frank NewportPRINCETON, NJ -- This Christmas season, 78% of Americans identify with some form of Christian religion, a proportion that has been declining in recent decades. The major reason for this decline has been an increase in the percentage of Americans claiming no religious identity, now at 13% of all adults.

"The sanctity of the Sabbath is of a higher value than the dollar," declared the protesters' banner. It was a wet Sunday in Aitutaki and I was looking at a bedraggled band of demonstrators outside the tiny airport. When the local airline decided to add a Sunday service to its normal schedule it may have anticipated some hostility. Most Polynesians have been devout Christians since the arrival of missionaries in the early 19th Century and on many islands Sunday is a special day. But on Aitutaki, as well as the airport protests, 1,300 people signed a petition against the flight....

The Russian Primary Chronicle on how Russia was Christianized "Invitation to the Rus" 860-862 (6368-6370) [The four tribes who had been forced to pay tribute to the Varangians--Chuds, Slavs, Merians, and Krivichians] drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them further tribute, and set out to govern themselves. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to custom [po nravu]". Thus...

Pristina, the capital of an Anglo created Islamic Jihadist state, which of course it is never sold as, is a true show case for what any Christian nation has to face if and when its majority falls from power. This of course is nothing new for our ancient ancestors who witnessed this and knew why they fought against Islam. Unfortunately, the present day West, decadent in its form, ignorant in its self love, intellectually bankrupt and lazy, refuses to see the hell they have forced on Orthodox Christian victims and that they themselves soon face. In Pristina, the show case...

Aug 14, 2009 From church to mosque: Istanbul’s forgotten Byzantine heritage Is it a church? Is it a mosque? Is it a museum? Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia, the Church of Divine Wisdom) may be one of İstanbul's most famous buildings, but it's also one that suffers from an acute identity crisis, having started life as the great sixth century church of the Emperor Justinian, before becoming a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and then a museum in 1935 after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk declared the Turkish Republic. Something similar happened to Chora, near Edirnekapı, which also kicked...

A century ago, Christians dominated the intellectual and commercial life of the Levant, comprising more than one-fifth of the 13 million people of Turkey, the region's ruling power, and most of the population of Lebanon. Ancient communities flourished in what is now Iraq and Syria. But starting with the Armenian genocide in 1914 and continuing through the massacre and expulsion of Anatolian Greeks in 1922-1923, the Turks killed three to four million Christians in Turkey and the Ottoman provinces. Thus began a century of Muslim violence that nearly has eradicated Christian communities in the cradle of their religion. It may...

his list is based on responses to a Gallup Poll that asked a cross-section of Americans if religion is an “important part” of their lives. 1. Mississippi 85% 2. Alabama 82% 3. South Carolina 80% 4. Tennessee 79% 5. Louisiana 78% 6. Arkansas 78% 7. Georgia 76% 8. North Carolina 76% 9. Oklahoma 75% 10. Kentucky & Texas (tie) 74% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HUMAN EVENTS is the news source President Reagan called his "favorite newspaper" and we still hold high the Reaganesque principles of free enterprise, limited government and, above all, a staunch, unwavering defense of American freedom.

Go West, young man! For most evangelicals, Jesus instruction in Matthew 28:19 to ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations … ’ is a serious command, and it is an integral part of the mission statement of most churches. A great many churches take up special offerings and allocate funds towards missionaries they support. The western world countries (where Christianity once flourished) are still where the majority of missionaries are supported from, often by the prayers and small monthly donations from faithful Christians that want to be the ‘hands and feet of Jesus’ in countries they will probably...

John Calvin was a theologian, pastor, biblical exegete, and tireless apologist for Reformed Christianity, and ranks among the most important thinkers in church history. His theological works, biblical commentaries, tracts, treatises, sermons, and letters helped establish the Reformation as a legitimate and thriving religious movement throughout Europe. No theologian has been as acclaimed or assailed as much as Calvin...

Sometimes it seems that an atheistic tsunami has hit. Anti-Christian books land high on bestseller lists. Polls purportedly show a decline in belief. Newsweek this spring had one of its traditional Easter cover stories on "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." Whenever the conventional wisdom points in a particular direction it's good practice to ask: What if the opposite is true? What if nominal Christian affiliation is declining but serious biblical belief is actually on the rise? What if Christianity in America is not dying, but instead getting its second wind—or maybe its sixth wind? After all, the American...

Evangelical megachurches across San Diego, Calif., are joining Catholics on Sunday to make a public outcry against abortion in their first ever joint pro-life rally. The demonstration, which will take place after the multiple worship services that typically take place at megachurches, is being held on the same day President Barack Obama will take the stage at the University of Notre Dame to deliver the commencement speech. While the San Diego rally is fundamentally a pro-life rally, the undertone of the event is "a statement to the president that the killing of babies must come to an end," Pastor Jim...

Is Christianity Dying in America? Only, perhaps, at the hands of political entanglement. Jon Meacham, following Newsweek's tabloid trash journalistic standards, has completely botched an article on Christianity in America. He slants his report on the latest American Religious Indentification Survey to make is seem as if Christianity is dead in America. He was obviously in over his head, so I won't spend too much time on his pathetic effort. I'll only point out the grossest stupidities. Atheism isn't Overtaking Christianity The survey report concludes that self-identification confusion among deists, atheists, and agnostics clouds the true numbers, but that perhaps...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-s9wsNZq1gPosted by a Muslim it seems Islam triumphing over Christianity in the UK the land of St George The Muslim uploader must be very happy

The End of Christian America The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become. By Jon Meacham | NEWSWEEK Published Apr 4, 2009 It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March,...

A murmur of “Amen” echoes softly down a corridor in a luxury Beijing hotel. Dozens of young Chinese are gathered in a beige-carpeted conference room to listen to the word of God. After helping themselves to hot water or tea at the back of the room, they find a seat and chatter with friends. They tuck Louis Vuitton and Prada handbags under their seats, switch their mobile phones to silent and turn to listen to a young woman who takes the microphone to ask for silence and recite a prayer. A casually dressed, grey-haired Chinese man takes to the podium....