Free Republic

Readers' Forum African Americans, slavery and Islam Many African Americans in the United States have renounced Christianity and embraced Islam, in protest against the enslavement of their ancestors by white Christians in America when slavery was legal in America. This is ironic because Islam supports slavery. The enslavement of Africans under Islam is not only a historical fact, but is something that continues today, in some parts of Africa, and some Islamic countries, since Sharia (Islamic Law) supports slavery. Historically, Islam has enslaved members of all races. o The enslavement of Black Africans by Islam is described in the book...

The anti-President Donald Trump phenomena is a uniquely unparalleled mass hysteria that, to my knowledge, has never been witnessed before in America history. Vastly larger than what was done to Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, we’ve never seen such a massive pre-emptive attempt to bring down a legitimately-elected president – before he even took office or did anything as president. Even today, seven months after his inauguration, the “elite” still do not understand how a man they despise could be elected and how he has kept his base of supporters despite the unrelenting demonization and smearing by the...

WORLD—In a statement that surprised nearly no one, Satan, the accuser and enemy of God and His people, paused briefly from roaming the earth seeking someone to devour Wednesday to confirm to reporters that he is responsible for the entire white supremacist movement worldwide. “Oh yeah, that’s all me. For sure,” said the wicked one Lucifer, adding that he’s “really been on a roll lately with this particular gig.” “I’m quite proud of this hell-filling racket. It’s as anti-biblical as anything can be, causing human beings made in the image of God to be seen as subhuman and expendable, but...

Question: "I am a new Christian. What is the next step?" Answer: Congratulations! If you are a new believer, you have just experienced the beginning of your new, eternal life (John 3:16; 10:10). Your sins have been forgiven and you have been given a fresh start (Romans 4:7). You have now been given inexpressible, glorious joy (1 Peter 1:8-9). In addition to the wonderful blessings of knowing Christ, you are probably thinking, “Now what? What is the next step?” The Bible offers some important principles for those who have begun a relationship with God. First, as a new Christian, begin...

Chi Coltrane - Go Like Elijah (Lyrics)

The Knights of Columbus are to raise and donate $2 million to help save Karemlash, a predominantly Christian town on Iraq’s Nineveh Plain that was invaded and ransacked by ISIS before being liberated by coalition forces last November.

(Photo: Alliance Defending Freedom)Amy Lawson poses for a photo while taking pictures of a bride in this undated photo.The state of Wisconsin and its capital city of Madison cannot legally force a Christian photographer to photograph same-sex weddings, a court has said.Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian conservative legal group defending evangelical Christian photographer Amy Lawson, announced that Dane County Circuit Court vowed in a hearing Tuesday to issue an order declaring that Lawson is exempt from city and state laws that could force her to photograph same-sex weddings or face crippling punishments.ADF explained in a press release that although the court...

A classical Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition survives in Christian iconography  Have you ever wondered, while looking at religious icons, why the figures of Christ and the saints make certain hand gestures? Each gesture has a specific meaning, but it’s no wonder we can’t always understand them: they’re “written” in Greek! Classical Greeks and Romans developed a well-established, quite complex hand-gesture code, which was used by both orators and rhetoricians alike, when they were giving speeches in the agora or the Senate, during their private addresses, or even in the classroom. The gestures accompanying the oratory, of course, were a matter of public...

State Department Lawyers Removing References to ISIS ‘Genocide’ Against Christians, Other Religious Minorities.. full title. ... Obama holdovers in State Department's legal office are responsible, critics say. The State Department's top lawyers are systematically removing the word "genocide" to describe the Islamic State's mass slaughter of Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria from speeches before they are delivered and other official documents, according to human rights activists and attorneys familiar with the policies. Additionally, Democratic senators are delaying confirmation of Mark Green, Trump's pick to head the U.S. Agency for International Development who has broad bipartisan...

July 18, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — For 12 years before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex "marriage" in 2015, I wrote and lectured extensively on why this development would be fraught with peril. I even recorded a three CD set on the topic for Catholic Answers in 2011. As the General Counsel for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) in California, I also campaigned extensively for the passage of Proposition 8. This State Constitutional Amendment passed with a majority vote in liberal California, as did similar ones in 30 other states. Yet, by a mere vote of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all of those state...

After declaring that Christians have “been horribly treated” by the refugee program under former President Barack Obama, President Donald Trump has reversed the Obama administration’s disgraceful discrimination against Christian refugees.  According to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. State Department refugee data, during the period from January 21, 2017 - President Trump’s first full day in office - through June 30, “9,598 Christian refugees arrived in the U.S., compared with 7,250 Muslim refugees. Christians made up 50% of all refugee arrivals in this period, compared with 38% who are Muslim.” From April through June 2017, Iraq was “the only Muslim-majority nation...

Henriette Karra, 17, was found dead in the kitchen of her parent’s home with stab wounds to the neck A Christian resident of the central Israeli town of Ramle was charged on Sunday with killing his teenage daughter over her relationship with a young Muslim. Sami Karra allegedly murdered his daughter, Henriette, 17, because he and his family objected to her relationship with a man who was serving time in prison, as well as her plans to convert to Islam for him.   Henriette left home two weeks before the June 13 murder after her family used violence and threats...

British reporter Robert Fisk was on hand when the city was liberated and wrote: “The Greek Catholic Church of Our Lady is a place of shame, of burnt copies of the New Testament, paintings slashed with knives – many were lying in strips of gold and red fabric beside the altar’s broken cross – and mosaics chiselled from the walls.” Fisk also mentioned that the terrorists had “gouged out the eyes of the mosaic saints.”What is on display in these photos is not merely abomination and sacrilege; it is loathing and hatred of the spirit of Christ; it is...

The Turkish government has recently seized numerous properties belonging to Assyrian (Syriac) Christians − such as churches, monasteries and cemeteries − and transferred them to public institutions.On June 23, the Armenian-Turkish newspaper Agos reported, Inquiries by the Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation revealed that dozens of churches and monasteries have been transferred to the Treasury first and then allocated to the Presidency for Religious Affairs, known as the Diyanet, in Turkish. And the cemeteries have been transferred to the Metropolitan Municipality of Mardin. Kuryakos Ergün, the president of the Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation, told The Philos Project that the decision of...

You know that my focus lately has been on correctly preaching the Gospel of Grace.  The Gospel + anything = nothing.  There can be no mixture of law and grace (Romans 11:6).  It's either all law or all grace and we know that no one has ever been able to keep the law except Christ (Psalm 14:3, 53:3, Isaiah 64:6-7, Romans 3:9-23, James 2:10).  The law was not given to make us righteous, but to show us our desperate need for a Savior who actually can make us righteous (Romans 3:19-26, Galatians 3:24).  You can summarize all of Paul's...

Christian Assyrians have been targeted repeatedly through history — and found themselves under attack again by ISIS forces in Syria. "They're coming! They're coming!" On that day, Feb. 23, 2015, a new page in the tragedy of the Middle East's Christians was written on the banks of the Khabur River, in northeastern Syria. Armed with heavy weaponry and armored vehicles, ISIS fighters swept down from the Mount Abdulaziz region and stormed local Assyrian Christian villages, sending panic-stricken residents fleeing for their lives. Thousands sought shelter in the area's major cities, Al-Hassakeh and Al-Qamishli. The fighting lasted several hours. Two local...

Close to 50 churches and monasteries were taken over by the Turkish government in Mardin, a city located in the southeastern part of the country, reported the news outlet Agos. The move was made during the time that the villages that comprise the city were turned into an official municipality. As per legislation that established the city, a “liquidation committee” was established to distribute institutions of the city whose legal permits had expired. “For years, minority foundations could not acquire property in Turkey,” explained Kuryakos Ergun, the chairman of Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation. “Then legislative amendments were introduced in 2002...

Exclusive: Chaplain Sonny Hernandez declares, 'Persecution is here!' On June 30, 2016, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that transgender individuals will be allowed to openly serve in the U.S. Armed Forces. As a result, the Department of Defense has directed commanders to conduct face-to-face “transgender awareness” training for all military members and civilians who supervise military personnel. So far, the DOD has provided medical protocol and constructed a commander’s training handbook to ensure homosexual service members that they may begin to change their gender markers in the Defense Eligibility Enrollment System, or DEERS. If homosexual service members are afforded the...

FULL TITLE: Supreme Court: Government Can’t Exclude Christian Groups From Programs Just Because They’re Christian In a huge victory, the Supreme Court today ruled that government programs can’t exclude Christian groups from them just because they are Christian. The specifics of the case at issue are not directly related to pro-life causes but the decision certainly could have impact on pro-life organizations. Previously, Christian-based abstinence organizations have been denied funding and pro-life organizations have been denied participation in governmental programs. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 Monday that the government cannot exclude churches and other faith-based organizations from a secular...

A Colorado baker being punished by his state, which also imposed an indoctrination requirement on him and his employees, for living by his Christian faith now will have his case reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices announced on Monday they will hear the dispute involving Jack Phillips and his Masterpiece Cakeshop in the fall.