Free Republic

This is an excerpt from Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live? Published in 1976, Schaeffer draws parallels between ancient Rome's hatred of Christianity and what we're seeing in modern times. No totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions. The Christians had that absolute in God's revelation. Because the Christians had an absolute, universal standard by which to judge not only personal morals but the state, they were counted as enemies of totalitarian Rome and were thrown to the beasts. Amazing the number of similarities between...

Christianity: An Antidote to TyrannyClifford Staples Like all modern tyrants, Karl Marx hated religion, Christianity in particular, because he understood that it was going to be very difficult if not impossible to get men to follow him so long as they continued to follow Jesus Christ, and so the first thing an aspiring tyrant in the middle of Christian Europe needed to do was to uproot and destroy Christianity. With Christ dwelling in the hearts of men there was no room for the atheist humanism that Marx and others were proposing as an alternative. But without God men could be...

We have lost the great art of Bible meditation today, and we are the poorer for it. In 1987, newsman Ted Koppel gave a classic commencement speech at Duke, in which he famously said that Moses didn’t come down from Mt. Sinai carrying the “Ten Suggestions.” Note what Koppel then said about television and our ability to concentrate: “Look at MTV or Good Morning America and watch the images and ideas flash past in a blur of impressionistic appetizers. No, there is not much room on TV for complexity.” We have been losing concentration power through the constant stimulation of...

A new study shows that potentially thousands of Christians have been attacked and harassed in German migrant homes by Muslim guards and fellow migrants. Multiple human rights organizations are warning the German government of the conditions that Christians in asylum homes are being subjected to. One organization in particular has chronicled 231 specific cases of the harassment of Christians by Muslim migrants and Muslim security guards in asylum homes. Open Doors is a humanitarian relief organization that specializes in helping Christians who are persecuted worldwide. Markus Rode, a member of the group, said that the study is only “the tip...

Since the beginning of the most recent uprisings by the cowardly Islamic world, we have repeatedly been told by their apologists that Muslim attacks on the civilized world are merely a continuation of their response to the Crusades. They insist the Crusades are the moral equivalent and justification for jihad. The accompanying video, featuring Bill Warner PhD, demolishes this lie in a well-constructed 5 minutes presentation. Dr. Warner uses simple and effective graphics showing us the HUGE disparity in the number of battles initiated by the Christian Crusaders and those made by the loathsome Islamists since the 7th century. The...

An interfaith group is laying the groundwork for what will likely be the world’s first ever joint house of prayer. The center of worship, which will be called the "House of One," will combine simultaneous Jewish, Muslim, and Christian prayer services. The House of One is planned to be built on the site of Berlin’s first church, the Petrikirche. One of the organizers of the interfaith group behind the planned church/mosque/synagogue, Rabbi Tovia Ben Chorin, said that the House of One is a reminder that despite the dark history of Berlin in the 20th century it is now a center...

He was the most recognized person in the world. He met with Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. Born in a small town in Poland, MAY 18, 1920, was Karol Wojtyla. A chemical worker during World War II, he risked punishment by Communists for being ordained a priest. In 1967, he became Archbishop of Krakow and, in 1978, he became Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope since 1522. Leader of one billion Catholics, Pope John Paul spoke eight languages and traveled a million miles in 170 countries - more than any other pope. In 1981, he survived...

When amateur archaeologist Dennis Fabricius Holm got off work early last Friday and decided to spend a couple of hours searching a little field in Funen with his metal detector, little did he know he was about to make history. Holm stumbled across one of the most extraordinary finds in recent times near the little town of Aunslev when he discovered a crucifix that dates back about 1,100 years – Denmark’s oldest crucifix ever found. It could rewrite Danish history. “It’s a completely sensational find that dates back to the first half of the 900s,” Malene Refshauge Beck, a curator...

It is a fact that Islam is growing rapidly in the West. In the U.S. alone the number of Muslims has risen dramatically, from about 10,000 in 1900 to 3 million or more in 1991 (some authorities say 4.5 million). Most of this growth is due to recent immigration and the high birth rate of Muslims (5 children per family on average), rather than to conversion. Still, the number of those who convert to Islam is significant. In the U.S., the majority are African-American (a third of all Muslims according to most authorities), but there have also been significant numbers...

This is the last in a series of essays on the duty of Christians in civic affairs, adapted from Kevin Kookogey’s weekly radio address and podcasts at www.advancingchurch.com 8. Which responsibilities of providing help to our citizens are the government's and which belong to the Church? The duty of government is plainly described in our founding documents. The Declaration of Independence establishes the philosophical and moral basis for our system of government, famously asserting that governments are instituted among men to secure their rights, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. The Constitution then enumerates those powers,...

I commend author and blogger Jonathan Merritt for reminding us that whenever we hear the words “homosexual” or “transgender,” we are not just talking about issues, we are talking about people – people created in God’s image, yet fallen (like the rest of us), people for whom Jesus died, people whom the church is to called to reach. We can never be reminded of this too much. Unfortunately, Merritt is quite wrong in arguing that “conservative Christians will lose the transgender debate.” Writing on ReligionNews.com, Merritt offers three main reasons to support his contention: 1) conservative Christians “focus on ideology...

The Reading from the First Epistle of St. John 1:1-7We speak of Jesus of Nazareth, of His life and miracles and the miraculous claims that followed His life very often.  We think and meditate and ponder them to such a degree that at times it becomes difficult to regain the wonder and awe and amazement of some of the key events in the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  We have just celebrated Pascha or Easter as it is otherwise known and the celebration that we partake of for 40 days is the celebration of Life over death, of Good...

Few would disagree that America is experiencing significant political instability today. Many, however, are reluctant to admit the cause. Refusing the lessons of history, civic leaders double down in politically-correct efforts to deny the correlation between moral order and constitutional order. Rejecting all evidence that political stability is not possible without personal virtue, these self-appointed do-gooders pass useless decrees, adding harm upon harm because they are, as Eliot wrote, “absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” It is undeniable that our present political and moral deterioration is directly attributable to decades of coordinated efforts to undermine religious...

This is the third in a series of essays on the duty of Christians in civic affairs, adapted from Kevin Kookogey’s weekly radio address and podcasts at www.advancingchurch.com Below we continue our examination of questions from listeners. 4. What are the potential dangers of mixing politics and Christianity? If by mixing politics and Christianity one means establishing a theocracy, then of course that would be a danger. But that is not what Christianity is. If you fear theocracy, then you should fear Islam, which advocates an unaccountable civil power imposing Sharia without the consent of the governed. Christianity, on the...

Dinesh D'Souza has received a lot of attention for his documentaries like "America: Imagine The World Without Her" and "Obama's America", both looking at what factors shaped Obama and the US' influence on the world. This older book is a good look at the influence Christianity as a whole has had on the world and the United States.

This is the second in a series of essays on the duty of Christians in civic affairs, adapted from Kevin Kookogey’s weekly radio address and podcasts at advancingchurch.com. This week we begin our examination of questions from listeners. 1. Christians should be informed about politics, but should they really determine which political side is correct? How can one claim that it is important for Christians to be informed about politics if the conclusion one draws from the information is deemed irrelevant or off limits? It is, after all, conclusions that lead one to act and to act is to take...

He has been called the godfather of shock-rock, mixing elements of horror movies into acts that have included an unpalatable array of guillotines, fake blood, baby dolls and boa constrictors. Yet many would be surprised to learn of his Christian roots and his homecoming to the faith after sowing his oats as the ultimate prodigal.“My father was a pastor and my grandfather was an evangelist, actually both were evangelists,” Cooper told the Harvest Show. “I grew up in the church and all my friends were church kids. I had so much fun. I was in church Sunday, Wednesday night, Friday...

Islamic State militants in Iraq have blown up the remnants of the prestigious Latin Church, dubbed the "Clock Church" for its prominent clock tower in central Mosul, according to the Patriarch of the Chaldeans, Louis Raphael Sacco. Militants cordoned off areas surrounding the church and looted the building for profitable artifacts and antiquities before destroying the remaining parts with explosives, an Iraqi Christian community leader confirmed to The Foreign Desk. The Clock Church, which had its clock tower gifted in 1873 to Iraqi Christians by Napoleon III’s wife, French Empress Eugénie, became a target of ISIS attacks in February 2015,...

A black doctor who was fired for supposedly inflammatory sermons unrelated to his medical work filed a lawsuit against the state of Georgia on Wednesday, claiming religious discrimination. This is particularly ironic, considering the governor of that state recently vetoed a religious liberty bill.Dr. Eric Walsh previously served on President Obama's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, was a board member of the Latino Health Collaborative, and started California's first city-run dental clinic for low-income families dealing with AIDS. Nevertheless, Walsh was fired only one week after being hired by Georgia's Department of Public Health. Right before Walsh was terminated, the...

Christianity is demonized and its history distorted by its usurping enemies: in the West, by a host of "isms"--including leftism, moral relativism, and multiculturalism--and in the Middle East, by Islam While Christianity continues to be physically erased from the Middle East, lesser known is that its historical role and presence is also being expunged from memory. Last month a video emerged showing Islamic State members tossing hundreds of Christian textbooks, many of them emblazoned with crosses, into a large bonfire. As one report put it, ISIS was “burning Christian textbooks in an attempt to erase all traces of” Christianity from...