Free Republic

In his speech yesterday at the Party Congress, Xi Jinping reiterated the "new approach" to religious activities. The Catholic Church reiterates the independence of nomination and ordination of bishops. Two bishops present at the Congress: Msgr. Giovanni Fang Xingyao of Linyi and Msgr. Giuseppe Ma Yinglin of Kunming.Beijing (AsiaNews) - Insisting the direction of “Siniciziation of religions” was stressed among main goals and visions in General Secretary Xi Jinping’s work report in the opening session of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. His epic address or the so-called “Xi Jinping Thought” is expected to become dogma...

An online database launched Wednesday singles out churches opposed to homosexuality ostensibly to encourage clarity in whether various churches support LGBT lifestyles. The database, called Church Clarity, scores churches on whether they are “clear” or “unclear” in their message of being “affirming” or “non-affirming” toward LGBT relationships. Church Clarity takes aim specifically at evangelical churches and accuses them of having a dangerous “capitalist mindset” and of being purposefully unclear in their policies toward LGBT relationships .

"But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it" Reading the “news” over the ‘Net these days is enough to want to pull one’s hair out. But it is the mainstream media reports of how Western leaders are turning on their own people, not the Fake News that most rational folk can spot at a glance that is really the most worrisome. Easy to dismiss theories from activist talking heads like Sally Kohn over at CNN, who said Harvey Weinstein’s fall “grew from rage over Trump”. (CNN), or that cowgirl hat-wearing “yippie yippie ki...

Attendee: Courses teach 'Christians and Jews were always better off under Muslim rule'! The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest school district in America, is co-sponsoring a “professional development” workshop for K-12 teachers to “Learn about Islam and the Arab World” – and the district has apparently partnered with an anti-Israel group for lessons on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Learning about Islam and the Arab World” is the topic of a two-part course that began Oct. 14 and will continue Oct. 21. It is being led by LAUSD teachers Richard Jessel and Rosa Melendez, according to a posting on the...

The Christian baker in Colorado who was sued for declining to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding reception received a strange request last month: Design and bake a cake celebrating Satan’s birthday. “I would like to get a quote on a birthday cake, for a special event,” the email request to baker Jack Phillips, sent Sept. 30 and exclusively obtained by The Daily Signal, reads. It continues: It is a cake that is religious in theme, and since religion is a protected class, I am hoping that you will gladly bake this cake. As you see, the birthday...

It’s been a time of calamities: Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, flooding in South Asia and Africa and a massive earthquake in Mexico have led to widespread devastation around the globe.Some people seem to think this is divine retribution for the sins of humanity: Kirk Cameron, former child actor, said in a video on Facebook that Hurricane Harvey and Irma were “a spectacular display of God’s immense power” and were sent so human beings could repent. Earlier, after seeing the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, conservative Christian pastor John McTernan had noted that “God is systematically destroying America” out of anger over...

....The new PSAs, filmed live at the NFL Pro Bowl in Orlando in January, put a twist on the traditional kiss cam by replacing it with an unbiased camera that features all forms of love –friendships, families and romantic relationships– across race, religion, gender, sexuality, ability and age. The goal of the campaign has always been to flood culture with a message of unbiased love.... The real people featured in the spot include...an Orlando Pulse shooting survivor and her girlfriend among others....

One of the most skilled mariners of his day, Christopher Columbus not only knew that the earth was a sphere, but was also extremely capable in all of the known science required to navigate an ocean. In addition, Columbus was a devoted Christian who was known to be a man of prayer and a serious student of God’s Word. Born in late 1451 to Domenico Colombo, a poor to middle-class wool weaver, and Susanna Fontanarossa, at a young age Cristoforo (Italian for “Christ-bearer”) Colombo showed intelligence, drive, and a distinct impression of God at work in his life. As Columbus...

If Hugh Hefner was the poster boy of the sexual revolution, Alfred Kinsey was the father of the revolution. But that is not the only thing that joins these men together. Both of them were overt rebels against “puritanical” Christianity, devoting their lives to “liberate” humanity from what they perceived to be the bondage of a sterile, restrictive morality.Kinsey was born in 1894 and died in 1956. His claim to fame was his 1948 volume, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, followed by his 1953 volume, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. (Is it a coincidence that it was in...

Charles Mutua Mulli, one of the most interesting and inspirational people you’ve probably never heard of, woke up in his family’s hut in a tiny village in Kenya one morning in 1955 and discovered that his parents had taken his brother and fled. Charles had been abandoned. He was 6 years old. The tale of that child’s experiences over the ensuing 60 years is told in a compelling new documentary titled “Mully” (he later changed the spelling of his surname), directed by the actor/filmmaker Scott Haze. It is a rags-to-riches story of extraordinary dimensions – i.e., Mully literally went from...

In early 1914, though, it seemed almost impossible that Britain and France would go to war with Germany to defend Russia against Austria-Hungary over a dispute with Serbia. Yet by June 28, war moved straight from impossible to inevitable — without ever passing through improbable. Four years later, 10 million people had died. (From World War One: First war was impossible, then inevitable; Anatole Kaletsky) Although I’ve used this quote in the past, I’ve found myself drawn to it again due to its precise accuracy describing the seemingly incredible and often unpredictable nature of geopolitics. Prior to World War I,...

Next Post >> Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev), the 'foreign minister' of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow.Kremlin The 'foreign minister' of the Russian Orthodox Church's Moscow Patriarchate has claimed that Christianity is dying out in Europe and being replaced with 'the monopoly of the secular idea'.Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev), who was speaking at a conference organised by the Russian Embassy in London in front of diplomats, politicians, entrepreneurs and religious figures, said: '[The] monopoly of the secular idea has affirmed itself in contemporary Europe. Its manifestation is the discrimination of religious vision in the social sphere.'He added: 'Other peoples will live in...

The U.N. Human Rights Council’s perennial debate focusing on condemning Israel witnessed an unusual intervention Monday – a strong-worded statement in Arabic-accented English slamming not Israel but the Palestinian Authority. the speaker questioned the legitimacy of Mahmoud Abbas’s P.A., accused it of jailing and torturing its critics, and called it the “greatest enemy of the Palestinian people.” “If Israel did not exist, you would have no one to blame,” he declared, concluding by accusing the P.A. of using the HRC platform “to mislead the international community, to mislead the Palestinian society to believe that Israel is responsible for the problem...

Atheism, the rejection of the possibility that “God” exists, has become the dominant thought amongst intellectuals in the past century and has been around longer than most people think. For over 2000 years, it was based on philosophical arguments that can roughly be summed up as the atheist saying, “I don’t know how ‘X’ came to be, but you can’t prove it came from God.” This mindset has been highly effective because it places the burden of proof on the theist to prove the positive of God’s existence, which, superficially, is impossible to do – because no evidence exists that...

CNN is lamenting the fact that GOP frontrunner for the U.S. Senate in Alabama Judge Roy Moore told pastors and Christians in a speech last month that shootings and killings in American society are the result of removing God from schools. Andrew Kaczynski’s KFile on CNN dug up a video of Moore from late August speaking at Citizen Impact USA, making the comments that have CNN and the GOP establishment in Washington similarly freaked out. “We are losing the acknowledgement of God and I’m standing here talking to Christians and pastors and I’m telling you we’re losing the acknowledgement of...

Remarks of Viktor Orban, Hungarian Prime Minister at a conference of the Christian Intellectuals’ Association. Sept. 2017Respected ladies and gentlemen, Will there be a Christian Hungary? Will there be a Christian Europe? That is the question that concerns all of us. As for Hungary, the task of those looking for the answer is simpler. Because it depends on us, the Hungarians. If the Hungarians want it, then we will have a Christian Hungary. We feel that our means, our persuasive powers, our influence our opportunities, depend only on our performance, our personal commitment, and our talents. But will we have...

A Christian man in Pakistan was sentenced to death for blasphemy after he sent a WhatsApp message to a friend that insulted Islam, his lawyer said on Friday. His trial continued for more than a year at the Gujrat Jail, about 200 kilometres from the provincial capital Lahore. Lahore -- A Christian man in Pakistan was sentenced to death for blasphemy after he sent a WhatsApp message to a friend that insulted Islam, his lawyer said on Friday. Nadeem James Masih was charged in July after his friend Yasir Bashir told the police that he sent him a poem on...

Like many Americans during the past three weeks, I've been bombarded by news about the destructive power of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Irma in Florida. The stories are of misery, death, and destruction. The misery, death, and destruction are acutely difficult to accept because they have been visited upon innocents. I say that knowledgeable of the ancient argument that our personal and collective sinfulness has merited our pain. Yet that raises this question: Does anyone really deserve personal ruination because of personal sin, particularly from a God whose Son said He came to call sinners and not the...

The birth of Jesus Christ is the one of the most significant events in all of history and when we understand the truths regarding the true date of his birth it will thrill and inspire your heart. Tradition has made December 25th the birthday of Jesus. but the Bible clearly reveals he was not born on that day. It was not until the 4th century after Christ that December 25th began to be celebrated as the day of ChristÂ’s birth. It was the old pagan holiday celebrating the winter solstice and the birth of the sun god and celebrated when...

For politicians who are searching for an appropriate way to talk about their Christian faith in public, the Bible can sometimes appear to contain contradictory mandates. In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he admonishes his disciples to pray in secret and “not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.” Later, however, the resurrected Jesus, just before he is taken up to Heaven, implores his followers to go forth and “be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the...