Free Republic

Why is Christianity booming in the global South, but seemingly stagnant in the global North? A new fascinating book offers an answer. Dr. Glenn Sunshine is a long-time Fellow at the Colson Center, and he's that rare sort of historian who sees the sweep of intellectual and cultural history, and then brings it all together in a way that not only explains the past, but advances our understanding of the here and now. His new book, co-authored with Jerry Trousdale, is called "The Kingdom Unleashed: How Jesus' 1st-Century Values Are Transforming Thousands of Cultures and Awakening His Church." In the...

The full video of the debate between Christian apologist and campus evangelist Keith Darrell and atheist writer/blogger Todd Seavey, which took place at the Playwright this past Friday.

Hi everyone! I've been doing a vlog series on YouTube about why historically the New Testament books were written. I usually upload these on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, but will be out of town this week so I decided to do it a few days early.Video: Why Paul Wrote I and II Corinthians.Since the story behind these epistles is somewhat complicated, this will probably be the longest video in the series, clocking in at almost 26 minutes.Source is Frank Viola's Book "The Untold Story of the New Testament."

Pornography is single-handedly one of the worst epidemics facing the Evangelical church today. There are a myriad of other factors which appear to be eroding the Western church from the inside-out, yet Evangelicals scarcely address the root of the problem of pornography within the church. On the whole, human sexuality is undergoing an existential crisis. Yet the church is placed squarely in the midst of this crisis, often not even addressing its own underlying issues until far too late. Leader after leader (after leader!) disqualifies himself through sexual misconduct, all the while the name of Christ is slandered. Lest we...

Franciscan Media Image: Saint Rose of Lima with Child Jesus | anonymousSaint Rose of Lima Saint of the Day for August 23 (April 20, 1586 – August 24, 1617) Saint Rose of Lima’s Story The first canonized saint of the New World has one characteristic of all saints—the suffering of opposition—and another characteristic which is more for admiration than for imitation—excessive practice of mortification.She was born to parents of Spanish descent in Lima, Peru, at a time when South America was in its first century of evangelization. She seems to have taken Catherine of Siena as a model, in...

Wednesday night Bible study is here!This week is part 3 of the "Why the Books of the New Testament Were Written" vlog series. We're focusing on why Paul wrote I and II Thessalonians.Why Paul Wrote the Thessalonian LettersVideo clocks in at 20:55. A bit longer than the last two, but the story behind Paul's Second Missionary Journey, which included planting the churches in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ephesus is very complicated.

Rev. Franklin Graham says he is cancelling an evangelical summit in Russia after the government passed a new law placing severe restrictions on Christian evangelization. "We were looking forward to this significant event being held in Russia because no one knows modern Christian persecution better than the church that suffered under communist rule. However, just a few weeks ago Russia passed a law that severely limits Christians' freedoms," Graham posted on Facebook in announcing the cancellation of his World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians. The law, signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, puts a stop to sharing faith in...

The left is always, but particularly in the era of Donald Trump, wailing over white Christian “supremacy.” Jeremy Scahill, writing months before the election of 2016 in The Intercept, is representative of this line of (un-)thinking. Scahill focuses specifically on Mike Pence, who would become the Vice President: “Pence’s ascent to the second most powerful position in the U.S. government is a tremendous coup for the radical religious right. Pence—and his fellow Christian supremacist militants—would not have been able to win the White House on their own.” Scahill continues, referring to Pence as one of the “most prized warriors” of...

Welcome to Wednesday night Bible study!Last week I started a weekly vlog series on the historical reasons the New Testament was written, starting with the first book, Galatians (49 AD).This week's video, part 2, is why James was written (50 AD).Why James Was WrittenVideo clocks in at 12:15. Thanks for watching!

On Sunday, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation made an official demand to Defense Secretary James N. Mattis to “immediately and comprehensively” investigate Air Force Brig. Gen. E. John Teichert. At issue is Teichert’s website, called “Prayer at Lunchtime for the United States,” in which the commander says he encourages “Bible-believing Americans to take time to specifically pray for our nation at lunchtime every day.” Teichert commands the 412th Test Wing and is also the installation commander, according to the Edwards website. On his religious website, Teichert goes only by “John,” and writes that he is an active duty brigadier general...

“I want to believe God cares about me; I really do,” she told me, wiping tears from under her darkened, bloodshot eyes. Under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital corridor, Marci barely resembled the vibrant girl I remembered, that kid I’d watched grow up in our youth group at church. When she was a teenager, Marci was outgoing, fun-loving, and full of life, even as she was growing more and more serious about her faith, coming early to youth group and staying late. No one loved to worship and talk about God more than Marci.Then, in her early 20s,...

On Oct. 31, 1517, Luther nailed a copy of his 95 Theses to the wooden doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. In his theses, Luther criticized the pope and Catholic Church practices like the selling of indulgences for redemption. But Luther wrote more than just the 95 Theses. He’s also the author of a corpus of virulent anti-Jewish writings. Over the next 30 years, as Protestantism took root, Luther evolved from being tolerant of Jews, hopeful they could become good Christians, to being disgusted with them. He described Jews as blasphemous, contaminators and murderers who should be expelled by...

The New York Times’ Frank Bruni really upped his game this week. In an atrociously brutal piece, he called Vice President Mike Pence a “holy terror,” claiming he’s multiple degrees more sinister than President Trump, the otherwise most sinister person on the planet. Bruni actually warns the best case against impeaching Trump is the much greater danger of Pence. Think about that a moment though. For all the venom and apocalyptic hysteria being spewed at everything Trump has ever said, done or probably even thought — and there is plenty there of concern — there is someone even “worse” than...

Let me now begin with a striking passage from Niall Ferguson's recent book, Civilization. In it he tells of how the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was given the task of discovering how the West, having lagged behind China for centuries, eventually overtook it and established itself in a position of world pre-eminence. At first, said the scholar, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we concluded it was because you had the best political system. Then we realised it was your economic system. "But in the past 20 years, we have realised...

The 62-year-old Chinese shopkeeper had waited nearly his entire adult life to see his dream of building a church come true — a brick house with a sunny courtyard and spacious hall with room for 200 believers. But in March, about a dozen police officers and local officials suddenly showed up at the church on his property and made the frightened congregants disperse. They ordered that the cross, a painting of the Last Supper and Bible verse calligraphy be taken down. And they demanded that all services stop until each person along with the church itself was registered with the...

North Korean defector Ji Hyeona couldn't help but shed a few tears while sharing her account of abuse and torture at the U.S. State Department's first-ever Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. The Christian woman, who now lives in South Korea after escaping from North Korea for the last time in 2007, pled with those gathered from around the world at the Harry S. Truman Building Tuesday to not be silent about the human rights abuses committed by the Kim Jong Un regime. As North Korea consistently ranks as the worst country in the world for Christian persecution, Ji said that...

I can honestly say that the labor camp was the best place to understand what ‘love your enemy’ really means,” said Myroslav Marynovych, a Ukrainian Catholic who spent seven years in a Soviet gulag in the Perm region of Russia. After receiving the 2018 Charles J. Chaput Award at the Napa Institute conference this month, Marynoych explained to CNA how the gospel came to life for him in the gulag, and how a stint in solitary confinement led him to write a letter to St. John Paul II. Marynovych is vice-rector for university mission at the Ukrainian Catholic University in...

Ukraine has a long Christian tradition, dating from the 10th century. Today there are over 22,000 religious communities in Ukraine from about 80 different Christian denominations, as well as other religions. But the atheist policy of the Soviets has left its mark: many Ukrainians today are unchurched because of the great spiritual void which the Bolshevik regime left in Eastern Europe. The Church in Ukraine is only now rising from the ashes of the Soviet regime as efforts are being made to be morally reborn by the entire European continent and breathe with Christianity's two lungs. Having regained its freedom...

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church claims Crimean authorities are trying to erase its existence four years after a Russian invasion that saw troops loot churches and denigrate priests as Nazis. The Kyivan Patriarchate said it is being persecuted and slowly whittled away with only eight churches and four priests now remaining on the Black Sea Peninsula.“ The Russian occupation authorities have done everything so the religious atmosphere on the peninsula is similar to theirs in Russia; that is, loyal and controllable,” said Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya) in his capacity as church spokesman. “Ukraine is closer than ever before to establishing its own...

Something eternally significant happened about 2,000 years ago.  Few people acknowledge it.  Even most of those who do acknowledge it with their lips, corrupt the truth and malign what happened by what they teach and how they live... Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God paid the penalty for all human sin and then rose again. The LORD Jesus Christ fulfilled the mission of the long-awaited Redeemer who had been purposed from before the creation of the world (1 Pt. 1:20; 2 Tim. 1:9; Rev. 13:8), promised to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:15–16), prophesied of by Moses (Deut. 18:18;...