Free Republic

The Kurdish YPG/Asayesh forces have begun to intensify their ongoing intimidations and threats towards Christians in Northeast Syria. They are now increasingly kidnapping and conscripting teenagers with the intention to send them to the frontline in places like Afrin. Local Christian sources, fearing for their lives and speaking on condition of anonymity to the World Council of Arameans (Syriacs) (“WCA”), report that they are facing more and more harassments from the Kurdish YPG and Asayesh (security forces). On Friday, 19 January, the first grave human rights violations of the new year included the abduction of seven Christians; four Armenians and...

BAKERSFIELD, California – It would be a violation of free speech for a Christian baker to be forced to make a same-sex "wedding" cake, a California judge ruled on Monday. Cathy Miller owns Tastries Bakery, where 40 percent of her business is wedding cakes, many of which she personally designs. Last August two lesbians asked her to design a special cake to celebrate their “marriage,” and Miller politely redirected them to an accommodating competitor. Nevertheless, as is the well-established LGBT pattern, the lesbians sued Miller anyway. They filed a complaint with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, accusing...

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A California bakery owner can continue to refuse to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples because it violates her Christian beliefs, a judge ruled. The decision came after a lawyer for Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield argued that owner Cathy Miller's right to free speech and free expression of religion trumps the argument that she violated a state anti-discrimination law. Kern County Superior Court Judge David Lampe agreed but said Monday his ruling was tied closely to the fact that Miller was being asked to make a cake for an event and that the act of creating it...

Frederick Douglass was born Frederick “Baily” on a Maryland plantation around Feb. 7, 1817, though no accurate records exist, as he was a slave. He later chose the birth date of February 14 as he remembered his mother calling him her “little valentine.” He never saw his mother in the daylight, as he was separated from her as an infant. He did not know who his father was. Around 12 years old, his master’s sister-in-law, Sophia Auld, was teaching Frederick the alphabet, despite this being against the law. When her husband found out and immediately forbade it, saying that if...

Slash CEO income, bring more women on board and go low carbon, Church Investors Group tells companies. The Church Investors Group has warned some of Britain’s biggest companies it intends to take a hard line on executive pay, gender diversity and climate change over the forthcoming annual meeting season. The group, which represents church organisations with combined investment assets of about £17bn, has told companies listed on the FTSE 350 index it will refuse to re-elect directors at firms failing to make sufficient progress in key areas. “The best companies contribute to the common good through their products and services...

Fighting has gripped Deir Ezzor since rebels captured part of the city in 2012Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Ignatius Aphrem II, gives a sermon during mass at the heavily damaged Syriac Orthodox church of St Mary in Syria's eastern city of Deir Ezzor. Ayham Al Mohammad/ AFP PhotoA solemn group of Christians held their first prayer service in years on Saturday in the ravaged church of St Mary in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor city. Stones, strips of wire, papers and remnants of rockets were strewn across the church floor, and bright sunlight streamed in from the blown-out windows. Holding thin...

Hate crime figures leaked by police in Germany have caused alarm, as they revealed murder, assault, and arson numbering among almost 100 attacks which targeted Christians in 2017. Published by the Funke media group several months before annual crime statistics are due to be officially released, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) data showed attacks on churches and Christian symbols accounted for a quarter of the 97 cases. At least 14 of the cases in the report involved asylum seekers and refugees, including the murder of an Afghan Christian convert by a fellow Afghan in May last year which prompted...

The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts announced its decision Saturday about whether to keep Crusader as its mascot and nickname or ditch it so as not to offend Muslims.

<p>BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) - Nick Foles has a calling far greater than throwing touchdown passes.</p> <p>If Foles leads the Philadelphia Eagles to a Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots, he'll become a folk hero in a city that has desperately waited for a championship since 1960.</p>

Across the United States, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Christians are coming out of the closet. For many of them, finding acceptance within the church can be a test of faith.

In the early 2000s, when I was a middle schooler in Florida, I was subjected to a trauma that was meant to erase my existence as a newly out bisexual. My parents were Southern Baptist missionaries who believed the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy could “cure” my sexuality. I sat on a couch over two years and endured emotionally painful sessions with a counselor. I was told that my faith community rejected my sexuality; that I was the abomination we had heard about in Sunday school; that I was the only gay person in the world; that it...

In short, the overwhelming majority of persecution that these 215 million Christians experience around the world — especially the worst forms, such as rape and murder — occurs at the hands of Muslims. If time is on the side of Christians living under Communist regimes, it is not on the side of Christians living under Islam. The center of the great Christian Byzantine Empire is now an increasingly intolerant, rapidly Islamizing Turkey. Carthage, once a bastion of Christianity — where one of Christendom's greatest theologians, St. Augustine, was born and where the New Testament canon was confirmed in 397 —...

In a 12-minute YouTube video, international evangelist Luis Palau revealed yesterday that he has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. After Palau, 83, and his wife Patricia “had a super busy fall … traveling around the world sharing the Good News like they always do,” explained his son Kevin Palau, the evangelist returned from a long trip to the United Kingdom in December “with kind of a chest cold … that wouldn’t go away.” “We finally got Dad to go into the doctor,” said Kevin, president and CEO of the Luis Palau Association. “And to our surprise, the early...

President Trump and Vice President Pence signaled their support as thousands of anti-abortion activists rallied on the National Mall at the annual March for Life on Friday. “Under my administration, we will always defend the very first right in the Declaration of Independence, and that is the right to life,” Trump said in the White House Rose Garden, in a speech that was broadcast to the marchers gathered near the Washington Monument. The march — which typically draws busloads of Catholic school students, a large contingent of evangelical Christians and poster-toting protesters of many persuasions — falls each year around...

In the wake of Vice President Mike Pence's announcement last October that the United States government would provide direct aid to persecuted Iraqi Christians struggling to rebuild following the liberation of the Nineveh Plains, the Trump administration has taken concrete steps to follow through on its promises.Trump's administration announced that it has renegotiated an agreement with the U.N. to ensure that vulnerable Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities victimized by the Islamic State in Iraq will get the U.N. assistance they were previously denied.The administration has also announced that it's accepting proposals by private organizations on the ground in Iraq...

Last month, Pastor Timothy Keller wrote an important article in the New Yorker asking, “Can Evangelicalism Survive Donald Trump and Roy Moore?” And Keller, himself a respected evangelical leader, pulled no punches in answering his question, writing, “‘Evangelical’ used to denote people who claimed the high moral ground; now, in popular usage, the word is nearly synonymous with ‘hypocrite.’ When I used the word to describe myself in the nineteen-seventies, it meant I was not a fundamentalist. If I use the name today, however, it means to hearers that I am.”Is Pastor Keller right in his assessment? Is “evangelical” nearly...

One in 12 Christians around the world are persecuted for their faith and are the target of violent attacks including rape, a shocking report has found. According to a study by Open Doors USA, an organization that studies Christian persecution, 215 million Christians live in areas with high levels of persecution worldwide. The report also goes on to state that over 3,000 Christians were killed and nearly 800 churches were damaged in the last year. 'The most significant findings were that Christian women are among the most violated in the world, in maybe a way that we haven't seen before,'...

The Muslim population in the US is growing at a rate of around 100,000 per year By the year 2040, Muslims will replace Jews as the second-largest religious group in the US after Christians, according to projections by a leading American think tank. Pew Research Center estimates there were some 3.45 million Muslims living in the US in 2017, accounting for around 1.1 percent of the country’s total population.

Faith-based films continue to maintain their momentum at the box office and 2017's list of top-grossing inspirational movies produced by Christians includes films about loss, the journey to faith, and even the first religious animation film in nearly 20 years. Here is a list of the seven highest-grossing Christian films of 2017 in order of top-earnings. 1. "The Shack" grossed $57,386,418 (Lionsgate) "The Shack" is based on The New York Times best-selling novel of the same name. The film was released on 2,888 silver screens on March 3 and as the film's synopsis says, the cinematic journey takes viewers on...

Sick of tinsel, carols and talk of virgin birth? In New Zealand, Australia and many other countries, it’s hard to escape Christmas in December. But even if you don’t believe in Christ or a God, religion can still be a powerful force. Research shows that even nonreligious people may hold unconscious beliefs linked to religion that can affect their psychology. By many measures, religion in Australia, New Zealand and the USA is declining – but Christianity still shapes the culture and politics of these societies, from the holidays celebrated to values officially endorsed. It’s not that surprising that religious symbols...