Free Republic

A federal court has ruled that four Christian universities based in Oklahoma will not be penalized for refusing to provide health care coverage for the birth control services they consider contrary to their religious beliefs. In 2013, Mid-America Christian University, Oklahoma Baptist University, Oklahoma Wesleyan University, and Southern Nazarene University filed suit against the Obama administration over their mandate that forced most employers, regardless of religious convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs and contraception. A decision released Tuesday by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma granted relief for the four universities, in large part...

After a three-year wait and a number of broken promises, the Egyptian Coptic families of 20 men beheaded by IS in Libya in 2015 have finally received their loved ones’ remains. The leader of the Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, accompanied by several bishops, priests and deacons, welcomed the 20 coffins at the Cairo airport on Monday evening, 14 May, with prayers and Coptic chants. From there the coffins were transported to the village of Al-Our in Minya province, where the Church of the Martyrs of Faith and Homeland, dedicated to the victims, had been inaugurated in February in anticipation...

Former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney lashed out at the decision to have a controversial evangelical leader give a blessing at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem Monday, calling him a "religious bigot." The Senate candidate from Utah criticized the inclusion of the Rev. Robert Jeffress — the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas who is also an an adviser to President Donald Trump. The president recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital last year. "Robert Jeffress says, 'You can't be saved by being a Jew,' and 'Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell,'" Romney wrote in...

A family of six launched suicide attacks on Christians attending Sunday services at three churches in Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya, killing at least 13 people and wounding 40, officials said. Police said the family who carried out Sunday's attacks were among 500 Islamic sympathizers who had returned from Syria. "The husband drove the car, an Avanza, that contained explosives and rammed it into the gate in front of that church," East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera told reporters at the regional police headquarters in Surabaya. The wife and two daughters were involved in an attack on a second...

California has a hallowed but questionable reputation as being the birthplace of the radical Free Speech Movement on the University of California, Berkeley campus. Today, they're not just shutting down conservative speakers on the campus. The state's Democrats may pass a law to shut down religious speech and create a statewide LGBT "safe space." There's a new legislative proposal banning all conversion therapy as a fraudulent business practice -- by not just mental health providers but anyone. Since the "independent fact-checkers" are quick to swarm around conservative "misinformation," FactCheck.org, PolitiFact and Snopes have all cried "False" at the idea that...

First, the oldest but best Christian joke in the world (The second best is the one about how what was going on in Gomorrah was so bad nobody will talk about it): There’s this Christian guy who gets on his roof to escape a flood. He prays to God to save him. A rowboat comes by. He says, “No thanks, God will save me.” The rowboat leaves, the water rises, and he drowns. He appears before the Lord and says, “But I prayed for you to save me!” and God says, “I sent you a rowboat.” Donald Trump is religious...

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders turned the other cheek on “Fox & Friends” Thursday and responded to criticism from comedian Michelle Wolf by wishing her a happy life. “Look, I think that evening says a whole lot more about her than it does about me,” Sanders said of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday. “The people that were my friends before that evening are my friends today and I’m going to continue doing the job that I came here to do every single day,” she said. “I’m very proud of the fact that I work in this...

I’ve been tracking the decline of Christianity in America ever since serving as a youth pastor in the early 2000’s. Even back then I couldn’t help but notice the astonishing rate at which young Christians were leaving the Church. The polls have been consistent about this, and the latest Pew Research Center study (surveying more than 4,700 U.S. adults) is no exception. If you’re a Christian, the poll offers a distressing assessment:Our Numbers Are Shrinking – Only 56% of Americans say they believe in God “as described in the Bible.” The number of people who claim a belief in God – or...

The Trump administration plans to eliminate an Obama-era regulation that opponents say requires faith-based hospitals, insurance providers and doctors to perform, provide and cover gender-reassignment surgeries and procedures that violate their religious convictions. The New York Times reported Saturday that the United States Department of Health and Human Services submitted a proposal to the White House that would eliminate a 2016 rule that barred health care providers and employers from discriminating against transgender patients seeking to transition genders. The move comes after Judge Reed O'Connor in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a nationwide...

If President Trump recognizes the Armenian genocide by specifically using the word “genocide” in his April 24 proclamation, he would send a strong signal to the world that America is unequivocally on the side of historical truth and the protection of innocent life. He would be only the second president, after Ronald Reagan, to do so boldly and officially. Every year on April 24 there are memorial services, marches, and media reminders of the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. The beginning of the massacres is marked on that date in 1915, when hundreds...

Often in history, the "White American Bible Belt" paid homage to racism while calling it "Jesus Christ," according to prominent evangelical Russell Moore. Delivering a speech at the MLK 50 Conference in Memphis, Tennessee, on Tuesday, Moore drew a parallel between America's struggle for racial equality and the ancient Israelites being told to choose between serving God or serving Baal. "Time and time again, when told they could not serve both, the people of God tragically often chose to worship Baal but to rename him God," said Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "And...

George Washington University is hosting a seminar on combating “Christian privilege” in America. According to an event description, students in a 90-minute training session will learn about ways American Christians receive things they don’t deserve and are not worthy of getting: “How do we…acknowledge that Christians receive unmerited perks from institutions and systems all across our country?”

An image of the San Damiano Cross, showing Jesus in glory, “reigning from his cruciform throne,” has been rejected by Facebook because of its “shocking content.” “This is what the monitors at Facebook consider excessively violent, sensational, and shocking,” said a statement from Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.

George Washington University is hosting a diversity workshop to battle “Christian privilege” on Thursday of Easter Week at the school’s Multicultural Student Services Center. The training session for students and faculty proposes to educate Christians — especially white ones — concerning their “unmerited perks from institutions and systems all across our country,” according to the ever-attentive folks at The College Fix.

Oprah Winfrey latest movie “A Wrinkle In Time” just premiered, and it’s officially been labeled a flop. The award-winning book that the movie is based on is a science fiction fantasy about Christianity’s concept of good versus evil, but Winfrey and the Black Lives Matter director Ava DuVernay erased Christianity, making it New Age and politically correct. You’ll be shocked how “Christians and white people” are now blamed for its horrendous reviews. Oprah Winfrey starring in “A Wrinkle In Time” (left), a stock image of moviegoers (right). Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 award-winning book “A Wrinkle In Time” is known for its...

Never missing an opportunity to confuse, disappoint, and demoralize the Catholic faithful, Pope Francis, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune, said on Good Friday that “Christians ought to express shame for the actions of those who are leaving future generations a world ‘fractured by divisions and wars.’” Speaking to Jesus, the Pope said that “our gaze upon you is full of shame, repentance and hope. Before your supreme love, shame pervades us for having left you alone to suffer for our sins … shame for having chosen Barabbas and not you, power and not you, appearance and not...

In 1992, I learned the meaning of the Hebrew word “shachah.” 10 years earlier, I met my wife on an oil rig. I was a geologist, working on a well, she was an engineer. I had spent 11 years in college, going full time including summers, and never heard the message of the gospel. My parents, sister, and brothers were completely unchurched, and I actually did not know the meaning of Christmas or Easter, and certainly did not know who Jesus Christ was. I can’t say I was an atheist – I simply was a non-theist. So, when I met...

(Screenshot: Instagram/LuisPalau)Luis Palau (L) gives fans an update on his cancer diagnosis, March 28, 2018.At the top of the year, beloved world-renowned evangelist Luis Palau made the surprising announcement that he was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. In a recent update, however, the minster testified that his doctors are shocked by the results of his recent test results."We had a very encouraging meeting with the doctors this morning regarding my chemotherapy treatment," Palau wrote on his Facebook page. "After two months of therapy for Stage 4 lung cancer, the doctors were amazed at the results from the recent CT...

CNN host Alisyn Camerota on Wednesday confronted the author of "God and Donald Trump," questioning how he can continue to back President Trump amid reports of extramarital affairs. "In order to receive forgiveness, don't you have to confess to your sins?" Camerota asked Stephen Strang, the founder of Charisma Magazine. "Isn't that a tenant of the Bible? I mean don't you have to own up to these things? You know, Donald Trump famously said he's never asked God for forgiveness." Strang said that issue is between Trump and God, adding that he focuses on Trump's policies. "He supports the kinds...

Since our government is concentrating on economics first, let us help the President and his Attorney General by doing what we can do to eliminate this horrible blight of pedophilia in on our nation. Noon, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 End Pedophilia in the World Since the United States Government refuses to go after and arrest and convict pedophiles currently and formerly in high government office, it is up to Christian men to end this scourge on the children, toddlers and infants of our country. Christ tells us directly in both Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:2, and in Luke 17:2 that it...