Free Republic

JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) — A Jackson Church is working to bounce back after two of its vans were vandalized overnight. It happened here at Voice of Calvary Ministries in Jackson on Capitol Street. The church doesn’t know who did it, but we are told it’s going to cost hundreds of dollars to repair the vans. Their vans are used for several of their outreach ministries.When they got in Wednesday morning , they found several windows busted out. Someone even ruptured one of the gas tanks on one of those vans and took a battery. We talked to them today about...

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) – A small Murfreesboro church congregation found it cleaning up broken glass after vandals busted out a side window. The vandals struck just before daybreak Tuesday but were scared away by the alarm system at the church. Another nearby business has also been the target of vandals, and now police have placed extra patrol in the area. It was a restless night for Path of Life Ministries Pastor Billy Brooks. “[I was] sound asleep,” Brooks said from his home in Tullahoma. “I got a phone call around 3:30 this morning.”

Here’s story about a church closure with a happy ending —and a church transformation that you don’t hear about very often: A Yonkers Roman Catholic church shuttered last year in a parish consolidation will celebrate its rebirth Saturday  as an Eastern Rite congregation.The Rev. Sunny Mathew, 43, the new congregation’s pastor, said the move to Yonkers realizes a longtime dream for his parishioners, who began their congregation in 1984 in New York City. Most Holy Trinity Church at 18 Trinity Plaza will be occupied by St. Mary’s Malankara Catholic Church, an Indian congregation that for 17 years worshiped in the chapel at Salesian High School in New Rochelle.“It...

The historic Manhattan cathedral that was gutted in a massive fire was one of four Christian Orthodox churches to go up in flames on Orthodox Easter Sunday — sparking fears of a coordinated attack on the religion. While FDNY officials said the blaze at the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava on West 25th Street does not appear suspicious, members of the Orthodox community have doubts. They are worried that the blaze — along with church fires in Australia and Russia — were set in retaliation for the religion’s role in blocking the canonization of Croatian Nazi supporter Cardinal Aloysius...

"Midtown Manhattan cathedral engulfed in flames: 'Irreplaceable' 160-year-old Orthodox Christian church is consumed by fire" A 160-year-old Orthodox Christian cathedral in New York has been completely destroyed after a huge fire tore through it on Sunday The blaze broke out at the Serbian Cathedral of Saint Sava on 25th Street in Manhattan's Flatiron district at around 7pm. It is not known how the fire started, though it is believed to have broken out on the first floor of the building before consuming the interior and roof. An FDNY spokesman said that nobody was believed to be inside the building at...

A churchgoer shot a fellow parishioner in a Pennsylvania church after a fight broke out over a seat in the sanctuary on Sunday, authorities say. The argument started when a churchgoer told Robert Braxton III, 27, he was sitting in seats reserved for two other church members during Sunday service at the Keystone Fellowship Church, district attorney Kevin Steele said.

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,...

Bevers, 45, had arrived at the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian, Tex., about 4:18 a.m. on Monday. She was there to set up for an early-morning fitness class she taught. About an hour later, police were dispatched to the church, where they found a grisly scene: Bevers dead and surrounded by broken glass. Surveillance footage showed that before she arrived, someone else was in the building: a suspect dressed up like a police officer on a SWAT-style raid. Flashes of footage show the suspect walking around the church dressed in dark tactical gear: a heavy vest, a heavy helmet...

Nearly two weeks ago, Ariel Draper started a petition on thepetitionsite.com to push Governor Phillip Bryant to veto Mississippi House Bill 786.  The goal of the petition was to get 1,000 signatures in support.  The petition had 3 signatures when the bill was signed into law today.  The petition used rather incendiary language.  From the petition: Mississippi House Bill 786 introduces legislation that would grant the following : To provide that killing a person while acting as a participant of a church or place of worship security team is JUSTIFIABLE homicide ; and for related purposes. Literally making a...

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's administration recently seized six churches as state property in the volatile southeastern part of Turkey. As World Watch Monitor reports: After 10 months of urban conflict in Turkey’s war-torn southeast, the government has expropriated huge sections of property, apparently to rebuild and restore the historical centre of the region’s largest city, Diyarbakir. But to the dismay of the city’s handful of Christian congregations, this includes all its Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches. Unlike the state-funded mosques, Turkey’s ancient church buildings – some of which pre-date Islam – have been managed, historically, by church foundations.Because of this...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Dr. Thomas F. Farr Last month, the United States formally recognized that a genocide against Middle Eastern Christians and other minorities is taking place at the hands of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. What next? While steps must be taken to stop future atrocities from occurring, provide aid to those whose lives have been upended, and to plan for their future, we must also recognize and nurture the solidarity that we as American Christians share with our brothers and sisters overseas. To advocate for them we must love them. And to love...

Gaza (Agenzia Fides) - The ruins of an ancient Byzantine church, re-emerged during construction work of a shopping center, have been removed by bulldozers and the local authorities did nothing to protect the precious historical and archaeological site. The episode of severe neglect, which took place last week, has provoked strong reactions of condemnation from some Palestinian Christians, launched by Israeli press. The workers, with their bulldozers, according to reconstructions provided by local sources, found the remains of a large Byzantine church of at least 1500 years ago, but continued their work of digging to prepare the foundation of the...

After 30 years and millions of dollars of restoration, 1500-year-old Santa Maria Antiqua, buried beneath the Roman Forum by an earthquake in 847, has finally reopened to the public, and it is stunning: “This church is the Sistine Chapel of the early Middle Ages,” Maria Andaloro, an art historian involved in the project, told Reuters. “It collected the very best of figurative culture of the Christian world between Rome and Byzantium.” Being buried by the earthquake saved the church from being altered in later centuries, particularly during the Counter-Reformation, said Prof Andaloro. Among the most significant frescoes is a depiction...

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) - Memphis police are investigating a person with several guns at Bellevue Baptist Church. Police said security told them they saw a man in the sanctuary who was carrying multiple guns. Officers arrived on the scene and took the suspect into custody without incident. This is an ongoing investigation. Easter service at Bellevue Baptist continued as planned. Bellevue Baptist tweeted the following statement regarding the incident:

A British father has been banned from taking his son to a church after the boy's Muslim mother won a controversial court order preventing the boy from attending. The father – a non-practising Muslim who has forged close connections to his local Christian community and is divorced from the boy's mother – has been warned that he could be denied access to the nine-year-old if he attempts to take him to church or to a leisure centre it runs. Now the father, who was born in the UK to Pakistani parents, is challenging the ruling made by District Judge Williscroft...

The last thing you expect on Easter week is a church vandalism. But as 13 News discovered, defacing Jesus on the cross had some calling for jail, others for mercy. During Lenten season, Liz Trabandt was one of Ashland's Holy Family Church volunteers who washed the 666 and upside down cross spray painted on the parish garage. During Easter holy week, spray painted on the large crucifix that welcomes all to the catholic church, another 666 and upside down cross. Police said so far, their ongoing criminal investigation into the vandalism has no leads and no suspects. Right now the...

A bizarre lawsuit, filed by the reliably leftist Rev. Michael Pfleger, was dismissed by Cook County judge Franklin Valderrama on February 25th. Other leftist activists had joined Rev. Pfleger in filing the lawsuit against three municipalities outside of Chicago.  From chicagotribune.com: A lawsuit filed by Rev. Michael Pfleger and a group of activists last year that said lax local gun laws in Lincolnwood were to blame when guns sold by the town’s only firearms dealer ended up at Chicago crime scenes has been dismissed by a Cook County judge. The lawsuits tried to make the claim that black people...

In new faith film Miracles from Heaven, which is based on a true story, actress Jennifer Garner plays Christy Beam, the mother of a young girl Annabel (Kylie Rogers) who is diagnosed with an incurable and painful disease. Because of the illness, pressure on the young family was high as Annabel had to undergo numerous hospital appointments and procedures. However, one day Annabel was involved in a freak accident and fell from a tree and hit her head. When she came to, doctors discovered she'd somehow been cured. "I mean there's reason there's a movie and a book about it,"...

With an eye toward divorced-and-remarried Catholics, Pope Francis has recently changed protocol for heads of state who are visiting the Pope at the Vatican. Catholic heads of state who are in an irregular marital situation may now take part in an official visit to the Pope as a couple, accompanied by their irregular spouse. The Pope made the change in February. By chance, the first to benefit from the new protocol was Argentina’s President Mauricio Macrì. He made an official visit to Pope Francis Feb. 27, accompanied by his third wife, Juliana Awada. Before the change in protocol, the Catholic...

Become a Nomad for Christ: NEVER let political pastors be the cause of YOU losing YOUR faith. Better they should lose theirs than yours If you are one of the faithful still going to church on Sunday, don’t be the fertile ground that lets your pastor politicize you. Even if it’s only for the sake of situational awareness, take stake of what is happening in many of the mainline churches, whose pastors have become the latest breed of political activists, trading the Gospel of Christ for politics, all for the 30 pieces of silver called government grants. Political activists at...