Free Republic

The Boy Scouts of America may experience a severe backlash from church sponsors following its recent vote to approve openly gay scout leaders. A national organization boasting over 2.6 million members, many of the BSA's more than 37,000 troops come from churches that officially state that homosexuality is a sin. These include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the United Methodist Church, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Roger S. Oldham, spokesman for the SBC, told The Christian Post that Southern Baptist churches have been cutting ties with the BSA since 2013, when the youth organization voted to allow...

The triumvirate imposing man-made global warming on civil society as the 21st century’s top issue may have started at the United Nations, but it picked up steam with President Barack Obama somewhat, then surrealistically moved on to include the Vatican through Pope-Gone-Activist-Francis-Bergoglio. The climate change movement has long dictated what the masses could eat and wear, what they could drive and where they would live. They are now dictating to the masses what religion to practice, and their green religion is not Christianity. The hierarchy of the global warming/climate change movement pay loyal allegiance to the pagan religion of Gaia...

In the aftermath of Obergefell v. Hodges, pastors and church members are experiencing a wave of anxiety over what many of them deem the “nightmare scenario”: lawsuits or government action designed to force them to perform or recognize same-sex marriages. While there are — so far — no meaningful judicial precedents that would permit such dramatic interference with churches’ core First Amendment rights, lawsuits challenging church liberties are inevitable. Indeed, the Iowa Civil Rights Commission has declared that prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity “sometimes” apply to churches and has stated that a “church...

Maronite leader appeals to worldwide faithful for help The Maronite Archbishop of Damascus, Samir Nassar, has written to Christians in the West asking them to help his country’s 12 million refugees and displaced people.In a letter to Aid to the Church in Need, the Maronite archbishop called the Syrian crisis “the cruelest human drama since the Second World War”, pointing out that 5.6 million children were affected by the war and that many people were dying in the conflict from wounds because of the exodus of doctors and a shortage of medical drugs. He also noted that 1,400 mosques and...

The Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage settled little. It merely launched a bigger struggle over the definition of marriage. Now, resistance to Obergefell v. Hodges will join Roe v. Wade in becoming another, long-tailed comet moving across the socio-political skies of America. A third, landmark Supreme Court initiative waits over the horizon. It will involve the 2nd Amendment. Perhaps not soon, but coming. Following Obergefell v. Hodges, much discussion now centers on the potential loss of tax-exempt status to churches that resist. Same-sex marriage zealots will look for opportunities to cement the Court’s decision by forcing churches, through the...

Lost in the celebrations over universal gay marriage, like abortion, being deemed a right found in the “penumbras and emanations” of the Constitution is the chilling effect the ruling has on religious liberty. In a telling exchange between the Obama administration’s Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. and Justice Samuel Alito, detailed by Tom Blumer at Newsbusters.com, in which Verrilli admitted that churches could lose their tax exemptions if they refuse to perform gay weddings: Justice Alito: Well, in the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to tax­exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage...

In the week after nine people were shot dead at Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina, six churches with predominately black congregations in five Southern states have burned. Three of the fires are being investigated as arson.(excerpt)

While the Supreme Court of the United States ruled Friday that same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, several religious leaders in Corsicana said Monday they will not hold a same-sex wedding service in their churches. ... Pastors of several churches cited Biblical teachings for their stance. ...

(Snip) No, the real intent of removing tax-exempt status is to cripple the institutions that continue their dissent from the sexual revolution. When tax exemptions are removed, donors will give far less than they are giving now. Churches will become liable to property taxes. That means that many churches will have to forfeit their property to the government because they won’t be able to afford the taxes they have to pay on it. Many of them wouldn’t be able to pay them now. If donations went down, they would be that much further from being able to pay them. As...

If you are a member of a Bible-believing church that considers homosexuality to be sin, last week's SCOTUS decision making gay marriage a federal right has to be disturbing. Soon, as they have with wedding bakers, florists and photographers, gays are likely to show up to be test cases asking to get married in your church. If you are a church elder, what is your response going to be when it is your church they want to marry in? There's a good chance your answer is going to be like this: "The Bible declares in Deuteronomy and Romans and elsewhere...

Add the following to the "you will be made to care" stories Erick Erickson at RedState began to recognize several years ago. Those who think that legalizing same-sex "marriage" won't affect them should have received a wake-up call on Tuesday during arguments at the Supreme Court over inventing a constitutional right for two people of the same sex to have such an arrangement. Most of them didn't get it, because, with only one exception I could find, the establishment press covering the proceedings perfectly understood the gravity of the discussion and its implications — and refused to report it, because...

SALT LAKE CITY — The Church issued the following statement Friday: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acknowledges that following today's ruling by the Supreme Court, same-sex marriages are now legal in the United States. The Court's decision does not alter the Lord's doctrine that marriage is a union between a man and a woman ordained by God. While showing respect for those who think differently, the Church will continue to teach and promote marriage between a man and a woman as a central part of our doctrine and practice." The Church has outlined its doctrine and position...

A tech-savvy art historian uses lasers to understand how medieval builders constructed their architectural masterpieces.Thirteen million people visit the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris every year, entering through massive wooden doors at the base of towers as solidly planted as mountains. They stand in front of walls filigreed with stained glass and gaze at a ceiling supported by delicate ribs of stone. If its beauty and magnificence is instantly apparent, so much about Notre Dame is not. To begin with, we don't know who built this cathedral—or how. The bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully, commissioned the massive church complex...

A prominent Muslim leader in France has suggested that thousands of the country's abandoned Catholic churches should be turned into mosques to accommodate the growing French Muslim population, which is the largest Muslim population in Europe. In a Monday interview with France's Europe 1 radio, Dalil Boubakeur, the president of the French Council of Muslim Faith and rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, explained that there are only 2,500 mosques in France, with another 300 under construction, which falls short of being able to serve the nation's estimated 5 million Muslims. Boubakeur asserted that at least 5,000 mosques are...

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston attorney on the National Rifle Association's board of directors is blaming the deadly Charleston church shooting on one of the victims, saying the slain pastor had opposed concealed carry legislation as a state senator that could have saved him and his fellow worshippers. Related Stories 1. NRA executive suggests slain Charleston pastor to blame for gun deaths Reuters 2. Slain Pastor Clementa Pinckney’s Mission Suited His Storied Church The Wall Street Journal 3. And The First Person To Blame The Charleston Shooting On A Lack Of Guns In Church Is... Huffington Post 4. White gunman...

He was a young gunman bent on shooting as many worshippers as possible, but Matthew J. Murray never got as far as Dylann Roof, the suspect in Wednesday’s South Carolina church massacre. Murray had already shot and killed two people in the parking lot when he burst into the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Before he could pull the trigger again, however, the 24-year-old shooter was gunned down by Jeanne Assam, a volunteer security guard with a concealed-carry permit. That was eight years ago, but even though Ms. Assam was credited for saving as many as 100 lives that...

One would think that Catholic priests like Chicago’s Rev. Michael Pfleger, an early supporter of Barack Obama and his push for gun control, would not be bearing false witness against one of his neighbors. Yet there he was standing in front of Chuck’s Gun Shop in suburban Riverdale, Illinois, to blame it, and other legal businesses like it, along with the National Rifle Association, for the murder spree in the gun-controlled progressive worker’s paradise of Chicago. Standing with the camera-shy Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence president Dan Gross in front of the gun shop,...

A documentary film series produced in 2013, but one I have only recently viewed, maintains that the modern church’s stand in accepting birth control is contrary to centuries of early church teaching. Birth Control The Movie was directed by Kevin Peeples based on his own personal journey to answer the question: As a Christian, is birth control up to us? Little did he realize that his journey coincided with producers Scott Matthew Dix and Nathan Nicholson. The series consists of two DVD’s: BIRTH CONTROL: How Did We Get Here?, which looks into why there is no fundamental difference between the...

President Obama suggested that people of faith should focus more on helping the poor, instead of focusing on divisive issues such as gay marriage and abortion. President Obama suggested that people of faith should focus more on helping the poor, instead of focusing on divisive issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

It is time for decent everyday Americans to stand up and oppose this new Nazi menace before it takes us down the path traveled in the 1930s The events of recent months have emboldened the Gaystapo to plumb new depths of depravity. Not content with having the laws of the various States overturned by unelected federal judges for the benefit of the sexual lifestyle choices of a tiny minority, nor with the increasing persecution of business owners acting on their own deeply held personal beliefs, the radical gay activists have upped the ante against those who disagree with them. In...