Free Republic

What has been happening to the town itself is not difficult to image. The reports I read speak of Muslims in the small streets of the town; I read about serious theft problems in stores where ‘refugees’ walk in, take what they want or need, and walk out again without paying. In the beginning, grocery stores called the police, but stopped doing so after they were told to write up the losses and contact someone at the local municipality to reimburse them. (I had a verbal confirmation from a wife of a German police officer … ) People in Ellwangen...

The Environmental Protection Agency is spending $25,000 to teach churchgoers in Connecticut about food waste.The agency announced over $1.7 million awarded through its Healthy Communities Grant Program on Thursday, including $50,000 for its “Food Too Good to Waste” initiative that seeks to curb climate change by teaching adults how to write a grocery list.Sustainable America, a nonprofit group that wants people to turn off their engines instead of idling and buy hybrid cars, was given $25,000 to bring the program to churches.“This initiative will recruit households from faith-based congregations in the Greater Bridgeport and Stamford areas to implement a Food...

So the Supreme Court has established “same-sex marriage,” and that will quiet the LGBT crowd, because, after all, they got what they wanted, right? Not even close. How about protections for LGBT people in jobs, jury duty, credit applications, housing, facilities that provide exhibitions, facilities that provide recreation, facilities that provide exercise, facilities that provide amusement and even facilities that provide “gatherings”? Already, there’s a bill in Congress to do all those things and much more. It even would gut the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act so LGBT-based discrimination complaints could be brought against churches that follow the Bible,...

Authorities in Indonesia's conservative Aceh province on Monday began tearing down several small Christian churches after hardline Muslims demanded their closure, citing a lack of building permits, and following religious violence. Tensions are high among the ethnically and religiously diverse population of Aceh Singkil, where last week a mob burned down a church, leaving one person dead and forcing thousands of Christians to flee the area. Armed police and military troops have been deployed to the area and evacuees have returned. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population and the vast majority of its citizens practice a moderate form of...

Remember, Obama grew up in “moderate” Indonesia. Why doesn’t he ever address the vicious oppression, subjugation and supremacism of Islam in Muslim countries? Why is he constantly campaigning for Islam as a religion of peace? He is disingenuous and dangerous.Photo above: Residents walk near a burned church to attend Sunday mass at Suka Makmur Village in Aceh Singkil, Indonesia Aceh province, October 18, 2015 © YT Haryono / Reuters “Christian churches in Indonesia province to be closed over Muslim groups’ pressure,” By RT, October 17, 2015Authorities in an Indonesian province in Northern Sumatra have decided to shut down several Christian...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision may increase the likelihood churches will face LGBT lawsuits. Here’s how some are protecting themselves.

London’s Saint Martin-in-the-Fields is famed not only as a great work of architecture, but as the prototype for hundreds of churches throughout the world and especially in the United States. Designed by the Anglo-Palladian architect James Gibbs (1682–1754) and completed in 1726, Saint Martin was one of the first parish churches in England specifically planned to accommodate the Protestant worship style of eighteenth-century Anglicans.1 This is ironic since Gibbs himself was raised and remained a Roman Catholic, albeit discreet in the practice of his faith. Gibbs’s original proposal called for a circular church, inspired by Sir Christopher Wren’s first scheme...

Churches fall, mosques rise. Across Europe, thousands of churches have closed and many of them have become mosques. The St. Mark’s Cathedral in London survived Nazi bombers in WW2, but fell to a new invasion and became the New Peckham Mosque. In France, where there are now more Muslims than practicing Catholics, the Islamic colonists demanded that thousands of empty churches be turned into mosques. The Capernaum Church in Germany has become the Al-Nour Islamic Center. In Amsterdam, the St. Ignatius Church was transformed into the Fatih Camii Mosque. Its name means ‘The Conqueror’s Mosque’. The original Fatih Camii Mosque...

“God loves you and is with you no matter what you decide. You can find strength, understanding, and comfort in that love.” So reads the “Pastoral Letter to Patients” from the Clergy Advocacy Board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In the midst of recent allegations surrounding Planned Parenthood’s activities (see “Pieces of children” in this issue), it’s sobering to remember those denominational leaders who support the abortion industry. Churches have supported the work of Planned Parenthood for years. In his Sacred Work: Planned Parenthood and Its Clergy Alliances, Tom Davis, a United Church of Christ minister and past...

New research reveals that 31 percent of the adult U.S. population, approximately 65 million people, were at one time involved in church but have since left. This is approximately equal to the number of people still regularly attending church. The study also found that more than 10 percent of adults still attending church are on their way out the door. The top five reasons people gave for leaving are: The church was too judgmental. The church bureaucracy was stifling. They didn't like the lecture style of preaching. The church was not where they encountered God. The church took a social...

The leader of the extremist anti-assimilation group Lehava allegedly called for churches to be torched, at a panel held this week for yeshiva students. Benzi Gopstein said he is prepared to spend 50 years in jail for doing so, according to a report by the Haredi website Kikar Shabbat. During the yeshiva intercession, known as bein hazmanim, many yeshivas hold summer camps for their students. These combine Torah study with other activities, like trips and panels to discuss current events. Kikar Shabbat obtained and posted a recording of such a panel at the Wolfson Yeshiva camp, at which Gopstein appeared...

4 minutes that may change your attitude. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PzT8vEvYPg&feature=share

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. ...