Free Republic

On New Year's Day, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson received a gift of mythic proportions. Amid great fanfare, a mammoth cheese was delivered to the White House by the itinerant Baptist preacher John Leland. It measured more than four feet in diameter, thirteen feet in circumference, and seventeen inches in height; once cured, it weighed 1,235 pounds.The colossal cheese was made by the staunchly Republican, Baptist citizens of Cheshire, a small farming community in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. The religious dissenters created the cheese to commemorate Jefferson's long-standing devotion to religious liberty and to celebrate his recent electoral victory...

Christian faith in reason and in progress was the foundation on which Western success was achieved. When Europeans first began to explore the globe, their greatest surprise was not the existence of the Western Hemisphere, but the extent of their own technological superiority over the rest of the world. Not only were the proud Maya, Aztec, and Inca nations helpless in the face of European intruders, so were the fabled civilizations of the East: China, India, and Islamic nations were "backward" by comparison with 15th-century Europe. How had that happened? Why was it that, although many civilizations had pursued alchemy,...

The residents of early New England were strongly influenced by the traditions of Calvinism and the routine of the established Congregational church, honoring hard work and stern independence, which were interpreted as self-sufficiency. They were proud of observing Thanksgiving as the most important day of the year and self-righteous in refusing to observe Christmas day, which they considered an emblem of the Roman Catholic Church. The Presbyterians, Quakers and Baptists also followed the teachings of John Calvin and chose not to celebrate Christmas. It was a day when farmers slaughtered hogs and farm wives dipped their candles. "It was remembered,"...

According to conventional wisdom, Christmas had its origin in a pagan winter solstice festival, which the church co-opted to promote the new religion. In doing so, many of the old pagan customs crept into the Christian celebration. But this view is apparently a historical myth—like the stories of a church council debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or that medieval folks believed the earth is flat—often repeated, even in classrooms, but not true. William J. Tighe, a history professor at Muhlenberg College, gives a different account in his article "Calculating Christmas," published in the...

THE ROOTS OF THE REFORMATION (Part 2) BY KARL ADAM Translated by Cecily Hastings CANTERBURY BOOKS SHEED AND WARD INC. 840 BROADWAY NEW YORK 3 NIHIL OBSTAT: MICHAEL P. NOONAN, S.M., CENSOR DEPUTATUS IMPRIMATUR: + RICHARD J. CUSHING, ARCHBISHOP OF BOSTON BOSTON, MARCH 22, 1951 This book is a large part of "One and Holy," a translation of "Una Sancta in katholischer Sicht," published by Patmos-Verlag, Dusseldorf.CONTENTS WEAKNESS IN THE CHURCH Rome Germany LUTHER The Final Break The Mystery of Luther The Doctrine of Justification Christendom Divided The New Rule of Faith Salvation by Faith Alone Priesthood and Sacraments The...

THE ROOTS OF THE REFORMATION (Part 1) BY KARL ADAM Translated by Cecily Hastings CANTERBURY BOOKSSHEED AND WARD INC. 840 BROADWAY NEW YORK 3 NIHIL OBSTAT: MICHAEL P. NOONAN, S.M., CENSOR DEPUTATUS IMPRIMATUR: + RICHARD J. CUSHING, ARCHBISHOP OF BOSTON BOSTON, MARCH 22, 1951 This book is a large part of "One and Holy," a translation of "Una Sancta in katholischer Sicht," published by Patmos-Verlag, Dusseldorf. CONTENTS WEAKNESS IN THE CHURCH Rome Germany LUTHER The Final Break The Mystery of Luther The Doctrine of Justification Christendom Divided The New Rule of Faith Salvation by Faith Alone Priesthood and Sacraments The...

Five weeks ago we started our study on the History of the Reformation. We started with Luther nailing his 95 Theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg and then worked our way backward from that wonderfully, historic event. Now my purpose in doing that was to show that Luther’s action was not really the beginning of the Reformation but was rather the culmination of a whole series of reforms and protests, reforms and protests that had begun much earlier. That is why I wanted to show the connection between Luther and Huss and then between Huss and Wycliffe....

Our subject this morning is the “Morning Star of the Reformation”. Now I think that term, that title, “the Morning Star of the Reformation” is just about loveliest thing any man could ever hope to be called. The term itself is a biblical term but it is a strange term in that it is applied both to the devil and to the Lord Jesus. It is applied to the devil in Isaiah 14:12.1 NIV Isaiah 14:12…How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid...

I want to speak to you this morning about the Goose that became a swan. But before I do I want to put your mind at ease. I am not going to tell you a fairy tale or a fable or a parable or anything like that. No, I am going to tell you a true story…or at least a story that is mostly true. But doing that, I am also going to tell you a sad story…or at least a story that’s partly sad. Still… it’s a great story. It’s a story about a man whose name was “Goose.”...

Reformation Day October 31, 1517 It was a Wednesday. It was a Wednesday, October 31, 1517. It was not really all that much different from the thousands of other Wednesdays that had come before. It was fall, of course, and the air had cooled down and the leaves were putting on a wonderful show of color along the River Elbe on the hillside. It was nice time to be a German. It was a nice time to live in rural Germany. The harvest had been plentiful. That is, it had been as plentiful as the white sand fields surrounding the...

As you look back over the history of the church over the last several hundred years, there have been times of disruption which have been marked by the parting of friends. Having studied church history as both an undergraduate and postgraduate level, I have had the opportunity to read in depth about certain of those agonizing seasons. Back when I was doing this I didn't expect to find myself living through such a time, yet hardly a week goes by these days when I do not find myself saying goodbye to some other soul alongside whom I have worked in...

On Nov 27, 1095, Pope Urban II began to preach the First Crusade: From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth... that... an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God... has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it has led away a part of the captives into its own country, and a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures... On whom therefore is the labor of avenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you? You, upon...

The culture is now flooded with bogus scholarship whose main purpose is to put Christianity — and especially orthodox Catholicism — on the defensive. But most Catholics have no idea how to respond, and more than a few take these books and documentaries at face value. After all, they have the imprimatur of the History Channel or a large publishing house like Doubleday. In his famous review of Leopold von Ranke's History of the Popes, Thomas Babington Macaulay, the great Victorian essayist, launches into a purple passage that Catholic students once knew by heart. It is one of the...

(AINA) -- History Channel (India) and History Channel (Australia) recently telecast a two-part documentary titled 'The Crusades: the Crescent and the Cross' based on the history of first three and major Crusades (1096-1099, 1144-1148, and 1189-1193 AD) out of eight undertaken in the Middle Ages to reclaim Jerusalem for Christendom. Today it has become imperative for the West to remember the Crusades more than the World War II. A reinvented Fascism and Nazism are unlikely to present a threat to West; but radical Islam is almost sure to do that. From 9/11 and London explosions to recent New Delhi triple...

The Crusades were a serious betrayal of Christian beliefs, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said yesterday. Speaking 900 years after Christian warriors sacked Jerusalem, the Archbishop said that any attempt to revive the crusading ideal today would not garner much support among Christians. His comments, made in Pakistan, appeared to be an attempt to reassure Muslims that the Churches are anxious to avert confrontation between the West and Islamic states. In the past he has warned western leaders, particularly President Bush, against using sensitive religious language such as the term "crusade" to justify the war against Iraq. But...

Why was there a Reformation? What was the church like just before the Reformation took place? Why did the Reformation have to happen? By looking at these questions we can begin to gain some understanding of our own situation today. One of the reasons why the Reformation happened, is that there was a rediscovery of the attractiveness of the Gospel. A new generation arose, who by reading the New Testament at first hand began to discover for themselves that here was something exciting, something life changing, which was like new wine, which just couldn't be contained in the old wine...

Christianity and the Cults By Jay Rogers There are no new heresies, only old wolves dressed up in new sheep's clothing. When we view the heresies of the first five centuries of Christianity, we see that all of the modern "cults" which threaten the Christian Church are based on one or more of these ancient heresies. Heresiology, or the study of heresies, is useful to Christians. The study of false doctrine can give us a fresh and succinct understanding of Truth. A heretic is literally a "divisive man." The primary level of heresy includes deviations from the essential truths defined...

The Battle of ToursOctober 10, 732 AD marks the conclusion of the Battle of Tours, arguably one of the most decisive battles in all of history. A Moslem army, in a crusading search for land and the end of Christianity, after the conquest of Syria, Egypt, and North Africa, began to invade Western Europe under the leadership of Abd-er Rahman, governor of Spain. Abd-er Rahman led an infantry of 60,000 to 400,000 soldiers across the Western Pyrenees and toward the Loire River, but they were met just outside the city of Tours by Charles Martel, known as the Hammer, and...

1,273 years ago today.

Charles Martel Born about 688; died at Quierzy on the Oise, 21 October, 741. He was the natural son of Pepin of Herstal and a woman named Alpaïde or Chalpaïde. Pepin, who died in 714, had outlived his two legitimate sons, Drogon and Grimoald, and to Theodoald, a son of the latter and then only six years old, fell the burdensome inheritance of the French monarchy. Charles, who was then twenty-six, was not excluded from the succession on account of his birth, Theodoald himself being the son of a concubine, but through the influence of Plectrude, Theodoald's grandmother, who wished...