Free Republic

[1]Water finds its own level. So did Joshua Van Haften [2], a pedophile and criminal who converted to Islam and joined ISIS [3]. An American man has been charged with trying to provide support for the Islamic State militant group, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.Joshua Ray Van Haften, 34, of Madison, Wisconsin, intended to travel to Iraq or Syria to join the group, also known by the acronyms ISIL and ISIS, prosecutors said in a statement.He added: “I was about to cross to Syria … but I didn’t make it. Hopefully soon though. … I’m tired of...

Twenty years ago this month, I decided to become Catholic. At the time, it was a rather emotional decision, likely rooted in a bit of rebellion—my family background is Seventh-Day Adventist, which is historically anti-Catholic—but mostly born of a desire for a fresh start. Years later, I was happy to discover that my decision to become Catholic came right about the same time that John Paul II issued his pro-life encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) in March 1995. The encyclical’s affirmation of the value and dignity of every human life had special significance for me in reflection...

My wife is a big fan of Fr. Richard Heilman of Madison, WI. He is a regular diocesan priest who oversees several parishes but who has found the great beauty and rewards from the traditional practice of the Faith, and especially the Traditional Latin Mass. He relates in a recent post how his experience of tradition has made him a much better priest and has fired his external apostolate, reaching out to random souls encountered in the world and bringing them back to the Sacraments. Note, this return – nascent though it may be – is not through watering down...

Tony Blair’s sister-in-law announced her conversion to Islam last weekend. Journalist Lauren Booth embraced the faith after what she describes as a ‘holy experience’ in Iran. She is just one of a growing number of modern British career women to do so. Here, writer EVE AHMED, who was raised as a Muslim before rejecting the faith, explores the reasons why. Much of my childhood was spent trying to escape ­Islam. Born in London to an English mother and a ­Pakistani Muslim father, I was brought up to follow my father’s faith without question. But, privately, I hated it. The minute...

The Conversion of a Catholic Priest Vincent O'Shaughnessy From Dead Religion To New Life In Christ! As a very small boy I remember rolling out of bed to my knees each morning to say my prayers. We began with the Morning Offering, which my mother taught me, together with the Our Father and Hail Mary. I still remember the Morning Offering going like this: "Oh Jesus, through the most pure heart of Mary. . .etc." To me this meant that to get to Jesus I had to go through Mary. I had no other way to Jesus. I also have...

I grew up in a loving family who attended the Catholic Church regularly. Not just my immediate family, mind you(!) - but my entire family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc.) was Catholic! I was a regular participant and played the organ at church and also was a leader in the "folk choir" for most of my teenage years. In short - I was as "Catholic" as they come! I never doubted my faith because I was told to just believe everything the Church taught me without question. The Pope was supreme in his authority, and the priests and nuns were...

A pastor friend told me last week that he had church members enraged with him when he suggested from the pulpit that we ought to pray for the salvation of Islamic State terrorists. The people in his church told him that he ought to be calling for justice against them, given their brutal murder of Christians, not for mercy. I thought about my friend a few days ago when these murderous fiends beheaded 21 of our brothers and sisters in Christ because they refused to renounce the name of Jesus. I was not just angry; I was furious. Can such...

Mr Tawfiq said: "It's not that I went looking for Islam. Islam came looking for me. "I loved my former life and my work, but now I've found a peace that I never knew before." Mr Tawfiq explained that he made the decision to leave the priesthood when he realised how lonely he was. "I left my job, but not the Catholic religion," he said. "I had no intention of changing my faith. That wasn't part of the plan at all." "My Christian faith slid away slowly and Islam became more and more important. "I play down my Catholic priesthood,...

It’s been formally acknowledged that U.S. NATO ‘ally’ Turkey is providing safe haven to leaders of Hamas, a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) so designated by the U.S. State Department. By its very definition, an FTO should be considered declared enemy of the U.S. Despite this, Turkey doesn’t appear to be paying any price. Another player in all this is the small nation of Qatar. It is desperately trying to play both sides of a political fence as leaders of Hamas – to include the terrorist organization’s political leader Khaled Meshaal – has been forcibly relocated to Turkey. The reason these...

The Conversion We Think We Want Stephen BealeLet’s face it. Given a choice, most of us would choose to have the conversion experienced by St. Paul.Here’s how Acts 22 describes the sudden conversion of the great apostle, which we celebrated on Sunday:On that journey as I drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ I replied, ‘Who are you, sir?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazorean whom you...

The head of India's most powerful Hindu group vowed to press ahead with a campaign to convert Muslims and Christians to Hinduism, stoking a sensitive debate that has stalled parliament and threatened the prime minister's economic reform agenda. Mohan Bhagwat of the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, which is also the ideological wing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, said India was a "Hindu nation" where many Hindus had been forcibly converted to other religions. "We will bring back those who have lost their way. They did not go on their own," Bhagwat said in a speech late on Saturday. "They...

JRR Tolkien in 1967 (Photo: PA) Books blog: Dr Holly Ordway's Not God's Type recounts a fascinating and uplifting journeyI have been reading Dr Holly OrdwayÂ’s Not GodÂ’s Type: an Atheist Academic Lays Down her Arms (Ignatius Press, or Gracewing in the UK). It is always uplifting to read books like this, not in a triumphalist way but because it is a reminder that underneath all the glaring human weaknesses in the Church as an institution, which we all know so well, there are still people out there who are searching for answers to fundamental questions and then finding...

Over the last few years, we've seen a dozen Western hostages convert to Islam in order to appease their captors, or in the hopes of getting better treatment. It never works, of course.  The hostages are still beaten, or killed, regardless of their profession of faith. It would seem intuitive for Islamic State hostages to convert to Islam in order to win some modicum of mercy from captives who proclaim profound religiosity. But it clearly doesn’t work, according to accounts and stories from Somalia to Syria. And why should it, since the Islamic State has proven itself willing to execute people of...

Church leader RT Kendall has said that he believes Yasser Arafat may have accepted Christ before his death a decade ago. November 11 marks ten years since the death of the PLO leader, regarded as a heroic freedom fighter by many Palestinians and a terrorist by many Israelis. The first time RT Kendall was granted rare access to Arafat,the Christian writer and speaker told him he had prayed for him every day for 20 years. According to Kendall, the 20-minute appointment turned into an hour and 45 minutes, and an unlikely friendship began. The third time Kendall visited Arafat, the...

The most common reason why people convert to Judaism today, I would guess, is because they want to marry a Jewish spouse. Such conversions are a sign of the amazing acceptance that Judaism enjoys in America, compared to the stigma it labored under for most of Western history. For a Christian to marry a Jew in medieval Europe meant stigmatization, isolation, perhaps even violence, as it does in many parts of the Muslim world today. For us, it is simply a personal choice, even a laudable demonstration of spousal loyalty. It was surprising to learn in this week’s Daf Yomi...

The altar call is an appeal in which the speaker invites attendees to come forward as a way of acknowledging their decision to follow Christ. Many consider Charles Finney (1792-1875) to be the founder of the altar call even though early Methodist used a similar approach known as the "mourners bench." I have had the privilege of working on the field at large stadium events where altar calls have been given, and I have also offered many appeals to come forward as well, primarily in the early years of my ministry. Let me begin by saying that anytime we give...

Kerala, India, Sep 11, 2014 / 05:03 pm (CNA).- A former Muslim imam who converted to Christianity believes that God protected him from death threats and torture at the hands of his family members. “The holy Quran converted me to Christianity,” said Mario Joseph, a former imam who shared the story of his conversion and subsequent persecution with the HM Television program “Changing Tracks,” broadcast by the EUK Mamie Foundation run by the Home of the Mother religious community. The English-language interview, first posted in April 2014, now has more than 250,000 views on YouTube. Mario Joseph grew up in...

Radical Islamists seem intent on conquest. It has always been so. From the beginning and down through the ages, radical jihadists have attempted to convert people to their religion by force. “Convert” they cry “or we have nothing to offer you but the sword.”

For much of the twentieth century, Catholics around the world prayed after every Low Mass for the conversion of Russia.Called the Leonine Prayers, originally they were conceived as a protection of the sovereignty of the Papal States, which were then under attack. This intention ended with the Lateran Treaty of 1929 but the prayers continued from that time for the conversion of Russia that had become an atheistic state bent on destroying religion.The prayers included 3 Ave Marias, a Salve Regina, a versicle and response, a prayer for the conversion of sinners and the “exaltation of Holy Mother Church,”...

The moment Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson said to Sean Hannity, that, with regard to ISIS, you have to “either convert them or kill them,” it was obvious that others would pounce on those words and claim that he was no better than ISIS. After all, haven’t these murderous terrorists done this very thing to the Christians and Yazidis, offering them conversion or death? How is Robertson any better? A headline in the UK’s Daily Mail asked, “Isn’t it ironic, Phil Robertson? Duck Dynasty star’s stance on ISIS is ‘convert them or kill them’ as terror group wages bloody religious war...