Free Republic

(RNS) — For most pastors, the beginning of a new year is filled with the promise of youth programs, baptisms, and marriages. Instead, Pastor Andrew Brunson — Presbyterian cleric in Turkey, American citizen, and pawn in an international game of hostage diplomacy — is spending it in a Turkish jail. Since he was detained in October 2016, his life has been arbitrarily suspended. Representing the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, we met with Brunson in Kiriklar Prison on Oct. 5, near the city of Izmir. Only relatives or embassy officials are allowed to visit. We are the only other...

The honeymoon, as it were, is apparently over. A day after Pope Francis grabbed headlines by pronouncing two flight attendants man and wife while flying 36,000 feet over Chile, the conservative Catholic commentariat on Friday questioned the legitimacy of the impromptu sacrament and warned it could cheapen the church’s marriage preparation down the line. “Do you know what’s a ‘marriage’ ripe for annulment?” tweeted the traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli. “One celebrated apparently on a whim in an airplane whose celebrant cannot even be sure if parties are validly baptized.” For those who missed the news, Francis on Thursday presided over...

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. Western Europe’s gender policy is "an enormous tragedy and next generations will see its repercussions," Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev) of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow patriarchate's department for external church relations, said on the Rossiya’24 television on Saturday. "The decisions taken in many European countries nowadays are enforced by the same ideology which has already destroyed many families, the ideology which claims that an individual can choose gender, that even in their childhood a person can define who will be their partners in the future - same-sex or not," Metropolitan Hilarion said. "All sex reassignment surgeries are...

The neo-Romanesque St Lambertus church was destroyed to make way for a mineA 19th-Century Catholic church in a village in western Germany was destroyed on Tuesday to make way for a coalmine. St Lambertus church, known locally as a ‘cathedral’ due to its size, was torn down as part of the demolition of the village Immerath. The farming village was once home to 1,200 residents, but has been taken over by mining company RWE and relocated seven miles away. Houses and a new hospital have been built at the new site, and bodies exhumed from the graveyard have been reburied....

WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Trump administration is announcing the formation of the new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The press release states the division will be under the Office for Civil Rights, adding it's purpose is to "restore federal enforcement of our nation's laws that protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom." It continues, "The creation of the new division will provide HHS with the focus it needs to more vigorously and effectively enforce existing laws protecting the rights of conscience and religious freedom, the first...

Guest Column; The Unbiblical Fight for Issues by Ray Vasser Ray Vasser is a friend, brother and Elder in our Church,Believers in Grace Fellowship. He has written on the "Social Justice" trap that many have fallen into, departing from the gospel in the name of fighting for racial equality. I offer you this column for your interest and comments-Bill RandlesI have pondered for some time as I watch our society plummet further into the power of the wicked one (1 John 5:19). I ask that readers please bear with my thoughts on this subject and consider the ramifications I am...

Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki on Monday called on his Catholic country to welcome refugees, saying altruism must trump the right-wing government’s concern for national security. Poland is among several EU members in central Europe to have refused to accept quotas for asylum-seekers from North Africa and the Middle East, causing the bloc to take the countries to court last year. “Everyone would like to live in security, except that that attitude has little to do with Christianity,” said Gadecki, the president of the Polish Episcopal Conference. “Personal egoism, meaning concern for one’s own safety, has the upper hand over altruism,...

A 129-year-old, strikingly beautiful West Pasadena church suffered major damage and the loss of at least one significant historical statue after a vandal or vandals broke in early Saturday morning, spray painted graffiti, destroyed property and set fire to the structure. Although the fire was quickly extinguished by the Los Angeles City Fire Department, the Church of the Angels, at 1100 Avenue 64, suffered major damage from the assault, Pasadena Fire Dept. spokesperson Lisa Derderian said. The fire was reported by a 911 caller in the neighborhood who saw smoke at about 2:20 a.m. A Los Angeles Fire Dept. spokesperson...

(YouTube) Blogs  |  Jan. 15, 2018 Vatican: Papal Honor for Pro-Abortion Politician Not a Sign of Support In a statement, the Holy See Press Office says Dutch militant pro-abortion politician Lilianne Ploumen was given the ancient papal honor as ‘diplomatic practice’ for a visiting official head of state delegation to the Vatican.

Facebook is facing more censorship and bias allegations from a Christian group that opposes abortion. The West Virginia-based ministry Warriors for Christ repeatedly has had its Facebook pages removed by the social media giant, according to the Christian Post. Its main page, which has more than 225,000 followers, was removed again last week, allegedly for “hateful, threatening or obscene” content. Ministry leader Pastor Rich Penkoski told the Post that they missed out on vital opportunities to help people as a result. “When Facebook pulled our page [for the first time], we were actually counseling with a young woman who was...

An evangelical megachurch was destroyed by Chinese Communist authorities Tuesday in the country's northern Shanxi province, sparking fears among Christians that the persecution they suffer will soon get worse.China Aid said in an update Wednesday that Chinese military police detonated explosives inside Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen, destroying the $2.6 million house of worship, which was owned by the Christians who worshiped there.A demolition crew broke apart the remaining pieces of the church after the explosion with diggers and jackhammers.Lampstand's head Pastor, Yang Rongli, had previously spent seven years in prison on charges of assembling a large crowd to disturb traffic...

From drought to deluge, fire and water, truth and deceit, the world is on the verge of impending collapse. Scripture tells us that the end days will come "like a flood" and we are certainly seeing the devastating effects of that type of onset in the tragic flooding and mudslides in California alone. As John so emphatically shares at the end of this message, we must be ready to meet the Lord face to face at any time. None of us know the time that God has allotted to us on this earth and as such, we must make certain...

Pastor J.D. addresses the false alarm of a North Korean ballistic missile threat to Hawaii.

Amir tells of the recent attacks by Israel on Damascus. Also drone warfare by ISIS.Turkey becoming more aggressive, forming alliance with Sudan, in preparation for Ezekiel 38 war.This leads into some general comments about Christians who refuse to believe Biblical prophecy.Again, for those who are pressed for time, the important news begins at the 5-minute mark. The warnings about skepticism of prophecy are at the end.May many blessings come to those who believe God's prophetic Word.

What is the source of dhimmitude—which in many ways paralyzes responses to Islam—in the West? First a definition: “dhimmitude,” which was coined by the late Christian president of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, and popularized by writer Bat Ye’or, is a neologism based on the Arabic word, dhimmi—that is, a non-Muslim (generally a Christian or Jew) who falls under Islamic rule and, as a price for maintaining their religion, accepts an inferior social standing. Simply put, the dhimmi must know his or her place and never rock the boat, including by seeking equal rights with Muslims. While this is the classic and...

As you may have gathered, many of the accusations against Christianity are based on the misconstruing of its teachings or its historical legacy. Fulton J. Sheen once observed that there are not “one hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.’ What Sheen said over fifty years ago about the perception of Catholicism in America can now be said about Christianity in much of Western society today. 1. Biblical patriarchy is little more than a mask for men’s will to power.Christian teaching...

NEW YORK - President Donald Trump is “channeling Archie Bunker without the charm,” says Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami in response to Trump’s alleged comments that African nations are “sh*thole countries.” Trump’s remarks are said to have come during a Thursday meeting with lawmakers regarding DACA and immigration reform. Bunker is the popular 1970s sitcom character from the television show “All in the Family,” which often used bigoted remarks and salty language as a source of humor for the show. In an interview with Crux, Wenski said the president’s remarks were “disappointing” and likely came in an effort to assuage...

A note said the next bomb would be 'in your cassock'Three Catholic churches in the Chilean capital have been bombed just days before Pope Francis begins his tour of the country. The perpetrators placed incendiary devices in all three churches in Santiago, and in one church left a direct threat to the Pope, saying the next bombs would be “in your cassock”. Chile’s outgoing president Michelle Bachelet said the events were “very strange, because it is not something that can be identified with one specific group”. She added: “What I’ve been told is that, for example, [when the Pope visited]...

The vicar general for the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, threatened a diocesan priest with “canonical rebuke” last June if the priest did not remove articles from LifeSiteNews and another outlet from his parish bulletin, saying they were inaccurate and slanderous. Father Joseph Corel, the vicar general, acknowledged in a voicemail to the priest that after “information about Hillary Clinton” appeared in the priest’s parish bulletin the diocese periodically monitors the bulletins. Father Corel took issue with two articles concerning the diocese’s controversial “Pastoral Process of Accompaniment and Dialogue” that were planned for the forthcoming bulletin. He directed Father...

Brethren: Since I am, after all, a senior editor of such a journal as Touchstone, I need to tell you some of my late thoughts on the Catholic Church. I sent a draft of these originally to Bill Tighe, who keeps me very supplied with links to Catholic sources. You may share this with whomever you please. // An interesting and unhappy feature of Francis's pontificate is that disciplinary decisions the history and logic of the papal office would seem to place in the popes' prerogative seem to be falling on the faithful, led by a minority of vocal bishops....