Free Republic

Birth control is a touchy subject that Evangelicals find extremely difficult to discuss. But as the President’s health care mandate officially launches and its oppressive contraception enforcements are questioned, some Evangelicals are reconsidering their embrace of oral contraception, or what is commonly referred to as the Pill.Evangelical leaders like Dr. Albert Mohler who question the morality of contraception are garnering criticism from the Religious Left. Hurling accusations of sexism and selfishness, Georgetown student and Jim Wallis’ teacher’s assistant, Jacob Lupfer, penned The Washington Post op-ed “The Evangelical Unease Over Contraception.” His article claims that Evangelical leaders are denouncing contraception...

It happened again. This time it was Phil Robertson, the patriarch of “Duck Dynasty,” who pulled back the shades on an immense body of TV viewers who had apparently escaped the notice of top execs at A+E Networks. But they should have known. It was this “mystery audience” that made History’s miniseries “The Bible” a smash hit not long ago. Yet A+E leaders Nancy Dubuc and Abbe Raven can be forgiven for failing to anticipate the nuclear backlash that benching the fuzzy-faced man from West Monroe, La., would stir after his condemnation of homosexual behavior in an interview with GQ...

I grew up in a fundamentalist environment. The church I was baptized in believed it was inappropriate for Christians to go to a movie theater. To this day, my grandparents maintain this standard as a bulwark against worldliness. The library at my Christian school had a variety of books for children, sanitized for Christian consumption. Encyclopedia Brown made the cut, but all the “goshes” and “gee whizzes” were marked out with a heavy black pen. No second-hand cursing allowed. Films without anything objectionable were allowed at school, but looking back, I see how this analysis was applied simplistically. I still...

......"The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life has put hard numbers on the anecdotal evidence: One out of every 10 Americans is an ex-Catholic. If they were a separate denomination, they would be the third-largest denomination in the United States, after Catholics and Baptists. One of three people who were raised Catholic no longer identifies as Catholic........."Thankfully, although the U.S. bishops have not supported research on people who have left the church, the Pew Center has. Pew’s data shows that those leaving the church are not homogenous. They can be divided...

Eighteen years ago, this fellowship of Evangelical and Catholic pastors, theologians, and educators was formed to deepen the dialogue among our communities on issues of common concern, to explore theological common ground, and to offer in public life a common witness born of Christian faith. Since our founding in 1994, we have addressed, together, such important public policy questions as the defense of life, even as we have proposed to our communities patterns of theological understanding on such long-disputed questions as the gift of salvation, the authority of Scripture, and the call to holiness in the communion of saints. We...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)In suspending “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson, A&E may have given evangelical Christians an opportunity to mobilize and stand up for their beliefs, David Brody said Friday on “The Kelly File.”“(Evangelicals) are very upset at A&E for pulling the plug,” said Brody, who’s the chief political correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network. “You don’t mess with Duck Dynasty and evangelical Christians.” Brody told Megyn Kelly that of the 85 million evangelicals currently in the United States, only a quarter of them vote, leaving the door open for liberal groups to take advantage at the polls. “This is a gay rights...

A group of evangelicals in favor of passing immigration reform have a message for House Speaker John Boehner: "We're praying for you." In new ads, Evangelical Immigration Table–group that has been behind immigration reform on Capitol Hill–asks people to pray for Boehner and House Republican leadership on immigration reform and urge those leaders to listen to their prayers. The group says the ad will air on WTOP, a radio station in Washington, D.C., as well as 30 Christian radio stations in Texas and North Carolina. A Spanish-speaking iteration of the spot will also air in Southern California. "Our immigration system...

The Supreme Court recently shot down a suit from Liberty University in regards to forced government intrusion containing radical health care mandates. However tyranny inevitably fails. The character of Liberty University and its people show that the freedom and its principles will have the final victory. Liberty University, www.liberty.edu, founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1971 as an extension of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, was birthed upon faith in God and not in government. Liberty was built to be for evangelical Conservative Christians what Brigham Young is to Mormons and Notre Dame is for Catholics. The University condemns radical...

Chilean presidential candidate, Evelyn Matthei, recently met with evangelicals to discuss her biblically conservative agenda, which she vows to maintain if elected president during the nation's Dec. 15 election. "I pledge to continue with the future of our government and God willing if I get there, nothing will be done that goes against what the Bible says," said Matthei, during her speech, according to her campaign website. "Marriage is between a man and a woman, and life is cared for from the moment of conception until natural death. No to abortion, no to euthanasia. That is a commitment I make...

Dr. Donna Freitas, perhaps the nation’s leading expert on university hookup culture, has being doing research among college students and on college campuses regarding sex, the hookup culture, and student religiosity for several years.  She has produced many scholarly publications and studies.  One consistent finding she has observed is that evangelical college students are significantly less likely to hookup than any of their counterparts (Catholic or secular).  Why?  An excerpt from an interview: The attitudes toward sexuality on evangelical campuses were remarkably different from everywhere else. Everyone is struggling with sex, but they do it in very different ways.It’s impossible on...

As world leaders gathered to discuss the future of Israel, speculations and suspicions swirled around American Christians’ motives and commitment to Israel’s right to exist.From Tablet’s “Why Gay Marriage–Not AIPAC–May Determine Whether Bibi Bombs Iran“: Bibi’s possible choice of a military option would be premised in part on the assumption that Israel enjoys a strong bedrock of support in the United States—not Jews, but Christian evangelicals. The problem with the assumption that Israel can rely on its Christian supporters—and the majority of Congress that is reliant on their votes—is that some younger evangelicals are now tilting against support for...

Conservatives like to extol so-called small-town virtues, of the sort immortalized in song by John Cougar Mellencamp. Small towns are supposedly the home of “real Americans” and bastions of virtue. Small towns, we are told, are the home of God-fearing family values Christians. Mellencamp sang about being “taught to feel Jesus in a small town” but there is feeling and then there is feeling. Televangelists use Jesus like a weapon to not only fire up their congregations but to be armed and fired at their foes. Liberals do not always understand, because they have not seen it for themselves, the...

I could just say: “Read this magnificent post.” but being long-winded I cannot. American Protestants, especially Evangelicals, are not loved by “outsiders.” Nobody writes romance novels about them they way they do about the Amish. Nobody thinks they have cool hair, the way they admire Orthodox beards. No movie like the “Bells of Saint Mary’s” has ever featured a pop star like Bing Crosby as a noble Calvary Chapel pastor . . . no “Pit Band of The Gathering” will ennoble the pop-religion of those strip mall churches. Atheist wrath is so often directed against Evangelicals that popular atheist debaters...

'I'm not here to be preaching hate, pushing people down' God “absolutely” approves of everyone — including homosexuals — declared one of America’s most well-known evangelical pastors The Houston megapastor and best-selling author Joel Osteen, whose followers include the likes of Cher and Oprah Winfrey, is hitting the talk-show circuit to promote his new book, “Break Out! Osteen, the very visible face of Lakewood Church in Houston since 1999,  talked to the Huffington Post about his thoughts on prayer, the pope and the homosexual lifestyle. HuffPo Live host Josh Zepps quoted from Osteen’s new book: “It doesn’t matter who...

Last month, after being sure to get his caffeine fix at Starbucks, Southern Baptist leader Richard Land went where few evangelicals had dared to go before: the Provo campus of Brigham Young University, the intellectual heart of Mormonism. After lecturing on "family, faith, freedom and America," Land attended a BYU football game with LDS leaders and joined them to hear James Taylor sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Days later, George O. Wood, the general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, also visited BYU, followed by the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptists’ flagship seminary. Is there...

Seven years ago this fall, a young journalist named Collin Hansen wrote a cover story for Christianity Today titled "Young, Restless, Reformed: Calvinism Is Making a Comeback—and Shaking Up the Church." In it he remarked: Partly institutional and partly anecdotal, [the evidence for the resurgence] is something a variety of church leaders observe. While the Emergent "conversation" gets a lot of press for its appeal to the young, the new Reformed movement may be a larger and more pervasive phenomenon. Two years later, Hansen released his movement-defining book Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists (Crossway, 2008). Traveling to destinations like the Passion...

Now that the government is back up and running, advocates of comprehensive immigration reform are ramping up their efforts, with Evangelical Christians taking center stage. The Evangelical Immigration Table has been particularly active, organizing a “Pray4Reform” campaign that (per the National Immigration Forum) has had more than 400 “prayer events and gatherings” in the last fortnight. And on October 21, the group sent a highly publicized letter to members of Congress praising them for their success thus far in moving toward reform and admonishing them to keep fighting the good fight. So Evangelical Christians must have all gotten together...

Aurora, IL-(ENEWSPF)- As momentum for broad immigration reform continues to build in the evangelical community, leaders from Aurora met Friday morning to pray for immigration reform rooted in the biblical values of welcoming the stranger among us.This morning’s gathering in Aurora was one of more than 400 gatherings and events happening across the country Oct. 12-20. Evangelical Christians are meeting as part of “Pray4Reform: Gathered Together in Jesus’ Name,” a week of prayer that continues the Evangelical Immigration Table‘s ongoing Pray for Reform campaign. Nationwide, more than 187,000 people have signed onto the effort as prayer partners. With immigration reform...

Lighthouse Trails has watched in dismay over the past few years as Charles Stanley’s In Touch magazine has made the decision to promote contemplative/emergent names. When our editors picked up a copy of the August 2013 issue and saw a feature article written by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, we decided to call In Touch Ministries to find out who was responsible for the content in the magazine. Sadly, the response we received from the editorial department at In Touch left us with a sinking feeling that the evangelical church has been seduced and there was no turning back. We’ll talk about the...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Evangelicals: Vital for American Support for IsraelPosted By Ronn Torossian On October 14, 2013 @ 12:30 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 3 Comments American Jewish support has long been viewed as vital for the State of Israel’s political interests. The particulars of the recent high-profile Pew Research Center survey of American Jews should result in radical re-thinking of that theory (with the exception of Orthodox Jews.)  Those who are concerned with Israel’s future must now consider placing even more emphasis upon the Evangelical Christian community.  The study found that Christians are more supportive of,...