Free Republic

Throughout November, The Huffington Post UK is featuring its Beyond Belief series, chronicling those who've taken on faith to create a force for change."You’re the anti-Christ, you will be destroyed,” screamed an incensed heckler during a speech by Barack Obama in June this year. It was not the first time Obama had heard this very pointed line, nor was he the first President to hear it. Anti-Obama rallies are often decorated with signs or t-shirts carrying overtly religious messages, whether it’s likening him to the Devil, demanding that Christian prayers be returned to schools or suggesting that America has a...

Warren Cole Smith is the associate publisher of WORLD Magazine. He is the author or co-author of several books, including A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church and Prodigal Press. We asked him to give us 10 things he wishes everyone knew about evangelicals.1. Evangelicals share a common belief. Being an evangelical actually means something doctrinally and theologically, namely that salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Evangelicalism is not, or not merely, a demographical subset or sociological tribe. An evangelical is someone who both believes and wants to share with others this evangel, this...

What’s Christian about evangelical authors using shady business tactics in a bid to boost visibility on bestseller lists? In January 2012, former megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll’s book Real Marriage went to the top spot on the Hardcover Advice section of The New York Times best-seller list. In March 2014, it was disclosed by evangelical magazine, World, that Driscoll’s publishing success was aided by a consulting firm called ResultSource, which purchased books on behalf of Driscoll in a coordinated effort to spike sales and give the impression that the book was popular with thousands of book buyers. Driscoll recently resigned from...

The Duck Dynasty family has made the news partially due to their politically incorrect statements, and Phil Robertson tends to be the largest contribute to soundbites. But now, Phil’s son has taken the stump and is declaring that it’s possible that America could collapse just like the Roman empire. In a related report by the Inquisitr, Phil Robertson believes that Bibles and guns are the answer to any American’s woes. The Duck Commander patriarch also had a dire warning for Sadie Robertson’s boyfriend, saying that if they do not keep it in their pants, then he would “break” them. Phil...

A new Pew survey found that Latin American Catholics are increasingly leaving the Catholic Church, either to join evangelical Protestant churches or are abandoning religion altogether. The survey participants cited a search for a personal connection with God as the biggest reason for their shift. The wide-ranging survey, released on Thursday, reported that although 69 percent of adults across the region identify as Catholic, in almost every country surveyed there was a reported net loss of Catholics in terms of people raised Catholic and currently Catholic. Overall for Latin America as a whole, 84 percent of the population was raised...

With the walloping Republicans gave Democrats in the midterm elections, the GOP stands one Louisiana Senate runoff away from completely controlling Southern politics from the Carolinas to Texas. Only a handful of Democrats hold statewide office in the rest of the Old Confederacy. The results put Southern Republicans at the forefront in Washington — from Senate Majority Leader-in-waiting Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to a host of new committee chairmen. Those leaders and the rank-and-file behind them will set the Capitol Hill agenda and continue molding the GOP’s identity heading into 2016....

It is often claimed that conservative religious voters, especially white evangelicals, are going the way of the dinosaur, consigned to demographic irrelevance. But they were a key component of the Republicans’ 2014 midterm victories. According to exit polls, Conservative religious voters made up as big a percentage of the electorate as ever, and they backed Republicans at least as strongly as ever. White evangelicals were 26% of the electorate this year, and 78% of them voted Republican. That’s up from 2010, when they were 25 percent of the electorate, and 77 percent voted Republican, and 2006, when they were 24...

Republicans sealed control of the Senate with more than six seats needed, a momentum Reuters suggested the GOP owes to evangelical voters. FOX News exit polls showed that nearly 60 percent of voters who identified themselves as Protestant or Christian also identified themselves as Republican. "If Republicans win control of the Senate in the midterm elections they should say a prayer of thanks for Christian conservatives," Reuters reporter Alistair Bell wrote more than a week ago. Studies suggest the voting block may be shrinking, but it's still a considerable force. The latest Reuters-Ipsos polling shows Evangelicals are more enthusiastic about...

Religions have surprisingly diverse approaches to the issue of possible extraterrestrial life, David Weintraub found. Below, a quick survey adapted from his book "Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With It?" and interviews with the author.

It largely escaped the notice of the national media, but there has been a pretty big political story playing out in Houston the last few weeks. Well, it has been a big story, at least, for one very key GOP constituency. Here's the recap: The city of Houston a few weeks back subpoenaed the sermons of five pastors who opposed an ordinance that was aimed at increasing the rights and protections of LGBT residents of the city, which is home to the first openly lesbian mayor of a major American city, Annise Parker (D). The subpoenas were issued in response...

When Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee were asked to deliver dueling speeches at a secret gathering of America's most influential socialconservatives, both camps knew what the invitation represented: a private audition to be the evangelical movement's presidential candidate in 2016. They prepared accordingly, and on back-to-back nights in mid-September, the White House hopefuls delivered impassioned addresses to the Council for National Policy's clandestine conference in Atlanta. The courtship of Christian leaders by White House contenders—"the evangelical primary," as some call it—has become a staple of Republican presidential politics. But this year is different. After back-to-back cycles in which social conservatives...

There is a point where decision on contentious, difficult issues is unavoidable. With respect to homosexual conduct, the American Evangelical church has reached that point. There is no ignoring the determination of the gay and lesbian activists to insist upon complete social and legal normalization of homosexual conduct; from the adoption of children by same-sex couples to the judicial recognition of same-sex unions as marriages every bit as complete as those enjoyed by heterosexual couples. Thus, Christians cannot avoid the need to decide which side they are on. The Supreme Court's decision earlier this month to allow current judicial rulings...

Midterm elections are all about turning out base constituencies. Over the last few decades, there have been few more reliable voters for Republicans than white evangelical Protestants. This year, however, GOP candidates may be getting less help from this group—not because white evangelical Protestants are becoming less supportive or less motivated, but simply because they are declining as a proportion of the population, even in Southern states.White evangelical Protestants have remained a steadfast Republican constituency in both presidential and midterm congressional elections ever since the Reagan presidency, which marked what political scientists Merle and Earl Black dubbed “the great white...

Less than a year ago, Mark Driscoll, an evangelical pastor, was flying high. His hometown Seattle Seahawks were in the Super Bowl, and the brash pastor scored a big, faith-fueled interview with five of the team's top players, including quarterback Russell Wilson. But in a remarkably fast fall from grace, Driscoll resigned Tuesday as pastor of Mars Hill Church, a congregation he founded 18 years ago and turned into a force in the mostly secular Pacific Northwest. In a statement, Mars Hills' board of overseers said Driscoll hadn't committed any acts of "immorality, illegality or heresy" -- sins that have...

Inflamed by American Prophecy, Brazilian Evangelicals Want a Woman for Brazil Presidency By Julio Severo The most important events for Brazil in 2014 are the World Cup — where the Brazilian team suffered its worst and most shameful defeat in such football event — and the presidential election. Prophecy said Brazil would win the World Cup From a rational standpoint, the election will bring another shameful defeat, because the main contenders — incumbent Dilma Rousseff and Marina Silva and Aécio Neves — are socialists. This week, these three major candidates have, joined by homosexual activists and federal prosecutors, condemned...

In fairness, the culture-war right has done less damage than the neocons and the super rich have. But they’re still the ones on the ropes.I’m not sure what’s come over me and I suppose it’ll pass, but at just this moment I’m feeling a little bit sorry for evangelical conservatives. They were apparently pretty droopy, these proceedings over the weekend at the Values Voter Summit, as my colleague Ben Jacobs described things. Oh, yes, Ted Cruz fired them up, and some of the old stalwarts put in respectable appearances, but they have to know deep down that they’re like the...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton is the one figure uniting religious conservatives frustrated by a leaderless Republican Party that's divided over foreign policy, immigration and social issues. The prospect of another Clinton White House stirred anguish at the Values Voter Summit this weekend where hundreds of conservative activists debated the GOP's future and warned that the acknowledged but unannounced 2016 Democratic front-runner would cement what they see as President Barack Obama's attack on religious freedom....

At the Values Voter Summit, the Texan highlights his strong beliefs on conservative issues.In an already crowded field of likely contenders for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Ted Cruz has found his way to stand out against potential primary opponent Rand Paul: championing the most fundamental planks of the conservative base. In a passionate speech Friday morning to conservatives at the Values Voter Summit, Cruz left no room for doubt about where he stands on the social issues that—albeit amid party conflict—still define the GOP. "How do we win? We defend the values that are American values," he boomed. "We...

Christian conservatives are often the subject of study by academics, who seem to find their culture as foreign as that of Borneo tribesmen. And this is a particularly interesting time for brave social scientists to put on their pith helmets and head to Wheaton, Ill., Colorado Springs or unexplored regions of the South. They will find a community under external and internal cultural stress. It is fair to say that some cultural views traditionally held by evangelicals are in retreat. Whatever the (likely dim) future of political libertarianism, moral libertarianism has been on the rise. This is perhaps the natural...

WASHINGTON — Gov. Mike Huckabee encouraged pastors to speak out on political issues and for social conservatives to get more fellow adherents registered and to the polls. Social conservatives are not in trouble because of the actions of government, they are in trouble because social conservatives are not speaking out and are not voting in large numbers, Huckabee said Friday at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit. Huckabee estimated that there are probably over 100 million social conservatives in the United States. Using just the example of Evangelicals, he said there are about 80 million, but only half of...