Free Republic

The vast high-velocity moral revolution that is reshaping modern cultures at warp speed is leaving almost no aspect of the culture untouched and untransformed. The advocates of same-sex marriage and the more comprehensive goals of the LGBT movement assured the nation that nothing would be fundamentally changed if people of the same gender were allowed to marry one another. We knew that could not be true, and now the entire nation knows. The latest Ground Zero for the moral revolution is the state of Indiana, where legislators passed a state version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Gov. Mike...

Some readers have asked me what I think about the Indiana RFRA controversy, as an academic who studies law and religion. To my mind, opponents of the law have succeeded in creating a false sense of crisis about the evil this allegedly unprecedented law would unleash in America. In this, they have been greatly assisted by the media’s framing of the issue and and by the support of corporate titans like Apple and Walmart, which have decided to intervene in the dispute—incidentally proving, as Justice Alito argued in Hobby Lobby, that for-profit corporations sometimes do express goals other than merely...

April 7, 2015Tuesday in the Octave of Easter    Reading 1 Acts 2:36-41 On the day of Pentecost, Peter said to the Jewish people,“Let the whole house of Israel know for certainthat God has made him both Lord and Christ,this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart,and they asked Peter and the other Apostles,“What are we to do, my brothers?”Peter said to them,“Repent and be baptized, every one of you,in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins;and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.For the...

Bible Teacher and Expositor Jacob Prasch comments on John MacArthur's teaching that people can take the Mark of the Beast and still be saved. You can watch Part 2 here:http://youtu.be/OG0dZ_a38pM Part 3 coming soon! Please visit our website at:http://www.moriel.org

Romans 11:22, Job 28:28 A173 In the early part of the 20th century liberalism took mainline Protestant churches by storm. In fact, it might be argued that the first half of the century ushered in the most serious spiritual decline since the Protestant Reformation. Historic evangelicalism,1 which had dominated Protestant America since the days of the founding fathers, was virtually driven out of denominational schools and churches. In a few decades, liberalism virtually destroyed the largest Protestant denominations in America and Europe. Evangelicalism managed to survive and even seemed to thrive for awhile outside the denominations. But it never regained...

Catholic and Baptist leaders have joined in a statement calling for a serious national discussion of religious liberty in the US. Two Catholic archbishops, two spokesmen for the Southern Baptist Convention, and a prominent Catholic scholar addressed their statement to the current controversy over public acceptance of homosexuality. They observed: “When basic moral convictions and historic religious wisdom rooted in experience are deemed ‘discrimination,’ our ability to achieve civic harmony, or even to reason clearly, is impossible.” The statement was signed by Archbishops Charles Chaput of Philadelphia and William Lori of Baltimore; Rev. Albert Mohler, Jr., the president of the...

April 6, 2015Monday in the Octave of Easter    Reading 1 Acts 2:14, 22-33 On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up with the Eleven,raised his voice, and proclaimed:“You who are Jews, indeed all of you staying in Jerusalem.Let this be known to you, and listen to my words. “You who are children of Israel, hear these words.Jesus the Nazorean was a man commended to you by Godwith mighty deeds, wonders, and signs,which God worked through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God,you killed, using lawless men...

I'm not a Christian but nearly all my friends are Christians and I have great respect for them. There are two stories that have been circulating around the Internet for years. I'd like to dedicate these to my Christian friends. Three Trees Once there were three trees on a hill in the woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when the first tree said, "Someday I hope to be a treasure chest. I could be filled with gold, silver and precious gems. I could be decorated with intricate carving and everyone would see the beauty." Then the second tree...

According to Carl Braaten, the gospel's claim that God raised Jesus from the dead requires us to address two questions: the question of whether it happened and the question of what happened. The former question--what we might call, "the apologetic question," is vital for if God did not raise Jesus from the dead, then our faith is futile and we are still in our sins, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15.17. The latter question--what we might call, "the theological question," is vital as well. Unfortunately, this question is often left unaddressed in Christian preaching and teaching, to the...

The Greatest Adoption Story Ever Told; I was the filthiest of all the children, depravity and rebellion were my nature There is a story of a man whose teenage son is brutally murdered by another boy—a gang member. While tragic, this part of the tale is nothing new. Gang related violence is anything but shocking in our day. What happens next, however, stuns the ear: the father of the murdered boy pays the associated fees of the criminal case and adopts his son’s killer as his own! Kirk Cameron, in The Biggest Question, recounts the tale as he describes a...

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April 5, 2015The Resurrection of the Lord The Mass of Easter Day    Reading 1 Acts 10:34a, 37-43 Peter proceeded to speak and said:“You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptismthat John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazarethwith the Holy Spirit and power.He went about doing goodand healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.We are witnesses of all that he didboth in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.This man God raised on the third day...

As Easter approaches, let us remember the role that Jesus Christ and God play in our lives. Let us also remember that Jews, Christians and Muslims all believe in God, and while there are ideological differences in who Jesus was, we should find peace in the fact that we are all God’s children. Jesus is my role model, and he preached love, he preached acceptance. He also was a man of values and principles, and he ended up being crucified for it. But, he rose again to advocate godly principles of loving our fellow man, caring about our neighbors, developing...

Biblical Conspiracies 3 of 4 Secrets of the Crucifixion

 April 4, 2015Holy SaturdayAt the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter    Reading 1 Gn 1:1—2:2 In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said,“Let there be light,” and there was light.God saw how good the light was.God then separated the light from the darkness.God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”Thus evening came, and morning followed—the first day. Then God said,“Let there be a dome in the middle of...

President Obama met privately with Mormon leaders last night in Utah. One topic on the agenda for the meeting? Immigration. "President Obama is meeting with leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, including President Henry Eyring, President Dieter Uchtdorf, Elder Tom Perry and Elder Todd Christofferson," White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz told the press. "The President is pleased to meet with top LDS leaders as so many presidents before him have done. Among other issues, they will discuss the church's long record of service, including its work on disaster relief and...

The likely result of recent clashes, says Robert R. Reilly, will "be fewer such religious freedom bills proposed in the future and ... Republican candidates for president will keep their mouths shut about this issue"Scholar, former assistant to President Reagan, and author Robert R. Reilly has written widely on “war of ideas" issues, Islam, foreign policy, and classical music and is the author of several books. His most recent book Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything, was published last year by Ignatius Press and was described by Austin Ruse (President, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute)...

Do you remember this little children’s song? It is such a simple little song. We sang it over and over in Sunday school, daily vacation Bible school, children’s clubs, etc. It seemed so straightforward and uncomplicated. Yet it contains some vital and deep truths and concepts which are not only significant but immensely complicated. Take the first word Jesus. Jesus is without a doubt the most controversial person in history. For the first 5 centuries following his life on earth, Scholars, politicians, followers and enemies – all kinds of people – fiercely debated about him. Was he God? Was he...

If you have been following mass media over the past few days, you will have learned from an economist at the U.S. Department of Labor that defenders of religious freedom are “Nazis.” Take a moment to ponder that assertion. Roll it around in your head for a while. You’ll be hearing a lot more fighting words as we enter the next phase of Christian life in America. Sample the hate that has been spewed at the state of Indiana in the past week, and faithful Christians in recent years, by gay activists and their allies. We are “bigots,” “Neanderthals” and...

This past Sunday, the lives of the Rev. Kaci Clark-Porter and the Rev. Holly Clark-Porter intertwined in perhaps an even more extraordinarily spiritual way, as the couple walked down the aisle at Wilmington, Delaware’s First and Central Presbyterian Church to become ordained Christian ministers. The ordination came just days after the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) announced a change in its constitution that embraced a more inclusive definition of marriage, defining it as being between "two people" instead of between a man and a woman. With this change, PC(USA) becomes the largest Protestant group to offer a nationwide welcome for LGBTQ...