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It is a question that has long puzzled historians and theologians... what DID Jesus actually look like? And it seems casting agents are also prone to getting themselves in a tangle over Christ's appearance. >>> Dr Meredith Warren, senior lecturer on Biblical and religious studies at Sheffield University, told the Daily Mail that muscular depictions of Jesus aren't 'completely off the mark'. She said: 'Jesus comes from a family where manual labour is the norm, and he certainly gets exercise with all the walking around.' >>> Just like today, beards tended to go in and out of fashion in the...

Filming has begun on Mel Gibson’s long-awaited sequel to “The Passion of the Christ,” titled “The Resurrection of the Christ,” with Finnish actor Jaakko Ohtonen taking over the role of Jesus from Jim Caviezel.According to Variety, production started last week at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios, where Gibson also shot the 2004 original, which grossed $610 million worldwide and became one of the highest-earning independent films in history. The new project, produced by Gibson and Bruce Davey under their Icon Productions banner with Lionsgate as studio partner, will be released in two parts in 2027.Cuban actress Mariela Garriga (“Mission: Impossible – Dead...

In the rugged hills of Karaman province, Türkiye, a remarkable archaeological discovery has emerged from Topraktepe, the site of ancient Eirenopolis. During recent excavations, archaeologists uncovered five carbonized bread loaves dating back to the 7th–8th centuries CE, including one with a depiction of Christ and a Greek inscription translating to, “With our thanks to Blessed Jesus.”Unlike the traditional Pantokrator imagery of Christ as ruler and savior, this loaf portrays a “farmer” or “sower Christ,” symbolizing the connection between faith, labor, and agricultural fertility. The remaining loaves bear cross-shaped imprints, suggesting their possible use in early Christian rituals as Eucharistic or...

The Civil War was undoubtedly a crisis for the soldiers, the nation, and the destiny of the American people. In many ways, that war made us, and continues to make us, the country and the people we are today. Shelby Foote famously described the Civil War as “the crossroads of our being.” It was a great personal and national crisis. However, it was also a theological crisis. Leading historian Mark Noll wrote a book called The Civil War as a Theological Crisis…The book documents and addresses the fact that Northerners and Southerners experienced the shock and horror of the Civil...

The Puritans are a really interesting group in apocalyptic history, because they really saw the prophecies of great blessings to the ancient Israelites applying to themselves. There [are] really two strands of apocalypticism, I think, in New England Puritan sermonizing. There's the vision of the New Jerusalem, the city on a hill. This is the chosen land for the new Zion. Increase Mather, the father of Cotton Mather, certainly expresses this theme in his sermons. There's also the darker, more apocalyptic and frightening vision of a time of destruction coming. And Michael Wigglesworth, for example, prominent New England Puritan, in...

Was Abraham Lincoln a Christian? Now I, in preaching this message, am not endeavoring to merely exhume the bones of Lincoln for some kind of belated autopsy. But rather, this is another way of proclaiming anew that Gospel message with which he struggled all of his life in the hope that as we emphasize and sympathize with his struggles with the great verities of life and death and eternity, that some of you will ask yourselves the deeper and more relevant question: Am I a Christian? Are you? Consider well the sixteenth President of the United States. Like the nation...

From the publication of Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth (1970) to the end of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’s Left Behind series (2007), premillennial dispensationalism promoted Christian Zionism steadily until it peaked under the presidency of George W. Bush. As the final volumes of the Left Behind series appeared, the Pentecostal pastor John Hagee formed Christians United for Israel (CUFI). With over 10 million members, CUFI is currently the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States. Even with Christian Zionist organizations like CUFI, the movement has waned as increasing numbers of evangelical younger Millennials and Gen Zers withdraw support...

[Catholic Caucus] A Dissident Damsel Who Defied the Red DragonA martyr of Communist Russia, Mother Catherine of Siena, founded a convent of Third Order Dominicans before being sentenced to more than a decade of solitary confinement.It has been said, purportedly by G.K. Chesterton, that when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing but in anything. Even worse is that the things which people believe are not merely godless but deadly and demonic. Take, for instance, the modern anti-Christian creeds that led to the French and Russian Revolutions and to the rise of the Nazis. These monstrous ideologies...

The Holy Rosary, the Hope of Lepanto, of Europe, of the World…Today we celebrate Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, a feast instituted by Pope Saint Pius V in commemoration of the great victory at Lepanto on October 7th in 1571, when the Christian fleet led by Don Juan of Austria crushed the invading, and seemingly invincible, navy of the Ottoman Turks, who had turned the Mediterranean into an Islamic lake. They had never been defeated, and the last stronghold, the fortified town of Famagusta on Cyprus, fell in 1571. Lala Kara Mustapha Pasha had promised safe surrender for...

A music video about Messiah’s return to Israel; The Hope of Israel - Zechariah 12:10-14

[Catholic Caucus] Eucharistic Miracles (Miracles, pt. 9)This article is the ninth in a 10-part series that will explore miracles as proof of the truths of Catholic doctrine. In this installment, we consider the physical manifestation of the Lord’s Real Presence in the Consecrated Host commonly referred to as “Eucharistic Miracles.”As Catholics, we believe in transubstantiation where the bread and wine actually become the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ at Mass (i.e. The Holy Eucharist) and then cease being bread and wine. After this has taken place, the only thing remaining of the bread and wine is the “accidents.”...

Miracles and the True Faith: Why Only Catholicism Is Confirmed by GodFrom the very beginning of salvation history, miracles have been among God’s most powerful tools to confirm divine revelation. Moses confronted Pharaoh with the ten plagues, Elijah called down fire upon Mount Carmel, and Christ Himself demonstrated His divinity through cures, resurrections, and His own Resurrection from the dead. The Catholic Church, established by Christ and perpetuated through His Apostles, has continued to be marked by miracles throughout her two-thousand-year history.In this ten-part series, we have examined the countless miraculous signs that God has given to His Church: the...

The claim that Marian devotion in Catholicism is derived from pagan goddess worship—specifically Ishtar, Diana, or Astarte—is a persistent but thoroughly discredited myth rooted in 19th-century anti-Catholic propaganda, most notably Alexander Hislop’s *The Two Babylons* (1853). This narrative, often recycled in modern social media and evangelical circles, alleges that Mary’s veneration as the Mother of God (Theotokos) or Queen of Heaven is a Christianized version of ancient pagan goddess cults. However, linguistic, historical, biblical, and cultural evidence reveals no connection. This compiled text is inspired by discussions with our fellow freepers and I hope offers a detailed, accessible refutation of...

[Catholic Caucus] Three heroic Catholic priests were massacred by North Korean communists 75 years agoServants of God Msgr. Patrick Brennan, Fr. Tommie Cusack, and Fr. Jack O'Brien were imprisoned and murdered by North Korean forces after refusing to divulge the names of Korean Catholics. This week marked the 75th anniversary of the massacre of the Taejon Martyrs in the Korean War. Three priests – whose cause for sainthood has been opened by the Vatican – were executed by the North Korean communists after a heroic imprisonment where they spent their final days praying and ministering to others. The massacre at...

…Shouldn’t the first prominent American in our lifetimes to be martyred for his Christian faith on American soil have been a pastor? A theologian? Someone — anyone — from the church proper? And yet, it was this 31-year-old “political operative” — a profession easily derided by some holier-than-though seminarians and pastors — that laid down his life for Jesus in such a shocking and gruesome way... While reading 1 Peter in the New Testament, the answer to that question — why Kirk? — became obvious. The reason is because Kirk was a threat to the enemy — the real enemy....

Two Syracuse University students have been charged with burglary as a hate crime after one of them was alleged to have thrown a bag of pork into a Jewish fraternity house as people gathered to observe Rosh Hashanah, police said Wednesday. The two 18-year-olds were also charged with one count each of criminal nuisance in the incident at the Zeta Beta Tau house about 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, police in Syracuse, New York, said. Allen Groves, the university’s chief student experience officer, called it a “deeply troubling incident" in a message to the campus community Tuesday night. “Tonight’s incident as reported...

I am just wondering about the anti-Pauline movement within the church and what reasons they reject him? I understand that some blacks have trouble with his prioritizing witnessing to Onesimus over his freedom from slavery. But I don't understand what theology they are accepting that rejects him.

The history of the Vatican and Israel has been characterized by the lack of recognition of Israel on many occasions, which was largely caused by the dispute over the status of Jerusalem and whether Christian holy places are in good condition or not. It was not until after the Oslo Accords that the Holy See recognized the State of Israel in 1993. Rather than an act of religious prohibition, this understanding amounted to the convenient acceptance of a political fact. The Vatican has since maintained diplomatic relations with Israel while advocating for Jerusalem to have a special international status to...

The Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) on Monday issued a declaration condemning anti-Jewish statements made by the German church reformer Martin Luther five centuries ago. In a text published at a seminar in Utrecht on Monday, the PKN declares that Luther's anti-Jewish statements were "unacceptable" and part of the "dark pages" of Lutheran church history. Rabbi Raphael Evers of the Dutch Jewish umbrella organization NIK welcomed the declaration, saying: "I sometimes get the question whether the excuses now are still necessary, given the declaration by the Lutheran World Federation back in 1983. However, I fear that warning against anti-Semitism...

[Catholic Caucus] Does St. Peter’s Need Porters?Recently an egregious display of sexual perversion was allowed to desecrate St. Peter's, which could not have been possible before Paul VI's abolished the minor orders.Before 1972, preparation for the priesthood involved passing through various “minor orders.” They included porter, lector, acolyte, exorcist, and subdeacon, followed by the major orders of deacon and priest. That year, Pope Paul VI issued the apostolic letter Ministeria Quaedam, abolishing the minor orders. Lector and acolyte were reconstituted as “lay ministries.” Exorcist was recognized as a specialized ministry of certain priests. Porter was eliminated, deemed unnecessary in the...