Free Republic

Back in 1887, a photography instructor named Edward M. Estabrooke published a book titled Photography in the Studio and in the Field. It was “a practical manual designed as a companion alike to the professional and the amateur photographer.” Filled with detailed information on how to practice photography with the equipment and technologies of the time, the book also contains interesting passages that describe how the world of photography was changing.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

AFP PHOTO / JIJI PRESS On June 8, 1972, a plane bombed the village of Trang Bang in South Vietnam, after the pilot mistook a group of civilians for enemy troops. The bombs contained Napalm, a highly flammable substance which killed and badly burned the people on the ground. The famous black and white photo of children fleeing the burning village won the Pulitzer Prize and was chosen as the "World Press Photo of the Year" in 1972. It became the symbol of the horrors of the Vietnam war, and of every war’s cruelty to children and civilians. The...

In Part 5 of this series, we considered the testimony of thirteen early Christian leaders—from Clement of Rome to Augustine of Hippo—each of whom affirmed the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This installment will pick up where we left off, surveying another dozen historical church leaders on this important topic.We will begin with Jerome, the foremost scholar of the late-fourth, early-fifth century. As a noted linguist and Bible translator (whose work on the Latin Vulgate is still highly regarded today), Jerome’s testimony represents the height of Christian scholarship before the medieval period. 14.  Jerome (347–420): We are saved by...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

1 2 3 4 5

The gospel of grace was both proclaimed and preserved in the earliest decades of church history. It was overwhelmingly affirmed by the apostles at the Jerusalem Council (in Acts 15), such that Paul could later tell the Ephesians, “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8–9).Shortly after the Jerusalem Council, Paul wrote a letter to the churches he had planted on his first missionary journey. That letter, known as the book of Galatians, admonished its...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 THE NEWS OF THE WEEK IN REVIEW13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW21

September 26, 2013The Gospel in Church History (Part 3) by Nathan Busenitz Click here to read Part 1 or Part 2.When we talk about “the gospel in church history,” it is necessary to start at the beginning of church history—in those initial decades recorded for us in the book of Acts. Significantly, the essence of the gospel was the central issue at the first major council in church history.The Jerusalem Council met around AD 49 or 50, nearly twenty years after the church was established on the Day of Pentecost, and 275 years before the next major church council—the Council of Nicaea...

Interest in the bestselling novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand continues to grow, 33 years after her death and 70 years after she first hit the bestseller lists with The Fountainhead. Rand was born February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia. In the dark year of 1943, in the depths of World War II and the Holocaust, when the United States was allied with one totalitarian power to defeat another, three remarkable women published books that could be said to have given birth to the modern libertarian movement. Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who had written Little House on...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Many people think of the Reformation as something that started with Luther in 1517. But the reality is that the Reformation was a movement that had begun to gain momentum much earlier than the sixteenth century.Back in the 1100s, 350 years before Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses, a group known as the Waldensians began to teach that the Bible alone is the authority for the church. They defied papal authority, committed themselves to preaching the gospel, and even translated the Word of God into the common language of the people. They were severely persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church, and...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Over 9,000 people died in the Baltic Sea on January 30, 1945, in an attempt to evade the Red Army. The Wilhelm Gustloff was the largest shipwreck in history, but little is known about the catastrophe seven decades on. At around 9 p.m. on January 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler was speaking to the German people. In the packed dining hall of the luxury liner "Wilhelm Gustloff," as in most of the rest of the country, a radio was broadcasting Hitler's address, but the thousands of refugees from Pomerania and East and West Prussia who had struggled onto the ship weren't...

US Center of Military History Bookshelves: The US Army in Vietnam -- All of the volumes currently published, except the photo book, by the US Army Center of Military History are available online at: http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/collect/usavn.html Research materials and two chapters from the next Combat Operations volume on Tet are available online at: http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/vw.html

It was just over 500 years ago, in the fall of 1510, that a desperate Roman Catholic monk made what he thought would be the spiritual pilgrimage of a lifetime.He had become a monk five years earlier—much to the surprise and dismay of his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer. In fact, it was on his way home from law school, that this young man—then 21 years old—found himself in the midst of a severe thunderstorm. The lightning was so intense he thought for sure he was going to die. Fearing for his life, and relying on...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13