Free Republic

“Where there are no gods, ghosts reign….” Novalis, 1798 We have a myth in Western society. It is that the world was once magic and religious and that now it has become (with a few hold outs) largely secular and atheistic. But some historians have pointed out that this narrative doesn’t exactly hold. Poll after poll shows that populations, even in supposedly secular societies, tend to hold views in direct contrast with scientific materialism. If those populations don’t explicitly affirm belief in an organized religion or theology (such as Christianity) the people nonetheless tend to believe in ghosts, spirits, the...

Life begins at the moment of conception. We know this to be true due to the unique genetic nature of every fetal human. I didn’t always accept this truth, however. In fact, for most of my life, I was pro-choice. I came to this realization about the nature of human life through a careful examination of embryology, rather than a careful reading of Scripture. The Bible does, however, affirm this truth. Every human being, according to Christian scripture, is a unique, intentional creation of God, even if he or she might appear to be an unplanned accident from our limited,...

A few citizens might recognize that the plot of the first Star Wars trilogy is eerily similar to events of recent years.The Evil Empire, led by the evil emperor and his key enforcer, Darth Vader, has (almost) taken control of the entire universe. Totalitarianism is now almost total. The only resistance comes from a band of freedom-fighters embodied by Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and their small group of underground fighters.It seems there’s no way these freedom fighters can defeat the Evil Empire, which is simply too powerful and too ruthless to be defeated.

For all their talk of evenhandedness, winsomeness, and giving others the benefit of the doubt, these ideals are tossed out the window the minute the discussion turns to matters that conservatives deeply care about and are willing to advocate for at the political level. As Christians, we should call out this double standard for what it is: hypocrisy. The term “white evangelical” has become purely pejorative in both secular and professedly-Christian news outlets. We live in contentious times. With virtually every major event or story comes a flood of news reports from both major news outlets and a seemingly endless...