Free Republic

Warning to Christians: There may be churches that will bless your Blackberry, but your favorite morning workout may undermine your faith. In a recent blog post, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, examines the argument that practicing yoga may be in direct conflict with the values of Christianity. "Yoga begins and ends with an understanding of the body that is, to say the very least, at odds with the Christian understanding," Mohler writes.

In the days following Glenn Beck's highly publicized rally in Washington, D.C., conservative Christians have come out expressing their concern not over the increasingly popular broadcaster, but over the apparent confusion among Christ followers. "There is something very strange going on here. I don't understand the disconnect on the part of Christians," said Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Americans from across the country converged on the National Mall on Saturday for the "Restoring Honor" rally led by Fox News commentator Beck. Reports indicate that the event drew anywhere from 87,000...

When Christian Smith and his fellow researchers with the National Study of Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took a close look at the religious beliefs held by American teenagers, they found that the faith held and described by most adolescents came down to something the researchers identified as "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." As described by Smith and his team, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like these: 1. "A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth." 2. "God wants people to be good, nice, and fair...

“And Then They Are All Mine” — The Real Agenda of Some College Professors On many campuses, a significant number of faculty members are representatives of what has been called the “adversary culture.” They see their role as political and ideological, and they define their teaching role in these terms. Their agenda is nothing less than to separate students from their Christian beliefs and their intellectual and moral commitments. Wednesday, August 18, 2010 There is nothing quite like the start of a new academic year on a college or university campus. Streams of students and faculty return to the timeless...

Yesterday, a very important gavel fell on marriage. The central institution of human civilization suffered a direct hit, and its future hangs in the balance. The importance of the decision handed down yesterday by U. S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker in California’s Proposition 8 trial will be difficult to exaggerate. Proponents of same-sex marriage immediately declared a major victory — and for good reason. The editorial board of The New York Times declared the verdict “an instant landmark in American legal history,” and so it is, even if later reversed upon appeal. Judge Walker’s decision is sweeping and comprehensive,...

Evangelical Christians in the United States had better see a big challenge staring us in the face. Franklin Graham was disinvited by the Pentagon for making statements that are required by faithfulness to the gospel of Christ.Thursday, May 6, 2010 Marking the National Day of Prayer, evangelist Franklin Graham led in prayer this morning at the Pentagon. Not inside the Pentagon, mind you, but outside, where he led a handful of other Christians in silent prayer. The recent controversy about Franklin Graham is a sign of things to come. The prominent evangelist, son of Billy Graham, is known for his...

Catherine Davis is a woman with a message, and that message is getting harder to ignore. "Black children are an endangered species."The Director of Minority Outreach for Georgia Right to Life, Davis is taking that message to the public, along with a massive public awareness campaign that has captured national and international attention. Drivers in the metro Atlanta area are seeing billboards that demand attention - and are changing minds.Her argument is simple and the statistics are irrefutable. She accuses abortion providers in general, and Planned Parenthood in particular, of targeting blacks for abortion. She told The New York...

The images streaming in from Haiti look like scenes from Dante's Inferno. The scale of the calamity is unprecedented. In many ways, Haiti has almost ceased to exist. The earthquake that will forever change that nation came as subterranean plates shifted about six miles under the surface of the earth, along a fault line that had threatened trouble for centuries. But no one saw a quake of this magnitude coming. The 7.0 quake came like a nightmare, with the city of Port-au-Prince crumbling, entire villages collapsing, bodies flying in the air and crushed under mountains of debris. Orphanages, churches, markets,...

The images streaming in from Haiti look like scenes from Dante's Inferno. The scale of the calamity is unprecedented. In many ways, Haiti has almost ceased to exist. The earthquake that will forever change that nation came as subterranean plates shifted about six miles under the surface of the earth, along a fault line that had threatened trouble for centuries. But no one saw a quake of this magnitude coming. The 7.0 quake came like a nightmare, with the city of Port-au-Prince crumbling, entire villages collapsing, bodies flying in the air and crushed under mountains of debris. Orphanages, churches, markets,...

I am not inclined to sign manifestos or petitions. While believing strongly and passionately about many causes, I am not usually impressed with the effectiveness of such statements and I am generally concerned about how such statements might be used or construed by others. I am not reluctant to speak for myself and from my own Christian convictions and consequent judgments. Furthermore, the constant exchange of opposing statements on this or that issue merely crowds the public square as opposing viewpoints compete for attention. So, for reasons perhaps both admirable and not so admirable, I prefer to stand on my...

Ellen Goodman is morally troubled. The liberal columnist for The Boston Globe surveys the moral landscape and laments "there's no shame in the game." Goodman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, whose observations are predictably liberal and feminist, but also marked by a keen eye for cultural detail. I still remember a column she wrote almost thirty years ago about an abandoned church being transformed into a condominium. In "Whatever Happened to Shame?," published in the December 18 edition of the Boston paper, Goodman reports that The New York Post has hired Ashley Dupre, the prostitute at the center of the...

The defense of human dignity is the responsibility of all human beings, but certain individuals bear a special responsibility due to position or influence. This is certainly the case with Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.Collins is one of the most influential scientists in America today. He previously headed the Human Genome Project - the massive federal project to decode the genetic structure of human life. President Barack Obama nominated Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health on July 8, 2009, and he was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate just a month...

"The woman's movement wasn't about happiness." That judgment, attributed to feminist Susan Faludi, seems to be the blunt assessment shared by many other women. As numerous recent studies now indicate, a remarkably large percentage of women describe themselves as increasingly unhappy. This issue came to light last month in a fascinating essay by Maureen Dowd of The New York Times. Dowd, whose columns often reveal the nation's Zeitgeist, cited the fact that a number of major studies indicate that "women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier." She asked: "Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than...

Mike Matthews, editor of Answers magazine, spoke with Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, about one of the most pressing questions in the church today: “With so many children leaving the church by their twenties, what are we doing wrong, and what solutions can the church and parents implement?”...

Meeting barely a month after the Episcopal Church voted to end its ban on the consecration of openly homosexual bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA] has taken similar steps. Meeting last week in Minneapolis, the Lutherans voted first to adopt a comprehensive statement on human sexuality that at least allows for the recognition and blessing of same-sex relationships in the church. Beyond this, it establishes a platform for the eventual acceptance and affirmation of same-sex marriage ceremonies. Then, acting just as the week came to an end, the denomination voted to eliminate...

The development of prenatal diagnostic technologies presents a constellation of moral issues -- with the diagnosis of Down syndrome front and center. Over the past several years, a marked decrease in the number of babies born with Down syndrome has been both observed and widely reported. This decrease can be traced directly to the decision to abort after prenatal diagnosis.As Science Daily reports, a new leading article to be published in Archives of Disease in Childhood points to developments in the near future that will likely increase the diagnosis of Down syndrome [DS] during pregnancy. "New tests expected to...

Looking across the moral landscape of the last half-century, one issue looms larger than all others - abortion. Considered from a historical perspective, the intensity and duration of the abortion debate came as something of a surprise. Handing down its infamous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, the majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court declared the abortion question settled and closed. They were wrong.Almost four decades after Roe v. Wade, Americans are still torn over the issue of abortion. Indeed, the intensity of the abortion debate in 2009 exceeds that of 1973. The controversy over abortion is...

America's long war over abortion has classically been defined as a struggle between competing rights -- depicted as the right of a woman to have an abortion versus the right of an unborn child to the protection of life. This long-familiar framing of the issue suggests, at the very least, that the rights of women and their unborn children are, or at least they can be, presented as an irresolvable conflict. From the very beginning, this has been an unsatisfactory approach to the abortion controversy. Those who contend for the sanctity of human life at every stage of development are,...

Just when you thought you'd seen everything, a pair of scientists at Oregon State University has published a study arguing that any effort to limit carbon emissions must consider the impact of "reproductive choices" on the ecological equation. Paul A. Murtaugh and Michael G. Schlax make their case in "Reproduction and the Carbon Legacies of Individuals," published in the journal, Global Environmental Change. "While population growth is obviously a key component of projections of carbon emissions at a global level, there has been relatively little emphasis on the environmental consequences of the reproductive choices of an individual person," they argue....

The issue of homosexuality presents all morally serious persons with an unavoidable question: What is the moral status of homosexual acts and relationships? One way or the other, some judgment on this matter will be made. Are homosexual acts inherently wrong, dishonorable, and sinful? Or, is homosexuality morally neutral, with specific sexual acts and relationships determined to be either right or wrong by context and intention? Are homosexual acts morally good and honorable? These assertions of moral judgment represent something of the range of possibilities and cover most of the main alternatives. Most Americans come to moral judgments by a...