Free Republic

As we survey our rotting cultural and political landscape, it is tempting, from a worldly perspective, to lose hope for our way of life and our nation. As Christians, we have a greater Hope, one that transcends these worldly problems. We must always train our focus on Jesus Christ, especially during this holiest of weeks, but let's not in the meantime abandon our earthly duties -- our responsibilities to family, friends, country and values. While we must guard against making politics and patriotism our idols, we don't have to accept the notion that worshiping God requires neglecting what is true,...

So, the president may have been cavorting with Playboy playmates and porn stars a decade or so ago and…and what? Oh, right, we’re supposed to care.We don’t care. We can’t.And you can almost see the liberals drooling. You can see their Fredocon gimp bros’ nodding their vinyl-encased heads.Yes, yes, this is finally it! This time we’ll strip Donald Trump’s supporters from him because he failed to meet the standards we think our opponents should adhere to! This time it will work!Nah. We just don’t care.I don’t mean that we are simply unconcerned about Donald Trump’s past hobbies. I mean that...

It’s easy to get depressed that we’ve all but lost the battle for fiscal conservatism, but look on the bright side. The battle for social conservatism is … no, looks like that one’s pretty much a rout too.One of the Internet’s recent misfortunes is the explosion of overheated liberal takes about the resemblance of modern American culture to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the series on Hulu about a Christian theocratic takeover of the country in which women are enslaved by the patriarchy. Behold the state of the looming theocracy, via Gallup:Of the 19 issues tested, not a single one has...

“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.” – 1 Corinthians 6:18 I had an interesting heart-to-heart with my dad the other day. We were discussing my son, his grandson, who was spending time with my folks in Colorado over the summer. At the risk of bragging a bit – my boy, an eighth grader who recently turned 14, is already 6-foot-1, very handsome and a competitive Olympic-style boxer. Evidently, on the previous day a “drop-dead gorgeous” high school girl had made a sexual advance...

In 1979, the year before Republicans nominated Ronald Reagan as their presidential candidate, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and conservative activist Paul Weyrich founded the Moral Majority. It was at the Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia, Liberty University, founded by Rev. Falwell, where Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) just announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Although Cruz made no reference to the Moral Majority in his remarks, his thinking clearly is where Falwell’s and Weyrich’s was when they founded that organization. That getting a widely politically inactive universe of church going evangelical Christians politically engaged can change America. Cruz made...

What people find morally acceptable and unacceptable depends on where they live in the world.The charts below from the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project show people's views on eight topics, often considered moral issues: extramarital affairs, gambling, homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex, alcohol consumption, divorce, and contraceptives.Pew surveyed 40,117 respondents in 40 different countries in 2013 to obtain the data.The first graphic below gives the median response across the world. People were the most disapproving of extramarital affairs, with 78% calling them morally "unacceptable," while 14% of respondents, the lowest in the survey, felt contraceptive use was "unacceptable." Topics like premarital sex and alcohol...

Dr. Russell D. Moore of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and Ronnie Floyd, the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, have added some much needed moral clarity to the crisis at the border. They have gone to our southern border and seen what is not just a national security problem, but a humanitarian crisis. Ronnie Floyd notes that the Southern Baptist National Disaster Relief Ministry is no longer permitted to assist those who have come over the border. The Department of Health and Human Services is now only letting federal contractors come into...

Whether we are talking about respect for a nation or for an individual, nothing undermines respect more than duplicity -- saying one thing and acting differently. I think it is a big reason why President Barack Obama's Tuesday speech to the nation, in which he attempted to explain why he has proposed military action in Syria, fell so flat. The president cast his rationale for taking action in moral terms; he said a targeted strike against Syria would warn against the future use of poison gas, which killed 1,429 people in an Aug. 21 attack. But the very dubious moral...

Jan's guests are a rep from the Zionist Organization of America, Joseph Sabag, and friend of Israel, Bob Naegele. Anti-Semitism is raging in the world and particularly on U.S. college campuses. It says in Psalms 102 that when the Lord builds up Zion, He shall appear in His glory. Thus, Christians need to be paying attention but most aren't. Nor are pulpits in the Western world. As last days' events play out, Israel is almost always in the center of them. The three have a lively discussion about many issues, including why Jews are usually supportive of liberal candidates who...

When the family organization was revealed from heaven—the patriarchal order of God, and Joseph began, on the right and the left, to add to his family, what a quaking there was in Israel. Says one brother to another, "Joseph says all covenants [previous marriages] are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants [marriage by priesthood sealing power]; now suppose Joseph should come and say he wanted your wife, what would you say to that?" "I would tell him to go to hell." This was the spirit of many in the early days of this Church. ....

There can certainly be too much civility. This is especially true where civility morphs into a hyper politeness that politicians can cower behind as political subterfuge. There's hardly a more graphic example than the black genocide going on in....America. Chuck Colson, on his Breakpoint Commentary, relates the story of Walter Hoy, a modern day Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Like Dr. King, Hoy uses non-violence to focus his ministry on the plight of African Americans. Additionally, like his predecessor, he's spent time behind bars for his convictions. Mr. Hoy has been jailed in the U.S. for violating a "bubble zone"...

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Last week was Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, the brainchild of David Horowitz, conservative political gadfly and self-effacing founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Friends of mine and other writers I admire spoke on college campuses around the country, garnering impressive media coverage. The week was a big success, if measured by how much awareness of Islamic villainy was heightened. A lot of people, not including me, feel that there can hardly be such a thing as too much awareness. Estimations of the Islamic threat run exceedingly high, not least in my own party. On this point I find myself uneasily...

Top Election Concerns for Toronto Catholic Charities: Gov't Funding, Affordable Housing, Poverty Conspicuously absent from list are abortion and euthanasia By John-Henry Westen TORONTO, September 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An "election guide" by Toronto Catholic Charities published on the website of the Archdiocese of Toronto directs Catholic voters in the upcoming October 10 election to see as their "primary concerns" government funding of programs, affordable housing, and poverty.  Conspicuously absent from the list are abortion and euthanasia, deemed by the Vatican to be priorities over other issues when voting. The document, "Counting on your vote" does mention life issues, not...

Sports teams expect opponents to score against them. It is all part of the game. The important thing is to amass a steady string of victories to win the championship.  The same logic that applies to sports does not seem to apply to politics. In the aftermath of the November elections, there has been much talk on both sides of the political spectrum about the decline of moral issues.  Talk is rife about a social conservative consensus that is supposedly wearing thin. Moral values were edged out by the economy and jobs. The pro-life movement is beleaguered. The traditional agenda...

Ethics & Life’s Ending An Exchange Robert D. Orr & Gilbert Meilander Copyright (c) 2004 First Things 145 (August/September 2004): 31-37. Robert D. Orr Feeding tubes make the news periodically, and controversies over their use or non-use seem unusually contentious. But feeding tubes are not high technology treatment; they are simple, small-bore catheters made of soft synthetic material. Nor are they new technology; feeding tubes were first used in 1793 by John Hunter to introduce jellies, eggs, sugar, milk, and wine into the stomachs of patients unable to swallow. Why does this old, low-tech treatment generate such controversy today? The...

Schiavo case tests GOP alliances, priorities Public reaction to federal intervention surprises many lawmakersANALYSIS By Shailagh Murray and Mike Allen Updated: 11:43 p.m. ET March 25, 2005WASHINGTON - A week after their unprecedented intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, Republican congressional leaders find themselves in a moral and political thicket, having advanced the cause as a right-to-life issue — only to confront polls showing that the public does not see it that way. "How deep is this Congress going to reach into the personal lives of each and every one of us?" asked Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), one of only...

In the past decade, there have been rapid advances in medicine that have changed the way we think about disease, aging and cures for once incurable diseases. I am not a doctor, but I have kept up with the breakthroughs in gene mapping, cord blood research and stem cells. Stem cells in particular have been touted as the magic bullet, a possible cure all for Alzheimer's, diabetes, and some of our most debilatating illnesses. The ethical concern over stem cells is well know, with many in the scientific community overlooking the moral question in hopes for a cure. I can...

It's tempting to let last week's Prince Harry Nazi-uniform episode pass from memory as a moment of meaningless comedy. Tempting but wrong, and not for the reason you may think. Twenty-year-old Harry, third in line for the British throne, attended a costume bash dressed in a khaki military shirt and swastika armband. He was photographed in this get-up, cigarette and drink in hand, and London's Sun newspaper splashed the picture on its front-page. An upper-class twit had acted like an upper-class twit. The horror! It was hardly a big serious deal, in truth because who cares anymore about the British...

Thank goodness for pollster Brad Coker and his Mason-Dixon research organization. Their late polls may rescue us from a wrong-headed interpretation of the 2004 election results. Coker offers an alternative to Warren Mitofsky’s flawed exit-poll-driven conclusion that moral values were the driving force behind this election. Yes, the fact that moral values were more frequently mentioned in this year’s exit poll is significant, but it’s not as significant as it’s being touted to be. Although morality was a plurality winner in the exit poll’s “most important issue” sweepstakes, barely one in five voters (22 percent) said values were the top...