Free Republic

Remember when Houston's lesbian mayor, Annise Parker, tried to subpoena five pastors' sermons in a case over the controversial transgender rights ordinance there? This same lesbian mayor is trying her level best to deny these pastors the right to a jury trial. She wants a "special master" to review the evidence. Here's the backstory, as Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) explains it: City officials got upset over a voter lawsuit filed after the City Council rejected valid petitions to repeal a law that allows members of the opposite sex into each other's restrooms. ADF attorneys jumped into the fray, contending the...

Check out this 2-part Viewpoint on Mormonism podcast series originally airing in October 2012 by clicking on the following links: Part 1 Part 2When the Constitution “Hangs by a Thread” – The White Horse Prophecy in Modern MormonismFollowing the Mormon expulsion from Missouri in 1838, Joseph Smith made a trip to Washington, D.C. “to present to the National Congress the petition of the Saints for a redress of their grievances, suffered in Missouri” (History of the Church 4:xxvi). Arriving in November 1839, Smith met with several powerful politicians of that day, including President Martin Van Buren, and left Washington in...

NPR’s bold headline reads that after 522 years, Spain is inviting me home. It feels good; it feels like something is being done to right a historic wrong. About 15 years ago, we discovered that my maternal grandfather’s family fled Spain during the Inquisition to Meppen, a small town in northern Germany, a few miles across of the boarder with The Netherlands. He chose to buy a Sephardic burial plot and his family heirlooms include allusions of a Spanish heritage. Beyond this loose collection of genealogical evidence, I have no claim to the Sephardic tradition but in this news I...

One of the profound changes wrought by LBJ's landmark program was a huge increase in government-sponsored family planning at home and abroad. President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Medicare Bill at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. [Wikipedia.com] President Lyndon Baines Johnson had spoken the words “Great Society” before, but on January 4, 1965 he brought the pieces together as a legislative package for Congress. His State of the Union message stirred a remarkable flurry of congressional activity that in short order produced major new programs in civil rights, health care, and anti-poverty. In the half-century since then,...

More Americans say that self-described-Muslims who commit violence in the name of their religion are real Muslims than say that self-described-Christians who commit violence are real Christians. Eighty-three percent said violent people who claim to be Christian are not true Christians while only 48 percent said violent people who claim to be Muslim are not true Muslims. Religious Violence A Public Religion Research Institute survey asked 2,450 Americans two questions: "When people claim to be Christian and commit acts of violence in the name of Christianity, do you believe they really are Christian, or not?" "When people claim to be...

"Peace is all right," Salvini said. "But as spokesman of all Catholics, you should be concerned about those who are slaughtering you all over the world".

The mayor of Atlanta Kasim Reed announced today the firing of the city's fire chief for the crime of being a Christian, according to news reports. It seems the fire chief, Kelvin Cochran, wrote a book for his Bible study group in which he espoused actual Christian beliefs. How dare he? But his firing doesn't infringe on religious freedom at all, so says the mayor. "This is not about religious freedom, this is not about free speech" the mayor reportedly said. "Judgement is the basis of the problem." So there you have it. If you're fired for being a Christian...

A group of the Catholic Church’s most notorious far-left dissenters has issued an open letter and petition attacking any questioning of the statements and actions of Pope Francis. The controversy was touched off by an article appearing over the holidays in Italy’s daily Corriere della Sera by the country’s most senior Vatican specialist, Vittorio Messori, who spoke of Pope Francis’s “perplexing” habit of apparent contradictions between his actions and statements, with which he is “disturbing the tranquility of the average Catholic.” The petition calls for a “Stop on attacks on Pope Francis.” It says, “At first, the chatter on the...

An ex-gay organization is planning legal action against the District of Columbia for its recent banning of conversion therapy, also called Sexual Orientation Change Efforts therapy, for minors. Voice of the Voiceless, an organization focused on ex-gay rights and recognition, is in the early stages of planning to bring legal action against the government of the nation's Capital over the recently passed bill. Christopher Doyle, president and co-founder of VoV, told The Christian Post that at present they are seeking a plaintiff to bring a case against the new law. "We are still seeking a plaintiff (minor and their family)...

Evangelicals in Russia have become ardent fans of President Vladimir Putin because of Russia’s efforts to maintain its influence in Ukraine, its takeover of Crimea in 2014, and the widespread Russian belief that the West is to blame for the present economic woes on the home front. This realization dawned on me during my November visit to Russia. The evidence is hard to ignore. Meeting in St. Petersburg back in May, the official Congress of the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists ended their meetings with a strong endorsement of Putin just two months after brutal conflict broke out in eastern Ukraine....

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has attended the Coptic Christmas mass to mark the first attendance ever made by an Egyptian president to the religious occasion. El-Sisi arrived at Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo's Abbasiya district during the mass and gave a brief speech before leaving instantly. He said that both of Egypt's Muslims and Christians are celebrating this occasion, asserting that they are "one entity" in the world's eyes. He added that he had to come to congratulate the Coptic community and then apologised for interrupting the mass. Video footage broadcast by State TV – covering the full...

The King and Queen of Hollywood are set to meet another titled leader – the Pope, reports Us Weekly. The couple will reportedly visit the Vatican early this month for a “VIP meet-and-greet” with Pope Francis. Pitt grew up Baptist but told the Hollywood Reporter in 2012, “I don’t have a great relationship with religion. I oscillate between agnosticism and atheism.” But a friend tells the magazine that the glamorous couple “admire the Pope” and like his message of tolerance and non-judgement. In 2013 talking about homosexuality the Pope famously said, “If someone is gay and he searches for the...

Archbishop Thomas Wenski, archbishop of Miami, has warned archdiocesan employees that any action in support of Florida’s now-legal same-sex marriage could cost them their jobs. “Because of the Church’s particular function in society,” the archbishop wrote, “certain conduct, inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church, could lead to disciplinary action, including termination, even if it occurs outside the normal working day and outside the strict confines of work performed by the employee for the Archdiocese.” The policy extends to include posts (photos or comments) on social media sites. The preemptive letter by Archbishop Wenski should help to thwart potential...

A group of Catholic students in Belgium remains in opposition to Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp. Spero reported on January 4 that the Flemish Catholic Students Association of Antwerp issued an open letter to Bishop Johan Bonny denouncing his statements on homosexual marriage. “Monsignor Bonny, as a successor of the apostles, wishes to alter the form in which the faith has revealed it (marriage). As a Catholic association headquartered in Antwerp, the Association of Flemish Catholic Students of Antwerp KVHV (Vlaams Katholiek Hoogstudentenverbod) raises its voice to say clearly: ‘No, Monsignor. What you are proposing is not Catholic.”In an email...

While there's been a lot of talk about the "Francis Effect," it's worth pondering, on the Holy Father's seventy-eighth birthday, the Francis Filtration. About a year ago, I suggested to one of the top editors of a major American newspaper that his journal's coverage of things papal left something to be desired, as it seemed based on the assumption that Pope Francis was some kind of radical wild-man, eager to toss into the garbage bin of history all those aspects of Catholic faith and practice that mainstream western culture finds distasteful. My friend replied, in so many words, look, you...

There is a great temptation today to confuse sociological evolution with spiritual progress, and Christians are the first to succumb to that temptation. Nevertheless, the Bible expressly tells us that the history of mankind ends in judgment. It does not give place to the Kingdom. Jacques Ellul, False Presence of the Kingdom Conformity to the world is expressed by the passion for politics, by the politicizing of Christian thinking, manners and action. Jacques Ellul, Hope in Time of Abandonment In the cap and bells of Flip Wilson’s Church of What’s Happening Now, Pope Francis is readying an encyclical on climate...

Yesterday, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released some statistics on the religious composition of the new 114th Congress, which includes more Catholics (with 164) than any Congress in history. That’s about 31% of Congress that identifies as Catholics, compared with about 22% of American adults. Sadly, while the number of Catholics in Congress reaches an all-time high, pro-life Democrats in Congress are on the verge of extinction.But first, some good news for Catholic Democrats.Given the large margin by which Republicans control the new Congress (301-234, counting both houses) and the fact that the incoming class in a...

Amid a robust Italian debate over the leadership of Pope Francis, a cross-section of liberal Catholic groups in the country has launched an online petition to show backing for the Argentinian pontiff. Pointedly called “Stop the Attacks on Pope Francis,” the petition was launched on Christmas Day by groups including “We are Church,” “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” the Edith Stein Study Center, an Italian association of theologians, and a variety of base communities. All are generally associated with the liberal wing of the Italian Church. The petition is also signed by the Rev. Luigi Ciotti of Turin, one of Italy’s...

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis named 15 new cardinals Sunday, selecting them from 14 nations including far-flung corners of the world such as Tonga, New Zealand, Cape Verde and Myanmar to reflect the diversity of the church and its growth in places like Asia and Africa compared to affluent regions. Other cardinals hail from Ethiopia, Thailand and Vietnam. None came from the United States ...

Francis met Syriac Christians during his recent visit to Turkey (CNS) Turkish government gives go-ahead to Syriac church in IstanbulTurkey’s government has given the go ahead for the building of the first new church in the country for nearly a century.The Syriac Orthodox church will be built in Yeşilköy on the outskirts of Istanbul, in an area which already has Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic churches.The announcement was made last Friday, after Turkey’s prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Turkey’s religious leaders.He told Turkish media: “It is the first [new church] since the creation of the republic [in 1923]. Churches...