Free Republic

Bob Jones University is what most would call a fundamentalist school. No one, however, should think that it has low academic standards or is anti-cultural. The heavy emphasis on producing Shakespeare’s plays, the gallery of great religious art, as well as an exact replica of the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey tell us otherwise. One thing nearly all of us Protestants who have visited this beautiful and well-presented gallery cannot help noticing is the heavy preponderance, not only of Roman Catholic artists, but also of specifically Catholic themes. When Bob Jones, Jr. was challenged with the question, “Why do you...

In the past five or six years, I have known several people who have left Reformed Christianity for Eastern Orthodoxy. Their reasons for making that decision varied. Some were mesmerized by the beauty of the Divine Liturgy. Others found Eastern Orthodoxy (hereafter EO) to offer a greater appreciation for mystery and religious experience than what they had known as a Protestant. All of them, however, were attracted by and eventually convinced of EO’s claim to be the original church founded by Christ. While I do not agree with their decision, I sympathize with their desire to be part of the...

Protestants cannot and must not view these events with a kind of detachment or distance, for numerous reasons. First, we cannot forget that each and every revelation of abuse is the revelation of a life-altering (and sometimes life-shattering) event for the victim and a faith-crippling moment for friends, family, and countless others. Second, given the plethora of recent sexual scandals in Evangelical churches and seminaries, the Catholic catastrophe should remind us that perhaps only the lack of an equivalent hierarchy has spared Evangelical churches from similar, systemic sin. “Our” scandals are more fragmented only because our churches are more fragmented.

Over the past five years, in fact, it has become increasingly clear—even to some conservative Christians—that fundamentalist churches face a widespread epidemic of sexual abuse and institutional denial that could ultimately involve more victims than the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church. In 2012, an investigation at Bob Jones University, known as the “fortress of fundamentalism,” revealed that the school had systematically covered up allegations of sexual assault and counseled victims to forgive their attackers. Sovereign Grace, a network of “neo-Calvinist” churches, has been facing multiple allegations of child molestation and sexual abuse. In 2014, a New Republic investigation found...

As my friend Doug Phillips has pointed out, this year has brought, in the providence of God, a strange confluence of anniversaries. The two men who have had the greatest impact on these United States may well be, on the one hand, Charles Darwin, and on the other John Calvin. Darwin was born two hundred years ago this year, Calvin five hundred years ago. Our perspective on each of these men will serve as a potent bell-weather for our perspectives on a whole host of issues. In the culture wars most of our enemies will celebrate the birth of Darwin...

The President of Ireland has led calls for a “culture of peace” as Omagh marks the 20th anniversary of the worst single atrocity of the Northern Ireland conflict. Twenty nine innocents, including a woman pregnant with twins, died when a massive car bomb ripped through the Co Tyrone town just months after the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement was supposed to have largely ended violence. A splinter dissident republican group opposed to the peace process, the Real IRA, was blamed for the carnage after inaccurate warnings meant police evacuated shoppers towards the bomb site. Twenty years later, nobody has been...

On Oct. 31, 1517, Luther nailed a copy of his 95 Theses to the wooden doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. In his theses, Luther criticized the pope and Catholic Church practices like the selling of indulgences for redemption. But Luther wrote more than just the 95 Theses. He’s also the author of a corpus of virulent anti-Jewish writings. Over the next 30 years, as Protestantism took root, Luther evolved from being tolerant of Jews, hopeful they could become good Christians, to being disgusted with them. He described Jews as blasphemous, contaminators and murderers who should be expelled by...

The Minister for Health has said women in Northern Ireland will be able to access abortion services in the Republic when the legislation is introduced here. Speaking in Belfast this evening, Simon Harris said his concern for a woman’s right to access health services in crisis pregnancies situations does not stop at the border. He said while he respects the abortion law in northern Ireland, he hopes it is addressed in the near future. Britain’s Abortion Act does not extend to Northern Ireland and an abortion is only allowed if a woman’s life is at risk, or if there is...

“Today, Russia ranks among the worst violators of religious freedom and human rights,” Ambassador Callista Gingrich said during a roundtable discussion on Ukraine held at the US embassy in Rome. “There is no sign that its persecution of religious minorities and foreign missionaries is coming to an end.” “Russia routinely conducts sham trials to persecute Ukrainians,” she explained. “Religious freedom also remains heavily constricted in areas of Ukraine under Russian occupation and control." The ambassador is married to former House of Representatives Speaker, Newt Gingrich, an adviser and ally of the president, who has repeatedly stressed there is no evidence...

Over the years, I’ve had several Catholic friends and converts ask why I ultimately didn’t convert to their denomination. During my first two years of college, I spent a significant amount of time with Catholics, including at the (then?) US Opus Dei headquarters in NYC. I attended these gatherings with a good friend, who eventually decided to convert from Evangelicalism. I came close to converting, but ultimately decided against it. This has surprised some Catholics. I suspect this is because the standard narrative is that Protestants, especially Evangelicals, are crossing the Tiber in great droves. Statistically, the narrative isn’t quite...

An updated survey from Gallup, which it has conducted every 10 years since 1955, shows that only 39% of Catholics and 45% of Protestants attend church weekly. Back in 1955, about 75% of Catholics went to Mass every week. For the Protestants, about 42% went to church weekly.

Nearly half a century after Mao Tse-Tung banned religion in China, the country is home to an estimated 72 percent of the world’s religiously unaffiliated people. Yet if Christianity continues to grow at its current rate there, in a few years there will be more Christians in China than in any other country in the world. By claiming just a sliver of China’s population of 700 million religiously unaffiliated people, religious groups can drastically change their size and influence. As Christian religions lose ground across much of the Western world, China is one of the few countries where Christianity is...

2018 has barely finished dawning, and already, the pharmaceutical industry once more has egg on its face from outrageous price hikes. This time, the culprit is pharmaceutical startup NextSource, which apparently has taken a 40-year-old cancer drug known as lomustine, and ruthlessly hiked its price from $50/pill in 2013, to $768/pill now. In other words, they’ve raised the price of the drug by over 1400% over the past five years. NextSource’s defense for why this has happened has to be read to be believed. CBS News reports that the company’s CEO, Robert DiCrisci, claims that the company set the price based on the...

Catholics praying Hail Mary removed by Police from Brussels Cathedral during "Reformation Celebration" It must be one of the most shameful episodes of our shameful hierarchy of atrocious bishops.  In Brussels Cathedral, the 500 years of the hideous acts of heresiarch Luther were celebrated. What did a small group of serious Catholics do? They pleaded Our Lord for forgiveness, by invoking the aid of Our Lady in the Ave Maria. The result? These brave Catholics were forcibly removed from the Cathedral by the Police, certainly called by Cathedral staff.  Removed. By the Police. For praying to Our Lady. In a Catholic church....

1. A hypocrite may be influenced by the gospel in every part of himself. He may come to great knowledge of God’s truth (Heb 6:4). His emotions about Christ may be high (Matt 13:20). He may even experience drastic changes in the outward man, like the Pharisee who prayed, “God, I thank You that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, etc.” (Lk 18:11–12). 2. A hypocrite may look to others like he’s a true believer. He might talk of the law and the gospel (Ps 50:16), openly confess his sin to his own shame (1 Sam...

British reporter Robert Fisk was on hand when the city was liberated and wrote: “The Greek Catholic Church of Our Lady is a place of shame, of burnt copies of the New Testament, paintings slashed with knives – many were lying in strips of gold and red fabric beside the altar’s broken cross – and mosaics chiselled from the walls.” Fisk also mentioned that the terrorists had “gouged out the eyes of the mosaic saints.”What is on display in these photos is not merely abomination and sacrilege; it is loathing and hatred of the spirit of Christ; it is...

It was a hot day in July, a Saturday afternoon, and Kim James was bored. Her older sisters had taken her to a church event in their small hometown in Indiana, where the girls were spending their summer. Her parents were back in Bangladesh, working at the remote Baptist missionary compound where the family had lived, on and off, for five years. For an adventurous and high-spirited 13-year-old like Kim, Indiana seemed dull compared to Bangladesh. She missed her friends, the dozen or so missionary kids everybody called “MKs.” She missed the menagerie her parents let her keep: goats, cows,...

At the heart of Christianity is the doctrine of the mystical union of the believer with Christ. The New Testament does not only call us to believe in Christ, but to believe into Christ. Faith links us directly into Christ. We become in Him and He in us. This mysterious union is carried over into the relationship between Christ and the church. The church is His bride, whom He has brought into a real, profound, and powerful union. We normally assume that the image of the church as the bride of Christ is a metaphor borrowed from the institution of...

Karen Oliveto clutched a friend's hand, closed her eyes and wept when she learned last year she had been elected a bishop of the United Methodist Church. Oliveto, who is married to another woman, had become the denomination's first openly gay bishop.

Tim Keller founded one of the most influential urban churches in America, Redeemer Presbyterian, which is theologically conservative, racially diverse and growing across its three New York City congregations. He was set to receive an award from Princeton Theological Seminary, also a Presbyterian institution in the Reformed tradition, for his contributions to the “Neo-Calvinist vision of religious engagement.”