Free Republic

After they beat Azat Azatyan so bad blood came out of his ears; after they sent electric shocks up his genitals; after they wacked him with pipes and truncheons, the Russians began to interrogate him about his faith. “When did you become a Baptist? When did you become an American spy?” Azat tried to explain that in Ukraine there was freedom of religion, you could just choose your faith. But his torturers saw the world the same way as their predecessors at the KGB did: an American church is just a front for the American state. Azat was dragged back...

The biggest error of dispensationalists is the confusion over who is Israel. The New Testament uses the term “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). How is this different from Old Covenant Israel? Answer: The Israel of God is no longer ethnic Israel. Believers in Christ, that is the church (including both Jewish and Gentile believers) are the new spiritual Israel through faith—the Israel of God. Jesus told the Jewish leaders of his day that the blessings of the covenant kingdom were being taken from them and given to another group—obviously Christians (Matthew 21:33-45). The text says that the Jews knew...

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is one of the vilest denominations in America. Pro-homosexuality, pro-choice, and posessing a preternatural hatred for the Bible, it’s populated almost exclusively by spiritually decrepit senior citizens and virtue-twerking LGBTQ twenty-somethings. Less than 1% of the congregants in the denomination are saved, as you can only submit to a satanic pastor for so long without getting a little demonic yourself. We’ve written about them before, in Lutheran Pastor Promotes Hookups, Polyamory, and Premarital Sex , ELCA Leader in a Polyamorous/’Ethically Non-Monogamous’ Relationship, the time where After Annual Meeting, Lutheran Leadership+ Pastors Celebrate in...

Foua, a farmer in his 30s, has spent three months behind bars in Vietnam’s northwestern province of Dien Bien. He will remain there for two more, convicted of deforestation – even though the law only stipulates a fine as punishment. His crime? Cutting down nine trees to build a hut for his family. But his wife, Cua, who did not want to reveal her or Foua’s real names for fear of retaliation, says her husband has been persecuted for being Christian. When she last saw him, he was in hospital, three days after he was jailed, his leg shackled to...

In this video we discuss why all Christians should pray the Rosary.

Many years ago I had the privilege of delivering a lecture on the life and ministry of John Calvin in the unlikely context of the Interfaith Seminar of the Catholic Archdiocese of Trento in northern Italy. A lone Reformed voice speaking to a room filled with priests and monks at the historic epicenter of the Catholic Reformation, I may not have been the exact modern equivalent of Leonidas at Thermopylae but I enjoyed being heavily outnumbered nonetheless. At the end of my lecture, every single question I was asked related to the burning of Michael Servetus by the Genevan authorities...

Some 51% of Evangelical Protestants in the United States say they believe Jews are God’s chosen people, according to a recently released survey. Titled “The Jewish Connection: Evangelicals and Israel,” the findings were announced this week by Infinity Concepts, a faith-based communications agency that co-produced the report with Grey Matter Research. Drawing from a survey of approximately 1,000 Evangelical Protestant Americans, the report found that 51% of respondents believed that Jews were still God’s chosen people. By contrast, 19% said they were unsure, 17% said they believe Christians have replaced Jews as the chosen people, 10% said they believe Jews...

Protestantism — like the rest of the world — continues to evolve.Compared to fairly recently, the country looks vastly different.Less than four decades ago, President Ronald Reagan declared 1983 the “Year of the Bible.”It was no great shock: In the early ’80s — as reported by the Pew Research Center — 89% of Americans identified as Christian.Adherents to other religions totaled 4% while only 7% subscribed to no religion at all.Since then, faith has seen a radical decline.As observed by Gallup, 2019 marked the first year American church membership dropped below 50%.U.S. church membership was 73% when Gallup first measured...

Former President George W. Bush told The Dispatch podcast on Friday that if the Republican Party “stands for … White Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, then it’s not going to win anything.” The Dispatch was launched in 2020 by Never Trump writers, including alumni of the now-defunct Weekly Standard. Bush was interviewed by Sarah Isgur, who served as the spokesperson for the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump, and former Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Steve Hayes.

istory is the account of vast social movements and cultural changes. To be sure, individuals play their part. But they are usually understood to be products of their times. The Reformation, though, whose five-hundredth anniversary we observe this year and whose impact on not only the church but the world has been monumental, was largely precipitated by one man: Martin Luther. Yes, vast social movements and cultural changes were at work in sixteenth-century Europe. But Luther caused many of them, such as the educational explosion that would lead to universal literacy, the rise of the middle class, and eventually democratic...

Augsburg Peace Prize awarded to Bishop Bedford-Strohm and Cardinal MarxLWI) - A strong sign for Christian ecumenism: the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, and the Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx were awarded the 2020 Augsburg Peace Prize for their “unconditional will to live together in peace”. On 11 March 2017, the then President of the German Bishops’ Conference, Reinhard Cardinal Marx, and the Chairperson of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, jointly presided over a service of repentance and reconciliation in Hildesheim, Germany. The painful divisions between the two separated...

The average Christian, reading his Bible in happy devotion, stumbles across this passage: Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church… (Col 1:24) The passage is particularly disturbing for a certain strain of Protestant thought that emphasizes Christ’s sufficiency for all things. Christ has accomplished all things necessary to our salvation and we are thus able to “rest” in His completed work. For many, this is at the heart of grace. God has done for...

Dr. Rodney Stark has written nearly 40 books on a wide range of topics, including a number of recent books on the history of Christianity, monotheism, Christianity in China, and the roots of modernity...His most recent book is Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History (Templeton Press, 2016), which addresses ten prevalent myths about Church history... CWR: You begin the book by first noting your upbringing as an American Protestant and then discussing “distinguished bigots”. What is a “distinguished bigot”? ... Dr. Rodney Stark: By distinguished bigots I mean prominent scholars and intellectuals who clearly are antagonistic to the...

Like all accounts of God’s faithfulness, mine begins with a genealogy. In the late seventeenth century, my mother’s Congregationalist ancestors journeyed to the New World to escape what they saw as England’s deadly compromise with Romanism. Centuries later, ­American Presbyterians converted my father’s great-­grandmother from Coptic ­Orthodoxy to ­Protestantism. Her son became a Presbyterian minister in the Evangelical Coptic Church. By the time my parents were ­living in ­twenty-first-century Illinois, their families’ historic Reformed commitments had been replaced by non-denominational, ­Baptistic ­evangelicalism. This form of Christianity dominated my Midwestern hometown. My parents taught me to love God, revere the Scriptures,...

Will the outcome of the UMC debate on human sexuality--whatever it is--be a tragedy for Christendom? The United Methodist Church may soon become the last of the more liberal “Seven Sisters” of Protestantism in America to fully align with a progressive worldview. In late February, lay and clergy delegates from the second largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., along with United Methodist Church (UMC) delegations from several other nations, will decide whether or not to yield to an LGBTQ hostile takeover.

Thomas Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists is the source of the statement - "separation of church and state". Seeing the statement in its proper context, the American understanding of religion was developed in order to fight the sectarian oppression within the Judeo-Christian traditions, that existed in Europe. Protestant minorities faced discrimination in majority Catholic European nations, while Catholic minorities faced discrimination in majority Protestant nations. Jews suffered discrimination as minorities in majority Protestant and Catholic nations. Emancipation of European Jews only came after the French Revolution. The American concept of religion was created in order to prevent people...

"This series of lectures will discuss the history, legacy and ongoing significance of the religious tradition which has done more than any other to shape the modern world: Protestant Christianity."

Today is the birthday of John Calvin, Pastor, theologian and scholar .... One may disagree with his theology .. but his contribution to the church and the world can not be denied.. "In 1559, as part of his social reforms, Calvin founded a school for training children as well as a hospital for the indigent. His Geneva Academy attracted students from all over Europe and in 1564, when he died, had 1,200 on the roll. Education could inculcate values and morality. His pedagogy was quite progressive; teachers should not be authoritarian but “should join [and] walk with [students] as companions”...

There are many reasons the Roman Catholic Church is the true Church of Jesus Christ, however, some of those reasons are necessary for discussions with those outside the Catholic Church. Jesus prayed for unity of believers and unity begins with understanding. The understanding of the Church’s beliefs is essential in working toward that unity. Here are some key reasons to keep in mind when speaking to non-Catholics: 1.) Authority- Jesus gave specific instructions regarding dealing with members of the Church who were in sin. Matthew 18:15-18 says “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between...

The last several decades, the Left has done its best to change America’s religious landscape. According to a new Pew study, they’re succeeding better than many thought possible: "The number of Americans who don’t affiliate with a particular religion has grown to 56 million in recent years, making the faith group researchers call “nones” the second-largest in total numbers behind evangelicals, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday." Christians are still the majority, but their numbers have fallen from 78 percent to just under 71 percent. The main reason? Increasingly more Americans consider themselves “non affiliated” with any...