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In July 1945, Evangelicals declared ideological cold war against world communism and began planning a spiritual invasion of Europe to restore Christianity and stop communism there. Billy Graham was among the young ministers sent to Europe, and he built upon his experience there to emerge as a major spokesman of American messianism. The popularity of Graham's anticommunism, a regular feature in his sermons, helped propel him to national fame. By 1950 his message was reaching much of the nation in a weekly radio broadcast, and by 1952 he was serving as a spiritual advisor to presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower. As...

Sometimes he was more expansive, as in June 2005, when, at age 86, after 60 years of preaching on the road and in diminishing health (primarily from advanced Parkinson’s disease), he reluctantly “retired” from public “crusade” evangelism. It was at a final three-day campaign that attracted a cumulative total of some 230,000 people to Flushing Meadows in New York City. In an interview during that event, a Charisma magazine reporter popped the same remembrance question. Replied Graham quietly: “I want to be remembered as a person who was faithful to God, faithful to my family, faithful to the Scriptures, and...

he late Rev. Billy Graham, the Christian evangelist known as "America's Pastor," will lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda next week. Graham's body will be brought to the Capitol on Wed., Feb 28 where he will lie in honor until Thursday. Members of the public and Capitol Hill community are invited to pay their respects to the late reverend while he lies in rest. Graham is only the fourth person to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. The three others were Rosa Parks in 2005 and the two Capitol police officers who died in the line...

If you asked people whom their favorite biblical prophet is, there’s a strong chance they would answer Isaiah. Sure, Moses gets all the accolades, received the tablets, and is the most important; but Isaiah is the prophetic book most quoted by authors of the New Testament. For Christians, Isaiah predicts the coming of the Messiah, the death of Jesus and the Virgin Birth. So, it is particularly auspicious that in a stunning article published today in Biblical Archaeology Review archaeologists announced that they have stumbled upon the first physical evidence for the existence of the prophet Isaiah.

Last month, if you were visiting Adis Ababa in Ethiopia, you would have witnessed an astonishing sight. Every January, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church celebrates a festival called Timkat, during which their senior priests parade through the streets of Ethiopia’s capital. They carry a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, as onlookers drop to their knees in reverence. This obscure branch of Christianity has approximately 50 million adherents, most of whom live in Ethiopia. Aside for this sect’s curious affinity to the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish practices — evident in their observance of kosher laws, separation of the sexes...

Puzzle: fragments of 2,000-year-old scrolls before reassembly. Credit: Shay Halevi, Israel Antiquities Authority, The Leon Levy Library of the Dead Sea Scrolls ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ About 1,000 Dead Sea Scrolls discovered just over 70 years ago near Khirbet Qumran on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea have been officially published since the turn of the millennium. But in the case of some, all that was left were poorly preserved remains of texts written in a cryptic script – and all that had been released to the world were photos of small pieces of manuscript, in a preliminary order. There have been...

An atheist was walking through the woods. 'What majestic trees! 'What powerful rivers! 'What beautiful animals! He said to himself. Suddenly, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look . . . and saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him. He ran as fast as he could along the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing on him .... He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was even closer .... and then ..... He tripped and fell. Rolling over to pick himself up, he found the...

The Minister for Education, Richard Bruton has confirmed the change in a circular released today, stating that it is a constitutional right for students who chose not to participate in religion class to be offered an alternative, meaningful program. Community and ETB (Education and Training Board) schools will now offer students a different subject, should they opt out of studying religion. Previously, students who chose not to partake in religious education — which required parental consent and approval from the school principle (sic) — were forced to sit at the back of the class or in the library with no...

Turkey should again consider criminalizing adultery, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday, revisiting an issue that caused outrage among secular Turks and warnings from the European Union when his party raised it more than a decade ago. The Islamist-rooted AK Party floated the idea in 2004, two years after it first came to power, as part of a broad overhaul of the Turkish penal code. But the proposal caused a backlash from the secular opposition and EU officials said it could jeopardize Turkey’s efforts to join the union. […] Turkey decriminalized adultery for women in the late 1990s. It had...

A rapper is under police investigation in Muslim-majority Malaysia for allegedly insulting Islam with a Lunar New Year video that features dancers wearing dog masks and performing suggestive moves, reports said Monday. The video features controversial rapper Wee Meng Chee, known by his stage name Namewee, sitting on a chair in front of a domed building and mimicking barks of canines from around the world. Several black-clad dancers wearing masks of dogs — an animal considered unclean in Islam — gyrate around him, with two of them mimicking a “doggy-style” sex move.

Unless we use it.

The 81-year-old Pope Francis admitted on Saturday that he struggles with modern technology. “I don’t know how to use online networks and that kind of thing, not even mobile phones; I don’t have one,” he told his audience. “I don’t know how to use the internet. When I have to send an email, I write it by hand and a secretary sends it for me,” he added. Pope Francis also joked on Saturday that he is on the “waiting list” for sainthood, along with his retired predecessor Benedict XVI. …

Religion is not hostile to learning; Christianity has been the greatest patron learning has ever had. But Christians know that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" now just as it has been in the past, and they therefore oppose the teaching of guesses that encourage godlessness among the students. Do bad doctrines corrupt the morals of students? We have a case, Mr. Darrow, one of the most distinguished criminal lawyers in our land, was engaged about a year ago in defending two rich men's sons who were on trial for as dastardly a murder as was...

Great mental exercise for people over 50. Which of the following names are you familiar with? 1. Monica Lewinsky 2. Hillary Clinton 3. Benito Mussolini 4. Adolf Hitler 5. Jorge Bergoglio 6. Al Capone 7. Vladimir Putin 8. Linda Lovelace 9. Saddam Hussein 10. Tiger Woods You had trouble with Number 5, didn’t you? So, you know all the liars, criminals, adulterers, murderers, thieves, cheaters, but you don’t know the Pope? Lovely, just lovely… sometimes I worry about you.

Cardinal George Pell's barrister: loud, socially progressive and an avowed atheist (The Age cannot be posted.)

The man who pleaded guilty to stabbing two men at the Mall of America last November was sentenced Friday. Mahad Abdiaziz Adbiraham, 20, will have to serve 10 of his 15-year sentence in prison. With good behavior, the last five years of the sentence could be served as probation. Authorities said Abdiraham stabbed two brothers - 19-year-old Alexander Sanchez and 25-year-old John Sanchez - in a dressing room at the mall's Macy' store. In the statement read by his attorney following his guilty plea last month, Abdiraham said he went to the Mall of America to answer the "call for...

<p>KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia has apologised after a government ad in Chinese-language newspapers featuring a picture of a barking rooster to mark the Year of the Dog sparked a flood of mockery.</p> <p>The full-page advert by the domestic trade, cooperatives and consumerism ministry showed a rooster emitting the word "wang", used to represent a dog's bark in Mandarin.</p>

From escaping Iran through the mountains as a Muslim refugee, to surviving domestic abuse and imprisonment in a Turkish prison, to carving out a life in Sweden, Annahita Parsan’s story is the stuff of a Hollywood movie. Parsan, a convert from Islam to Christianity and mother of two, has emerged as one of the most prominent religious figures in Europe, both because of her unlikely geographic and spiritual pilgrimage and her decision to reach out to Muslims with the gospel -- at great personal risk. The former refugee is now the leader of two congregations in Sweden. She not only...

But Winfrey told Overtime that she has not heard the call to higher office: "And wouldn't I know? Because if God actually wanted me to run, wouldn't God kinda tell me? And I haven't heard that," she says.

On February 14 around the year 278 A.D., Valentine, a holy priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was executed. Under the rule of Claudius the Cruel, Rome was involved in many unpopular and bloody campaigns. The emperor had to maintain a strong army, but was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families. To get rid of the problem, Claudius banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine, realizing the injustice of...