Free Republic

The downsides of using poll data to understand the arc of historyIn one of the most ambiguous poll questions ever, Gallup has asked Americans to once again act as a tenuous bellwether for the impending death of religion. In a May survey, more than 1,000 people were asked to pick between two vague sense impressions of faith: "Do you believe that religion can answer all of today's problems, or that religion is largely old fashioned and out of date?" Shockingly, only 13 percent of people took the out of answering "no opinion" or "other," which is one way of saying...

Baltimore Auxiliary Bishop Denis J. Madden is enthused by the fruit that came from recent discussions between U.S. bishops and Iran’s religious leaders. “When you build a certain sense of trust and respect, then you can move forward and deal with the issues,” he said. The faith leaders announced June 14 that they oppose actions that endanger the life, health, dignity and welfare of others, including the creation of weapons of mass destruction. That declaration was the result of a March dialogue between a delegation from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Supreme Council of the Seminary Teachers...

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The Brown County Sheriff's Department reports the arrest of a 27 year-old Hobart man on suspicion of sexually assaulting a child. Wayne Makela was arrested Wednesday. The Brown County Sheriff's Department says he is a teacher and coach at Pilgrim Lutheran school in Green Bay. Investigators say the assault may have happened to a child under the age of 16. The suspect was in a position of trust at a church and school in Green Bay, according to a Sheriff's Department news release. Pilgrim Lutheran Church and School confirmed to NBC26 that the suspect teaches a...

An academic sets out to expose “The Great Accreditation Farce” but his efforts border on the farcical. “By awarding accreditation to religious colleges, the process confers legitimacy on institutions that systematically undermine the most fundamental purposes of higher education,” Peter Conn wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Skeptical and unfettered inquiry is the hallmark of American teaching and research.” “However, such inquiry cannot flourish—in many cases, cannot even survive—inside institutions that erect religious tests for truth.” Conn is an English professor at Penn. “This, in my view, can only be described as a scandal,” Conn avers. “Providing accreditation to...

It was just another high school graduation in one more streamer-bedecked gym, with all the usual trappings, the procession, the band, the beach balls, the decorated caps, the parents, the dignitaries. Except it wasn’t ordinary at all: it was as powerful a statement of faith from both a student and from the crowd itself as you will ever see.

A bank teller in Kentucky claims she was fired from her job for telling customers, "Have a blessed day." Polly Neace wished customers at U.S. Bank in Walton, Kentucky, well with those words of blessing for more than two years. She said she never had anyone complain about the saying, which she said she was inspired to adopt when someone said the phrase to her in 2009. "I mean, in my opinion, I don't think there's any better way to have a blessed day," she explained in an interview with Fox News. But Neace said she was told she could...

Chinese authorities are cracking down on religious activities following deadly unrest in the country’s Muslim northwest, banning citizens from fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Statements posted Wednesday on websites of schools, government agencies and local party organizations in the Xinjiang region said the ban was aimed at protecting students’ well-being and preventing any official promotion of religion, The Associated Press reported. “No teacher can participate in religious activities, instill religious thoughts in students or coerce students into religious activities,”er

Today, the Supreme Court granted Wheaton College an injunction pending appeal against enforcement of the contraception mandate, even though Wheaton was eligible for the accommodation HHS has provided for religious non-profits. Specifically the Court ordered: If the applicant informs the Secretary of Health and Human Services in writing that it is a non-profit organization that holds itself out as religious and has religious objections to providing coverage for contraceptive services, the respondents are enjoined from enforcing against the applicant the challenged provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and related regulations pending final disposition of appellate review. To...

We Americans are one lawyer away from losing our right to practice our religion. One more liberal Supreme Court Justice would mean that liberal extremists would be able to use the full power of the government to force people of faith to offer sacrifices at the altars of the gods of liberalism -- abortion, contraception, gay marriage, etc. Liberal Supreme Court judges have said that employers have no religious freedom. If an employee wants something, then the employer must provide it despite the employer’s religious beliefs. No woman needs contraceptives or to be sterilized. Those are not part of providing...

SHELBY COUNTY, TN - A once trusted Hope Presbyterian Church music teacher is now at the center of a child sex investigation. Officials are releasing very few details about the investigation, but they do say that it involves multiple agencies. On Wednesday, Matthew Williams was charged with child sex abuse involving a family member. On Saturday, Hope Presbyterian Church found out and terminated Williams' contract immediately. Collierville Police Department confirmed there is an investigation, but that is all it would say. Williams taught piano lessons at Hope Music Academy at the church for almost a year. A spokesperson for Hope...

RedState.com quotes a Huffington Post article wondering whether there are too many Catholics on the Supreme Court? At present there are no Protestants on the Supreme Court. 3 are Jewish ( Kagan, Breyer, and Bader ) and the remaining 6 are Catholic. It's been noted that the Supreme Court has never reflected the demographics of the country. The Court was all white until 1967 with the appointment of Thurgood Marshall, and Sandra Day O'Conner became the first female SC justice in 1981. Andrew Jackson appointed the first Catholic SC justice, Roger Taney, in 1836. The largest Protestant group in the...

From efforts to install a monument at the Oklahoma Capitol to a controversial “Black Mass” at Harvard University, Satanists are all over the news. But are they, along with Wiccans and pagans, all together in one non-Abrahamic lump? Not at all, say experts on paganism and the major Satanist groups’ websites. “Paganism is an umbrella term for a wide variety of traditions outside the Abrahamic faiths. Wicca is the largest but there are countless others, from Druid to Heathen to people who are creating their own faiths even as we speak,” said Laura Wildman-Hanlon, a Wiccan priestess and editor of...

Anne Graham Lotz is asking thousands of people across the nation to answer a national call to prayer this week, warning the end times are near....

The U.S. Supreme Court had a banner day, a crackerjack day, with horns and ice cream, as it trumped the federal government's brazen claim of power and authority to define which religious convictions, if any, have a proper place in the health care arena. Hooray for the Hahn and Green families for carrying to the high court their plea to be released from the duty of providing employees with contraceptive coverage under Obamacare. Never mind (as the government saw it before the court's 5-4 ruling) the two families' religiously grounded conviction that the mandate violated their religious beliefs and moral...

Last night I listened to the new Reasonable Doubts podcast, which included a detailed account of the case of self-righteously Christian former major league baseball player and eventual sex abuse convict, Chad Curtis. The show is a gripping and revolting listen, and as usual the Doubtcasters bring to bear a lot of insight in the process both of telling the story and in analyzing it at the end. Doubtcaster Jeremy Beahan went to college at Cornerstone University where Chad Curtis was a prominent figure, earning his degree to go into high school coaching (where he would commit his sex crimes)....

Ogden • A Plain City man accused of beating a fellow churchgoer last year at a Mormon baby blessing and mission farewell was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail. Wayne Dodge, 52, pleaded guilty last month in Ogden’s 2nd District Court to one count of class B misdemeanor assault. One charge of felony aggravated assault was dismissed, according to court records. Judge W. Brent West ordered Dodge to complete an anger management class as part of a 12-month probation. The judge also ordered Dodge to pay a $550 fine and have no contact with the victim. Dodge, who faced...

A solid majority of Americans now support equal treatment for same-sex couples despite religious objections, according to the State of the First Amendment survey released this week by the First Amendment Center. Sixty-one percent of respondents agree that the government should require religiously affiliated groups that receive government funding to provide health-care benefits to same-sex partners of employees – even when the religious group opposes same-sex marriage. And 54% of the public agree that a business providing wedding services to the public should be required to serve same-sex couples, even if the business owner objects to gay marriage on religious...

The Faith Church Statement on Marriage*A Declaration of Christian Conscience and Conviction DefinitionAs the creator and author of marriage, God alone has the authority to define it. This He did in the second chapter of Genesis where God, having created both groom and bride, brought them together personally (2:22) and a benediction was pronounced over the couple; Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh (2:24, ESV; see also Mt. 19:4-5). For this reason, Christian believers do now hold and have always held that marriage is...

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, has signed legislation that will explicitly allow students in public schools across the state to engage in voluntary student-led prayer. The new law permits students to create religious clubs and coordinate prayer groups, reports North Carolina Fox affiliate WGHP. The three-page law also allows students to pray by themselves or in groups — aloud or silently — in exactly the same way they can discuss or think silently about any other issue.

Don't buy his populist rhetoric. The new pope is every bit the sexist homophobe as his predecessors... While the pope transmits a populist vibe—particularly about the economy— he is an old-school conservative who, despite his great PR, maintains nearly all of the socialpolicies of his predecessors and keeps up a hardline Vatican “cabinet.”