Free Republic

Hundreds of asylum seekers from the Middle East, including from Iran and Iraq, have converted to Christianity in Finland, according to officials in the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran community. ....While some who are seeking to covert cited disillusionment with Islam as the key reason, others said they felt conversion will help them fit into the Finnish culture, according to Sputnik News, which also speculated that an underlying reason also could be to guard themselves against possible deportation. In Finland, 4.1 million of the 5.5 million people are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church....

Putin, The New Tsar Of Christendom Because of radical Islamic terrorism, your religious affiliation has become an existential issue across the globe. Whether you are a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Jew can literally mean life or death, no matter what country you are in. Western nations are not excluded from this scourge. The curse threatens the very existence of nation-states as well. Israel is routinely threatened by Iran and others — because it is Jewish. If Israel were not Jewish, it would not be targeted for destruction. The religion of a nation can also unite and bring power to...

The earliest Latin commentary on the Gospels, lost for more than 1,500 years, has been rediscovered and made available in English for the first time. The extraordinary find, a work written by a bishop in northern Italy, Fortunatianus of Aquileia, dates back to the middle of the fourth century. The biblical text of the manuscript is of particular significance, as it predates the standard Latin version known as the Vulgate. and provides new evidence about the earliest form of the Gospels in Latin. Despite references to this commentary in other ancient works, no copy was known to survive until Dr...

he City of East Lansing has been named a defendant in a federal lawsuit alleging the city crafted a new policy to bar a local orchard owner from operating as a vendor at the city’s farmer’s market. The lawsuit claims the city created said policy “solely because the City dislikes the farmer’s profession of his religious beliefs about marriage on Facebook.” Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian non-profit organization with the goal of advocating for religious freedom, filed the 40-page lawsuit on behalf of Stephen Tennes, owner of The Country Mill. Tennes posted to Facebook multiple times that the orchard would...

The West’s Christian heritage is being erased from our consciousness by our political, educational, and media elites. Somehow, the scientific and technological products that originated in the West now arose in a vacuum. Universities like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge have been going to great lengths to minimize or even deny Christians had anything to do with their establishment, but their debt to Christians is undeniable. The fact is everyone on earth owes a great debt to Jesus Christ because those influenced by his teachings were directly responsible for virtually everything that makes our lives the most enjoyable and productive...

A group that believes cannabis has a secret historical role in Christianity is forging ahead with plans to visit the largest Roman Catholic church in the nation during next week's solar eclipse, where members intend to light incense doused with cannabis-infused olive oil. Yet church leaders say the event won't happen. Anne Armstrong, founder and deaconess of Rhode Island's Healing Church, said the Monday afternoon service could "end degeneration, disaster and war" by consecrating the Americas to the Virgin Mary. ... "I don't anticipate any trouble, but if there is, we'll go outside," she said. "If they tell us to...

In some people’s view everyone can be forgiven for their sins other than “racist” “misogynist” President Donald Trump Somewhat like Islamic terrorism, Hillary Clinton is declaring herself her own religion. In her case reinventing herself as an ordained Methodist minister, coming in to the pulpit with an already at the ready schism. Husband Bill and daughter Chelsea will no doubt be shouting “Amen” on Sundays when she takes to the pulpit, with Bill only nodding off occasionally when her homilies run overly long.

Religion is playing a big role in Hillary Clinton's post-election tour. What does she have to gain from sharing her faith now? Hillary Clinton wants to preach. That's what she told Bill Shillady, her long time pastor, at a recent photo shoot for his new book about the daily devotionals he sent her in her during the 2016 campaign.

The 2001 discovery of the seven million-year-old Sahelanthropus, the first known upright ape-like creatures, was yet more proof of humanity’s place among the great apes. And yet Mike Pence, then a representative and now US vice president, argues for the opposite conclusion.For him, our ideas about our ancestors have changed, proving once more that evolution was a theory, and therefore we should be free to teach other theories alongside evolution in our classrooms. How to respond? The usual answer is that we should teach students the meaning of the word “theory” as used in science – that is, a hypothesis...

3 Lines in the Sand from Stephen Nichols Aug 04, 2017 Category: Articles At the turn of the twentieth century, the sciences supposedly knew better than the Bible. Now, the social sciences supposedly know better than the Bible. And we are seeing this new world-view presented artfully and entertainingly through a barrage of media and in the halls of the academy. A casual watcher and listener will be exposed to countless gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals, acts, and ideas—and all without ever leaving mainstream media outlets. These are the times we live in (see TheStateofTheology.com).These challenges have a cumulative effect. They...

The case was over the abduction of Dong-Shik, a South Korean who was a permanent resident of the US and had spent seven years providing aid and proselytizing to North Korean defectors. An Israeli NGO announced on Monday that a US federal court in Washington, DC has granted it a historic $330 million default award judgment against North Korea in a civil damages trial for wrongful death, torture and kidnapping. The judgment, only announced Monday, but written on April 9, included $15 million dollars each to the son and brother of Reverend Dong Shik Kim, presumed dead, as well as...

While it is extremely difficult to measure the extent to which religion impacts Americans, one polling organization has attempted to do so using four criteria. The poll was designed to acquire a sense of how the 50 states compare with each other on the matter of which has the most religious population. The four criteria used were the importance of religion in people’s lives, frequency of attendance at worship services, frequency of prayer, and absolute certainty of belief in God (“How Religious...?,” 2009). As one might expect, more Americans in the “Bible Belt” states indicate that religion is very important...

Religious people's minds are dominated by emotion and not analytical thinking which makes them cling to their views - even when evidence proves them wrong - a study claims. Such 'Emotional resonance' can make individuals hold on to their faith. Meanwhile, militant atheists are completely negative about religion because they have analytical brains, according to researchers.

Dennis Prager’s Aug. 16 guest conductor gig is being protested. An online petition created by some members of the symphony in question wants us to avoid the concert. Attending would “normalize” the kind of bigotry Prager espouses.

Richard Dawkins is no friend to conservatives. The atheist author has spent much of his life deriding Judaism and Christianity. He once stated, "An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor or Baal or the golden calf." Dawkins says that even moderate religious people "make the world safe for extremists." He's far to the left on politics: He's pro-abortion rights, and a supporter of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats in Britain. But he's also smart enough to recognize that radical Islam is a greater threat to human life than...

Nonie Darwish gives a westernized definition of "religion" in her polemic against Islam, "Cruel and Usual Punishment", as follows: 1) a religion must be a personal choice; 2) no religion should kill those who leave it; 3) a religion must never order the killing and subjugation of those who do not choose to be its members; 4) a religion must abide by basic human rights. For the last 70 years, the west has been ostensibly tolerant of individual freedom of conscience and human life (note: the exceptions being abortion, euthanasia, Socialism, etc.) Accepting this definition leads one to conclude that...

The Bible repeatedly states that simple belief in Christ is sufficient for salvation because Christ satisfied all the necessary requirements through His atoning sacrifice.  Through faith in Him we have entered into a permanent Sabbath and have rested from our works (Hebrews 3-4). Though it is through faith alone in Christ alone that we are reconciled to God, we have to be very careful to recognize the Christ to whom we refer.  There are many people named Jesus and many who have been called Christ, but there is only one Jesus Christ with the power to save you.  Many who...

MANILA, Philippines - The expansion of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) continues in the United States with the acquisition of a second town: the long-abandoned Johnsonville in Connecticut, reportedly for $1.85 million. Glicerio Santos Jr., general auditor of the INC, announced over the weekend that their church acquired Johnsonville as part of its aggressive expansion in the US. Reports said the seller of Johnsonville was the Meyer Jabara Hotels, which bought the property for $2.5 million in 2001. Reports also said the sale of the property was quick; emissaries first visited Johnsonville only in late June. The INC earlier acquired...

Choosing denial and willful ignorance instead of knowledge of the motivating ideology of the jihadis who have vowed to destroy us. That’s just asking to be defeated. “If you have an amendment that says we’re going to study one religion and only one, we’re going to look at their leaders and put them on a list — only them — and you are going to talk about what’s orthodox practice and what’s unorthodox, then you are putting extra scrutiny on that religion,” said Muslim Brotherhood-linked Rep. Keith Ellison. Yes, you are. And there is a reason for that: 30,000 jihad...

This is the moment evangelical leaders laid their hands on Donald Trump's back as they prayed over him in the Oval Office. Evangelical pastor Rodney Howard-Browne led a prayer circle alongside his wife Adonica in the White House and then shared the image on Facebook. President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence can be seen closing their eyes and bowing their heads in the solemn moment. The group were invited to pray with Trump during a meeting with members of The Office of Public Liaison. Others pictured included Jack Graham, the pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, and...