Free Republic

Pontiff's show of solidarity during visit to Mexico Pope Francis, who has spent the past several months pressing nations, including America, to embrace those fleeing the unrest in the Middle East, Africa and Asia with open arms - and open borders - is now taking that stance to a new political level and planning a solidarity stand with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico boundary. Market Watch reported Francis is due to arrive in Mexico on Friday for a six-day visit. And as part of that visit, he is planning to stand on the U.S. border, in Ciudad Juarez, and deliver a...

Chelsea Clinton says she left the pro-life Baptist church at age six because they talked about abortion in Sunday Chelsea Clinton claims she left a Baptist church as a child because they started talking about abortion in Sunday when she was just six years old. Chelsea made the comment at a recent fundraiser for her mother Hillary Clinton in an attempt to address evangelicals who question her mother's faith in God and secular voters who say she's too religious, according to The New York Post. A Democrat shared Chelsea's speech with a Post reporter who did not specify where the...

Pope Francis Will Stand With Migrants at U.S. Border Dudley Althaus And José de Córdoba Feb. 9, 2016 8:53 p.m. ET MEXICO CITY—Pope Francis arrives in Mexico on Friday for a six-day visit that will end with a highly symbolic and potentially controversial act: the pontiff taking a stand on the fortified U.S. border to show solidarity with the migrants trying to cross it. The pope’s gesture comes at the height of a rancorous U.S. political season in which immigration has become a hot-button issue. Two leading candidates for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, have vowed to...

A Christian pastor has started offering the UK's first ever baptism service for the transgendered, allowing the afflicted to be welcomed into God's family according to their new, chosen gender identity. The New Chapel (Unitarian and Free Christian) in Greater Manchester unanimously passed the new proposal at its general meeting last week, paving the way for the ceremonies to go ahead in the near future. 'Worship leader' Jean Clements said she came up with the idea after meeting and marrying a gay couple with a small child – a biological boy which they had branded as transgendered and decided was...

I kid you not, Hillary "Jezebel" Clinton claims that her beliefs are aligned with the Ten Commandments and that she is a Christian. I guess I'm not surprised, given that another Saul Alinsky disciple by the name of Barack Hussein Obama Soetoro Sobarkah also claimed to be a Christian. During a town hall meeting in Knoxville, Iowa, a young woman asked Clinton, "I'm just curious how you would say that your beliefs align with the Ten Commandments, and if that's something that's important to you." (Watch ridiculous video at link) "I am a person of faith," declared Clinton. "I am...

The slogan of the United Methodist Church (UMC) is "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors." But UMC officials are now under fire for being closed-minded and intolerant after they banned Discovery Institute, from sponsoring an information table at the denomination's upcoming General Conference in May. Intelligent design is the idea that life and the universe show evidence of being the result of purposeful design rather than unguided processes. "Preventing United Methodist leaders from even hearing about intelligent design isn't open-minded. It's intolerant and exclusionary," said Dr. John West, Vice President of Discovery Institute. "Maybe United Methodist officials should change their...

Pastor Drops Gay Bombshell in Middle of Sunday Sermon 6:00AM EST 1/15/2016 JENNIFER LECLAIRE We're seeing 1 Timothy 4:1 playing out right before our very eyes. It's called the Great Apostasy and it's well underway. "At last I am choosing to serve in that role with full authenticity and as my genuine self—as a woman who loves and shares my life with another woman." Those were the words of Cynthia Meyer, a pastor at Edgerton United Methodist Church, who decided to make her first sermon of 2016 a coming out party. Meyer, 53, has been an ordained UM pastor for...

NEW YORK (AP) - Anglican leaders on Thursday temporarily restricted the role of the U.S. Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the American church's acceptance of gay marriage. Episcopalians have been barred for three years from any policy-setting positions in the Anglican Communion while a task force is formed that will try to reconcile conflicting views over sexuality in the 85-million-member family of churches. The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the United States. The announcement came near the end of a weeklong meeting in Canterbury, England, called by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, to...

The Anglican Communion voted to censure its American branch, the Episcopal Church, during a meeting in Canterbury, England, called to reflect on the future of the communion. The vote Thursday (Jan. 14) to suspend the Episcopal Church from voting and decision-making for a period of three years was leaked a day ahead of a press conference that had been scheduled for Friday.

Vatican City, Jan 13, 2016 / 04:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The influential Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga has acknowledged the presence of a "gay lobby" in the Vatican. In a new interview, he says that Pope Francis has adopted a gradual approach to address it - and that Catholic teaching won't change. The Honduran newspaper El Heraldo asked the cardinal whether there actually was an attempted or successful "infiltration of the gay community in the Vatican." Cardinal Maradiaga responded: "Not only that, also the Pope said: there was even a 'lobby' in this sense." "Little by little the Pope is trying to...

Liberal Christianity - the bastard daughter of the Enlightenment... now there is a line you are not soon to forget. I wish I could say I had written it but I did not. And another one, well, several lines: Unlike either the Renaissance or the Reformation, the Enlightenment had begun not as an attempt to rescue some hallowed past, but as an assault on the past in the name of the future...It was a period which sought to overturn every intellectual assumption, every dogma, every 'prejudice' (a favourite term) that had previously exercised any hold over the minds of...

Tell us again how you love Jesus and support abortion. That’s what Reverend Harry Knox, leader of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) does on a regular basis. The head of the religious group that supports and promotes Planned Parenthood, and does so in the name of God, wants to be sure that in the season that Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, his group of religious leaders would have supported the right to abort the Christ-child. In a letter to the RCRC’s email list this month, Knox wrote: Thank God for abortion providers. Thank God for all the...

The Rev. Franklin Graham quitting the Republican Party poses a significant blow to the GOP's 2016 White House aspirations, especially if other evangelical pastors follow suit and their millions-plus congregations stay away from the polls. Graham suggested earlier this week that the last straw was congressional Republicans funding Planned Parenthood in the recently passed, $1.8 trillion tax-and-spending package, despite revelations about the group harvesting fetal tissue. However, he made clear Wednesday night that the funding was only part of the reason he left the GOP to become an independent. "It's not just that," Graham said on Fox News' "On the...

To be clear, Christmas in the United States, despite the name, has very little to do with Jesus Christ and everything to do with consumerism and gift giving. However, side by side with Easter, it’s also the time when we are most likely to see depictions of Jesus used as tools of white supremacy. In Atlanta, I see them everywhere I go. Jesus as a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby and his blue-eyed supermodel mother are ubiquitous and done without even a slight hint of humor. It's preposterous. It would truly be no different from depicting Christopher Columbus as a dark-skinned African...

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama delivered a videotaped Christmas message to the nation yesterday. In this message, the president said: "Today, like millions of Americans and Christians around the world, our family celebrates the birth of Jesus and the values He lived in his own life." The president and his family are on vacation in Hawaii. The last piece of legislation he signed was on Dec. 18. It was the omnibus spending bill, which permits funding of Planned Parenthood. ...

In August 1980, Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan stood before a crowd of 15,000 evangelicals in Dallas, Texas, and declared: “I know you can’t endorse me. But...I want you to know that I endorse you.” Shortly thereafter, various leaders of what would become known as the religious right would endorse Reagan, and their support would help make him the 40th president of the United States. In December 2015, several dozen religious right leaders gathered yet again—this time in secret, at a Sheraton hotel outside Washington, D.C.—to determine which candidate would earn their endorsement. After four rounds of balloting, one candidate...

A couple of weeks ago, before a "moderate Muslim" couple lit up San Bernardino, a duo, by the way, that BHO's boys "vetted" to immigrate into the US, I read a column telling Christians not to vote for Trump should he win the GOP ticket because he didn't pass the "Word of God" litmus test. The Christian writer said evangelicals shouldn't support The Donald primarily because Trump mocked the disabled NYT reporter Serge Kovaleski. That, for said writer, was a holy deal breaker. He also pointed out that Trump was cocky, cheeky and braggadocious and that, my dear brethren, was...

Acceptance of homosexuality is rising across the broad spectrum of American Christianity, including among members of churches that strongly oppose homosexual relationships as sinful, according to an extensive Pew Research Center survey of U.S. religious beliefs and practices.

Evangelical leaders are urging fellow Christians to welcome refugees from Syria and Iraq despite opposition by many governors and presidential candidates. Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Assemblies of God, World Relief and other Christian groups said they would not surrender to fears surrounding the issue. ...

A group of liberal clergy and religious leaders are calling on Texas Governor Greg Abbot to reverse his decision to revoke taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business. Abbott’s administration cut taxpayer funding for the abortion company after it was caught selling the body parts of aborted babies, though Planned Parenthood is fighting in court to keep taxpayers on the dole. “The gruesome harvesting of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood will not be allowed in Texas, and the barbaric practice must be brought to an end,” Abbott said at the time. The signers (some listed below) of the...