Free Republic

Home and business owners who plan to rebuild after the June 1st tornados might be eligible for state money if they decide to 'go green'. The new incentives, offered by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, will be given to anyone who has had damage from the tornados and plans to make energy efficient upgrades to their home as they rebuild. Bobbie Williams and her husband were at their home on King Street when the tornado hit. They have been living in a trailer for two months as they try to rebuild their home and plan to take advantage of...

It is telling that the Washington Post report on the religious Left’s Circle of Protection campaign for big government describes the effort as one that would “send chills through any politician who looks to churches and religious groups as a source of large voting blocs,” because, in fact, this is not an honest faith-inspired campaign to protect the “least of these” from Draconian government cuts, as claimed. It is a hyper-political movement that offers up the moral authority of churches and aid organizations to advance the ends of the Obama administration and its allies in Congress. The Circle of Protection, led by Jim Wallis and...

The headline on the July 14, 2011, edition of the British paper, The Telegraph, heralded some very bad news for British Anglicans. It declared, “Aging Church of England 'will be dead in 20 years.'” They buttressed their argument in two ways: 1. The average age of a Church of England attendee is 61 (you do the math).2. In the last 40 years, church attendance has been cut in half.You would think that the Archbishop of Canterbury would wake up and smell the coffee. Instead, a few weeks earlier, he finally came clean. Well, he was forced to come clean. For...

In the past I have mentioned that catholic liberals right now are using the clerical abuse issue as a blunt instrument with which to bludgeon any issue or any person they don’t like. If they don’t like, say, the Church’s teaching about the impossibility of the ordination of women, the Church should change its “policy” because, of course, the bishops failed to prevent the sexual abuse of children. If they don’t like that a bishop sticks to the Church’s teaching on contrary-to-nature unions, then he should just shut up, because bishops failed in the sphere of clerical abuse. If they...

As an out Presbyterian preacher, I'd experienced prejudice before. But nothing like what I faced in North CarolinaI was reading "Home in Henderson" -- the unofficial city website for a small town in North Carolina where I had recently moved to preach -- when I came across the blog entry. It was posted under the pseudonym "Church Reporter." "A friend that attends the First Presbyterian Church told me to do a Google search on their new minister Brett Webb-Mitchell," the entry began. "Having done so, I have only three comments to make on the pastor selection: 1. Who is responsible...

Dear Republican Leaders: The Republican Party has become the party dedicated to sabotaging the American future. Check out the sermon I just delivered about the Republican Party on CNN when being interviewed by D.L. Hughley -- and/or read on. You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do...

The earth bursts with life. Far right exclusionary religion bursts with death. If there is a creator of life He/She/It must hate fundamentalist religion. The countries in the world that are the most fundamentalist and religious, and/or those whose identity is most religion-based, are the world's greatest troublemakers. Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Vatican City and the state of Israel come to mind. Just take one example of religion’s baleful influence: President Woodrow Wilson’s messianic religion-inspired intervention in World War One. "My life would not be worth living” Wilson wrote, “if it were not for the driving power of...

This month, I intended to take a rest from writing so I could just enjoy my time out in Colorado. In fact, aside from hunting and learning a few songs on my guitar (yes, I’m having a midlife crisis) I did not plan to do a thing in July. But the liberals keep doing stupid things and sending me stupid emails. So I have to pick up my pen and write – either that or ruin a perfectly good midlife crisis by having a heart attack. The thing that has my blood boiling right now is the misuse of five...

For all of the political drama in New York these past weeks, Friday night’s historic vote in favor of ay marriage by the NYS Senate was actually rather anti-climactic. It was a fight over political and philosophical nomenclature, not over new realities. As the losing side licks its wounds, we should realize that we didn’t lose as much as we think we did last night. We’ve been losing it for decades. What we call the lived reality that is marriage is important. The name indicates the reality. Nomen est omen, as it is said in latin. “The name is the...

More than 200 United Methodist clergy in Illinois have pledged to flout church policy and bless unions for same-sex couples, putting their jobs, homes and callings in jeopardy if couples take advantage of their offer.Methodists in the Northern Illinois Conference also called on the global church to impose no more than a 24-hour suspension for clergy who defy the policy.Elders, deacons and pastors took their stand after civil unions in Illinois became legal this month. But they said their determination to support same-sex unions has been fueled further by a church trial last week in which a jury found a...

Church of England To Allow Gay Clergy To Become Bishops The Church of England is using the Equality Act as a “smokescreen” for allowing gay clergymen to become bishops, according to the leader of the National Secular Society. By Donna Bowater 19 Jun 2011 Guidance due to be published on Monday was expected to pave the way for homosexual clerics in civil partnerships to become bishops provided they remained celibate. The document, published in response to last year’s Equality Act, will be sent to the General Synod before it meets in York next month. The paper said: "Someone in a...

Gay Presbyterians throughout the suburbs now have the opportunity to rise from the pews and into the ranks of the ordained. After decades of debate, Blackhawk Presbytery — which oversees many of the congregations in the Fox Valley and northwestern Illinois — recently became one of 21 presbyteries so far to reverse course on gay ordination. But even with a movement toward acceptance of homosexuality in popular culture, the Rev. John Rickard of Blackhawk Presbytery said he was surprised, but not necessarily dismayed, by the outcome of the vote among his congregations. “Do I think it's going to destroy our...

A progressive religious organization, American Values Network, has a new ad out attacking conservative leaders like Rush Limbaugh and Paul Ryan by criticizing their appreciation for Ayn Rand’s philosophical views. ... And, of course, the group has tied to George Soros. Stu pointed out that they received at least $800,000 from Soros.org, his website for the Open Society Institute.

Gay rights campaigners have urged mosque leaders in east London to ban homophobic clerics from using their premises, following a 21% rise in gay hate crime in the area. Activists, including journalist Julie Bindel and Pride trustee Colm Howard-Lloyd, said some preachers at the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre had "created an atmosphere in which hate is socially acceptable; they have spread a message in which maiming and violence is the most dutiful, honourable, devout thing to do". Their concerns follow the £100 fine given to Mohammed Hasnath, who put up "Gay-Free Zone" stickers in the area;

Earlier this month, the national Presbyterian Church approved a change in its constitution to allow openly gay church members to serve as ministers and church leaders. It is a change that one local church pastor says has been a long time coming. "It's been a Presbyterian family quarrel for about 30 years," said Jonathan Smoot, interim pastor at Falls Church Presbyterian Church..."It's just ridiculous to lift up sexual orientation as a primary criterion for that person's character or suitability for ministry," Smoot said. "I hope this puts an end to it.""It needs to be read in its historical context and...

Now that pro-gay liberals in the Presbyterian Church (USA) have succeeded in their 30-year efforts to allow the ordination of gays, a small but influential group of conservative churches have decided to give up the fight to change the Book of Order back to the way it was since 1997 when the original ban was approved. Rev. Janet Edwards, a Presbyterian minister in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, also serves as Co-Moderator for More Light Presbyterians, which has been pushing for “full inclusion” of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in PC(USA) for years. In her Huffington Post article, she noted that: Our...

It appears that The Rapture leading to the end of the world predicted by a Christian radio broadcaster for this past Saturday, May 21, did not take place. And the failure was covered worldwide. A Google search on Saturday evening yielded over 32,000 articles — in English alone — in the world media. The secular, especially the anti-religious, Left enjoys these spectacles of religious foolishness. They seem to confirm not only how absurd these end-of-days predictions are, but how absurd religion is in general. But the Left should not laugh too loudly. The religious world has far fewer doomsday predictions...

At a press conference last week, someone asked Chris Christie for his views on evolution vs. creationism. "That's none of your business," the New Jersey governor barked in response. ...it says even more about the current state of the national Republican Party, where magical thinking trumps rationality, and even to acknowledge basic realities about the world we live in runs the risk of damaging one's political future. Christie is not part of the natural constituency for Darwin-denial... (but) he must constantly ask himself the question: Am I about to say something to which a white, evangelical, socially conservative, gun-owning, Obama-despising,...

EV Leads Effort to Reopen Rules Governing Adoption and Foster Care Agencies; Asks State Board to Suspend Rules Until Additional Comments Received At a press conference today, Equality Virginia released its letter written to the chair of the Virginia State Board of Social Services and the Commissioner of the Department asking that the recently adopted rules governing licensed child placing agencies be suspended pending further public comment. James Parrish, Equality Virginia's Executive Director, made the following statement about EV's action: Children in the child welfare system and prospective foster and adoptive parents have the right to be protected against discrimination....

... far too many Americans who identify themselves as “Christians” are taking the easy way out and bowing down to Islam, in an effort to avoid a conflict that has been raging for 1400 years. A conflict in which Christians are clearly losing! Pulpit pals: Christians, Jews, Muslims plan shared worship BY ADELLE M. BANKS Religious and human rights activists are asking U.S. churches to invite Jewish and Muslim clergy to their sanctuaries to read from sacred texts next month in an initiative designed to counter anti-Muslim bigotry. The June 26 initiative, called “Faith Shared: Uniting in Prayer and Understanding,”...