Free Republic

BERKELEY — Religious affiliation in the United States is at its lowest point since it began to be tracked in the 1930s, according to analysis of newly released survey data by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Duke University. Last year, one in five Americans claimed they had no religious preference, more than double the number reported in 1990.

The retirement of Benedict XVI and speculation about his potential successors have brought back the old categories for Catholic clergy and laity – liberal, progressive, and conservative – in the secular media. But the media have missed a critical point: while there are certainly various viewpoints within the Church (which has always been the case, and is a good and healthy condition so long as these viewpoints are faithful), these labels, as they have been used for decades, no longer fit the current state of the Church. “Liberal” or “progressive” were terms applied in the years after the Second Vatican...

A Most Puzzling Puzzler I invite the reader to think through an interesting and very serious conundrum. Many of us are rightly alarmed at ever-bolder attempts by our increasingly secular state to violate the religious liberty of its citizens. To ward off such violations, we embrace the relevant part of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”  We therefore invoke the so-called “Free Exercise Clause” as a shield to impede attempts by the state to control or prohibit the free exercise of our religious convictions (and...

Religious freedom experts are decrying a recent announcement by the French government that it will deport and dissolve groups that are labeled extreme and appear to suffer from “religious pathology.” … At a Dec. 11 conference, French interior minister Manuel Valls announced that new government surveillance policies will be aimed at shutting down religious groups including traditionalist Catholics if they show signs of a “religious pathology” that could lead to violence, reported Reuters. The conference was held two days after French president François Hollande announced the creation of a new agency, the “National Observatory of Secularism,” to observe and promote...

The truth is a hard thing to hear and even a more bitter pill to swallow. But until we face the truth, we are doomed to sink lower into the abyss as a society. The truth is that a godless nation is a nation doomed to fall. We as a nation have slowly accepted and pompously come to believe that wisdom begins and stems from us. Secularism is the view that all things religious should be excluded from daily public living, specifically pertaining to political and social concerns. Thanks to secularism, the mindset today is that God and religious opinion...

On Monday night, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly had some tough words for secular progressives, highlighting their purportedly dangerous views on social and economic issues. The subject of his “Talking Points Memo” segment asked, “Is traditional America gone for good?”The popular television host commenced the segment by noting his belief that traditional America can, once again, rise to prominence, however, he contended that “it will take a very special person to make that happen.” To corroborate O’Reilly’s point that the nation may, indeed, bounce back to its traditional roots, he noted that, despite winning re-election, Obama is slipping in popularity.“Left-wing ideology...

(RNS) Last month, Lauren Anderson Youngblood, communications manager for the Secular Coalition for America, approached Broderick Johnson, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign, as they both left a conference on religion and the election. The SCA is an umbrella group representing 11 nontheistic organizations. So who, Youngblood asked Johnson, could she reach out to with their concerns about civil rights, access to health care and education? “He said, ‘We don’t view you as a constituency,’” Youngblood said. “He said, ‘We don’t do outreach to that community.’” After Tuesday's election, that may soon change. According to a Pew Forum on...

Until recently, Americans were used to hearing about threats to religious freedom in other countries. “From the end of World War II, for about 50 years, our understanding of religious liberty was relatively stable,” Notre Dame professor Gerard Bradley said in a Georgetown University seminar on October 24, 2012. “Our understanding was that the greatest threat to religious liberty was public authority. But somewhere around the turn of the millennium, that changed.” “At around this time, what has previously been thought of as a canonical definition of religious freedom turned into a relativistic one,” Bradley said. “There are two kinds...

LILLE, France (Reuters) - Police in France said on Friday they were trying to identify the skeleton of a man believed to have lain undiscovered in bed for more than 15 years. The body, found in an abandoned house in the northern city of Lille, is thought to be that of the elderly owner of the property, who lived alone and appeared to have no relatives. Police said they had found piles of unopened mail at the house dating back to 1996.

A woman throws icons away in a propaganda poster which states, "The Bright Light of Science Has Proven That There Is No God." Denver, Colo., Oct 19, 2012 / 05:43 pm (CNA).- Some 40 Soviet propaganda posters against Christianity will soon be displayed at Denver’s Catholic cathedral as part of an exhibit dedicated to religious liberty. “These posters remind us that societies can turn very deadly when you have a kind of radical secularism which manifests in an anti-Christian attitude … you see it in all its ugliness through the lens of these posters,” Father Doug Grandon told CNA...

Adam Gopnik is a gifted essayist and writer whose contributions, often published in The New Yorker, are almost always thoughtful and interesting. Nevertheless, one of his most recent writings is deeply disturbing, and at the deepest level. Reflecting on the debate between Vice President Joseph Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan, Gopnik registered alarm at “something genuinely disturbing and scary” that had been said by Paul Ryan. Gopnik first complained that Biden and Ryan should not have even been asked about the role their Roman Catholic faith plays in their thinking, specifically on the issue of abortion. Gopnik then wrote: “Paul...

This is clearly the implication of the media reports following the latest Pew Research, "Nones on the Rise," which shows a "steep decline" in the number of Americans who self-identify as Protestant, coupled with a "significant jump" in the number of those who now claim "no religion." The secular devotees in the media seem hardly able to constrain their delight over the prospect that Christianity is disappearing in America. Trying to spin this in such a way that the Christian faith appears culturally vital in the U.S. is a little like putting lipstick on a pig; but concluding that Christianity...

According to a recent study, religion is dying in America. And it’s a trend that has grave implications for our politics, culture, and the fate of our civilization. Ben Fearnow of CBS News reports on the story, writing: ...The study also posits some theories for this burgeoning irreligiosity, which, writes Fearnow, “run the gamut from a backlash against the entanglement of religion and politics to a global relationship between economic development and secularization.” Now, I don’t know if that “gamut” includes the obvious, but these two theories miss the mark. Question: Do we wonder why Pakistan is spawning jihadists when...

In 2008, Barack Obama stole a chunk of religious voters from the GOP by clothing his secularist and socialist positions in quasi-religious garb.“People of faith” received their own slot on his campaign web site, a mere two tabs down from the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community.” Obama “valued” the religious, as he put it. He particularly valued their votes. Obama has long believed in the separation of church and state but not in the separation of bogus religiosity from winning.This year his pitch to the religious is a little more tricky in light of the HHS mandate and other...

Dr Rowan Williams is retiring as the Archbishop of Canterbury to take up the post of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. His “valedictory” book, Faith in the Public Square, is attracting considerable media interest. I was prompted to buy it after reading Dr William Oddie’s particularly colorful review in the London Catholic Herald. Oddie concluded that the ideas promoted in the book are the sort of impractical nonsense one only hears on Oxbridge high tables and in senior common rooms. I have never met Dr Williams but I once quoted him in a paper I delivered in Italy, a short...

Transhumanism is a powerfully influential planetary 'elite' movement that believes man can begin a radical transfiguration of himself by merging his brain with technology with the long term goal of eventually transferring his 'essence' out of his decaying body and into a highly advanced robo-machine. A Daily Mail article reported that, '...inserting technology into human brains is not the only thing going on. Some scientists also want to insert human brains into technology" ("Hitler would have loved The Singularity: Mind-blowing benefits of merging human brains and computers," Ian Morris, 6 February 2012, dailymail.co.uk) In July 2012, transhumanism officially came out...

Last week, before an audience of millions of Americans, the new president made a telling statement. Alluding to the American founders, President Barack Obama, in his Inaugural Address, stated: “The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.” This seemed to be a reference to the Declaration of Independence, or at least to the principles in that sacred...

So here we have 'Jared Loughner #2' with a twist; James Eagen Homles as Batman's nemesis 'The Joker'.Are guns to blame? I say no. Secularism taught in the schools is to blame. Children today are indoctrinated into their social media culture where religions of all kinds are mocked, especially Christians and God Almighty. The mere mention of God is subject to attack and relentless bullying. The 'G' word is met with the same fierce reaction as the 'N' word. Blaming guns for a person's actions is a diversion from the REAL culprit in our society; The secular, Godless individual.

The recently highlighted “crisis of Zionism” is in fact a quandary afflicting Jewry and no new phenomenon. Rather, it has two sources, each centuries old. One source is the exile and dispersion of a majority of the Jewish people from their native land of Israel by Emperor Hadrian in the year 135 CE, and the deep-seated and long-lasting consequences on the Jewish psyche over the course of the ensuing 1,813 years; the other source is about 200 years old, a gradual religious erosion which begins with the radical Reform movement of Samuel Holdheim in Germany and David Einhorn in the...

Sometimes today you encounter stories that are truly jaw-dropping, like this one being reported by the Washington Post. Headlined, "The Crime of Circumcision," it deals with a ruling issued by a judge in Germany that prohibits Jews from circumcizing their baby boys: A district judge in Cologne, Germany, recently ruled that ritual circumcision is a crime, violating “the fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity,” which outweighs other parental and religious rights. “This change runs counter to the interests of the child,” the court concluded, “who can decide his religious affiliation himself later in life.” Circumcision is a rite...