Free Republic

Non-believers are often more educated, more tolerant and know more about God than the pious. A new wave of research is trying to figure out what goes on in the minds of an ever-growing group of people known as the "Nones". Barry Kosmin is a different kind of market researcher. His data focuses on consumers targeted by companies like Lifechurch.tv or World Overcomers Christian Church TM. The sociologist analyzes church-affiliated commercial entities, from souvenir shops to television channels and worship services. But the most significant target of Kosmin's research is the consumer group most likely to shy away from such...

Atheists and agnostics have a lot to learn from gays about the essential role of coming out in any long-term battle for personal respect and political recognition in American society. When New York’s state Senate passed a historic bill legalizing gay marriage last weekend, I happened to be attending a reunion of my eighth-grade class at St. Thomas Aquinas School in East Lansing, MI. A striking fact about this group of men and women, raised on the Catholic and American verities of the 1950s, was that many of my classmates, influenced by gay relatives and friends, long ago discarded the...

Andrea Minichiello Williams. Credit: Christian Concern London, England, Jul 1, 2011 / 05:59 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The head of the U.K.'s Christian Legal Centre sees persecution of Christians in public life, looming behind controversial recent remarks by Equality and Human Rights Commissioner Trevor Phillips. Andrea Minichiello Williams, who directs the legal center, told CNA that Phillips also sounded “naive,” saying he “doesn't seem to be living in the same Britain that I'm living in.” Williams is not the only one who wondered where Phillips got some of the ideas he expressed in a June 19 interview with the Telegraph newspaper....

Denver, Colo., May 21, 2011 / 11:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- European and American experts say changing Malta's divorce ban would show weakness to radical Muslims, who could capitalize on the island's drift toward secularism to push for Islamic laws. “Forced secularism is a gift to the radical Muslims,” said Stephen Schwartz, a U.S. author and researcher on the Islamic world. “They have the perspective that confusion and secularization is good among the Christians.”“Everybody has reason to be worried about radical Islam, and this is an issue of radical Islam,” said Schwartz, founder of the Washington-based Center for Islamic Pluralism....

The United Church of Canada, which was formed 86 years ago with the grand vision to bring Protestants together “in one glorious national church,” is undergoing one of the most precipitous slides in modern religious history. In the midst of a breathtaking erosion in its membership, the church is undertaking what some call a great experiment to redefine itself through an intense engagement with the surrounding secular world; whether it be through advocating for the environment, fighting for the rights of homosexuals to marry or taking on the cause of the Palestinians, the church has attempted to blur the boundaries...

ARIS — France’s governing party pressed ahead on Tuesday with a controversial debate on the nature of secularism and the challenges of Islam, an exercise criticized by some in the government and numerous religious leaders and ridiculed as cynical by both the Socialist opposition and the far-right National Front. Jean-François Copé, the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement, spoke Tuesday in Paris at a discussion of secularism and Islam in French society. Held at a Paris hotel in the presence of some 600 religious leaders, legislators and journalists, the debate was shunned by prominent members of the government,...

Where have all the children gone? It's a problem that Mark Steyn first addressed in his book America Alone. Other than a piece Jonathan Last recently wrote for Weekly Standard, few if any reporters, pundits, politicians, or scholars seemed to take any interest. This is rather astonishing in so far as everything from our national security, economy, and future well-being depends on our ability to procreate. As Mark Steyn quipped, "...a people that won't multiply can't go forth or go anywhere. Those who do will shape the age we live in." If one is to glimpse at the TFR (Total...

The Arab revolt underway in Egypt may be unique. Previous popular uprisings were underwritten by anti-colonial sentiments. Contemporary revolts, (including unrest in Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, and Jordan) target nationalist or secular governments. The wealthiest Arab states, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, have been financing the ideological struggle against Arab secularism through surrogates like the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood (al Ikwan) for decades. Now the most populous state in the Arab League, Egypt, may fall to the Brotherhood like a ripe pomegranate. A brief history of previous Arab revolts offers some perspective. The corrupt Ottoman caliphate in Istanbul was the target for...

Miguel Diaz, the US ambassador to the Holy See, gave an interview to Vatican Radio after Pope Benedict’s address about the state of the world in which he claimed that faith groups in the US did not have a problem with intolerant  secularism.In response to Pope Benedict’s  warning against the marginalisation of religion in Western society in the name of a false pluralism Ambassador Diaz said:‘“One of the great treasures of American society has been religious tolerance, its at the heart of what it is to be American. We do not have this kind of radical secularism that dismisses the positive...

Father Cantalamessa's 2nd Advent Sermon "The Christian Response to Secularism" VATICAN CITY, DEC. 11, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is the Advent reflection delivered Friday by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher of the Pontifical Household, for Benedict XVI and members of the Roman Curia. The talk was titled: "We Proclaim to You the Eternal Life (1 John 1:2): The Christian Response to Secularism." * * *1. Secularization and secularismIn this meditation we are concerned with the second obstacle evangelization encounters in the modern Western world: secularization. Stated in the motu proprio with which the Pope instituted the Pontifical Council for Promoting...

Evangelization Needs Belief in Eternity, Says Preacher Father Cantalamessa Gives Advent Sermon to Pope and Curia VATICAN CITY, DEC. 10, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa says that a renewed faith in eternal life is one of the keys to the New Evangelization. The preacher of the Pontifical Household offered this suggestion today during the second of three Advent sermons that he is giving in the presence of the Pope and the Roman Curia.Father Cantalamessa proposed at the beginning of the series to offer "a small contribution to the need of the Church" for a New Evangelization, concretely by examining three...

In ancient Rome, the contest was Christians vs. lions. In Loudoun County today, it's Christians vs. atheists. This year, the atheists came out on top. Unlike in Rome, neither side ate the other. But the passions still run strong in what's becoming an annual competition each December for 10 precious spots on the lawn of the historic county courthouse in Leesburg, where the rivals get a chance to publicly promote their philosophies. One side celebrates the birth of Jesus with Nativity scenes and a Christmas tree. The other marks the winter solstice with banners and signs praising reason, denouncing religion...

Holiday decorations can easily become controversial because Christmas is both a national and a religious holiday, and anything that refers to Christmas can feel like “an alien symbol being forced upon a non-Christian population,” said Jack Santino, a professor in the department of popular culture at Bowling Green State University.

Moscow Patriarchate, Vatican wage common fight against secular liberalism - Patriarch Kirill Moscow, November 19, Interfax -Despite a difficult relationship between the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches, they have been effectively cooperating along many avenues, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia told students and diplomats at the Russian Foreign Ministry Diplomatic Academy in Moscow. "Together with the Roman Catholic Church we have been defending the traditional Christian concept of family and human values from aggressive secular liberalism. Our Churches are waging a common fight against medico-biological experiments incompatible with respect for human dignity," His Holiness said. Cooperation...

Originally the message of the Tea Party seemed clear “Less taxes and spending”. Simple enough, Right? Somehow they have gotten distracted. Very, very distracted. I know that all Tea Parties and their participants are different, so it is not fair for me to throw them all under the bus. So for those who are distracted; let me attempt to recapture your attention. You wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of breaking glass, when you stumble out of your bed into the living room you find a man standing there with your TV in his arms....

Archbishop Charles Chaput Spisske Podhradie, Slovakia, Aug 25, 2010 / 05:48 am (CNA).- Addressing the first session of the 15th symposium for the Canon Law Association of Slovakia on Tuesday, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver called for Catholics in America and Europe to oppose the rise of a “state-encouraged atheism” which reduces religion to “an individual lifestyle accessory” incapable of influencing the world. The archbishop exhorted Christians to respond to these trends by rediscovering their historic faith as the only sound basis for a just society.Recalling the historical experience of the Slovakian Church under Communism, Archbishop Chaput told the assembly...

Regarding the destructiveness of "gay marriage": To me, what is at stake in this debate is not only the potential unhappiness of children, grave as that is; it is our ability to maintain the most basic components of our humanity. I believe, in fact, that we are at an “Antigone moment.” ... The Apostle Paul speaks of “the wisdom of the world” but there it means a kind of assumption of wisdom where in fact none exists. Reducing all wisdom to within the Church is merely the reverse of the secular paradigm, imposing a categorical distinction where in fact none...

Americans celebrate their independence today in a very different society from the one born in 1776. The beliefs the Founders held most dear, and upon which they built a uniquely free society, are largely alien -- even objectionable -- in today's America. I am not referring to the changes brought about by President Obama, but to a deeper change that preceded Obama and which fueled his ascendancy. The principles of freedom upon which America was built -- such as the ideas that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights -- arose from...

For atheist human rights activist, crucifix in Italian classrooms not against secularism Nirmala Carvalho According to Lenin Raghuvanshi, “Human rights and democracy do not exist in a vacuum, in a value-neutral space. Denying the identity, culture and history of a society is a violation of secularism and human rights.” New Delhi (AsiaNews) – “The crucifix in Italian classrooms is not a tradition that goes against the values of secularism,” Indian human rights activist Lenin Raghuvanshi told AsiaNews. “A secular education means learning from history and logic. Jesus Christ brought peace, reconciliation, non-violence and justice in the world,” said Raghuvanshi who...

While many secular scholars mock the prophetic writings of the Old and New Testaments as being irrational and fundamentalist, and too many Christians seemingly chime in by eschewing the idea of a literal fulfillment of such apocalyptic predictions, especially when it comes to great events like the Rapture of the Church (1 Cor. 15:51-52; 1 Thess. 4:13-18), the Great Tribulation (Jer. 30:1-7; Rev 6-19), the Second Coming of Christ (Matt 24:30-31; Rev 19:11-16), the glorious Millennial Messianic Kingdom of the future when the people of Israel will finally receive the full benefits of all of their covenants promised to them...