Free Republic

Palpably illustrating its indifference to the Arab Christian population’s fate, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) unity government on Tuesday largely brushed off the detailed threat by an Islamic State (ISIS) affiliate in Jerusalem to “purify” the city of Christians. The ISIS announcement was posted in the eastern part of the capital city last Thursday, and in it the ISIS affiliate threatened to murder all Christians in the Muslim Arab neighborhoods during the month of Ramadan, starting with Shuafat and on to the Muslim sections of the Old City. It also threatened an attack against the Church of the Nativity located...

Oklahoma's Supreme Court says the Ten Commandments monument at the state Capitol must be removed because it indirectly benefits the Jewish and Christian faiths in violation of the state's constitution. The court ruled Tuesday that the Oklahoma Constitution bans using public property to benefit a religion, and said the Ten Commandments are "obviously religious in nature." Attorney General Scott Pruitt argued that the monument is nearly identical to a Texas monument that was found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Oklahoma justices said the local monument violates Oklahoma's constitution. Private funds were used to erect the monument in 2012. Since...

Full title: Christians in Niger Forgive Muslims Who Burned Churches and Killed Believers: 'We Want Them to Know Jesus Christ' Christians living in Niger, West Africa have offered Christ-like forgiveness to the radical Muslims who destroyed their homes and churches, are are continuing to share the Gospel in the region. On January 17, hundreds of Muslims, angered by the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad published by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, destroyed 69 churches and 11 Christian homes. Ten Christians lost their lives and hundreds more were injured in the wake of the deadly rampage. "They took pews, Bibles, chairs...

MERIWETHER COUNTY, Ga. -A Meriwether County high school principal claims he was fired after he prayed with a group of students during a volunteer Christian meeting. Dr. Michael Lehr said he just wants the facts to come out and that he's relying on his faith to get him through this. News Radio 106.7's Nathalie Pozo spoke with several students and parents who are outraged this happened to what they call a kind, dedicated, well respected man. Now, the community is rallying behind him. “It is breaking our hearts its breaking our hearts… because it is not supposed to be like...

Columnist George Will points out that Apple’s openly gay CEO, Tim Cook, “... thinks Indiana is a terrible place. (But) He opened marketing and retail operations in Saudi Arabia two months before a man was sentenced to 450 lashes for being gay.” Will was commenting on Cook’s recent Washington Post op-ed protesting Indiana’s new, now amended, Religious Freedom Restoration Act and similar initiatives around the country. Cook has recently been in the United Arab Emirates negotiating on behalf of Apple, where homosexuality is against the law and the penalty is death. Cook’s duplicity is not just in deeds, but also...

No good deed goes unpunished; this must be what US Ambassador to China Gary Locke must have been thinking as a firestorm of criticism erupted over his embassy’s handling of the Chen Guangcheng case. Under great pressure, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner arriving for high profile talks with China’s leadership, the embassy and colleagues in the State Department including Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Kurt Campbell had negotiated a delicate deal with Chinese counterparts that Chen accepted. Negotiated with the involvement of top legal scholar Jerome Cohen, and based on a...

New York City public schools have added two Muslim holidays to the school calendar, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina announced Wednesday. Schools will now close for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, making New York City the largest school district in the nation to recognize the two holidays on the official school calendar. “We are committed to having a school calendar that reflects and honors the extraordinary diversity of our students,” said Farina. De Blasio said the change means that Muslim families won’t be forced to choose between observing the holidays and sending their kids to school....

The horror show into which the Middle East has transformed over the last four years continues — and expands. ISIS released a videotape today showing not one beheading of a hostage, but the simultaneous beheadings of 21 Christian hostages. The beheadings took place not in Syria or Iraq, but in Libya: The terrorists known as ISIS released a video on Sunday that seems to show the militant group beheading 21 Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya.The Egyptians, dressed in orange jump suits, were beheaded after being forced down on the ground on a beach. An early caption in the video says...

The el Tawheed mosque has been contorversial for years already. Younger people are being strenghtened in their hate against Dutch people, and are being stimulated to use violence in the war against unbelievers. In his sermons imam El Shershaby says that Jews control the media and weapons-industry, and together with the Christans they want to destroy islam. From the mosque flyers were handed out were Jews, Christians and unbelievers are called 'fuel for the fires of hell'. The mosque also sells books in which is printed that homosexuals should be thrown off high buildings, 'with their heads down'. The Dutch...

Washington, D.C. (July 29, 2009) – International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Islamic extremists killed a pastor and razed five churches in the city of Maiduguri, Nigeria, on July 27. The extremists also attacked two churches in the Nigerian city of Potiskum. Yakubu Sabo, a husband and father of seven, was hacked to death with a machete by members of a violent Islamic militant group know as Boko Haram (which means “education is prohibited”). Sabo pastored a Church of Christ congregation in Maiduguri. Deeper Life Church, Evangelical Mission, and Church of the Brethren are three of five other churches...

FULL TITLE: Christian parents accused of 'cruelty' in their 17-year-old transgender daughter's suicide note REFUSE to accept her female identity - but insist they loved 'him' The mother of a transgender teen who killed herself over the holiday season is speaking out, and making it clear she did not and does not approve of what she believes was her daughter's choice to be transgender. Carla Alcorn of Kings Mills, Ohio said in an interview that she and her husband did not 'support' their daughter Leelah Alcorn, while also refusing to acknowledge her daughter's sex, using male pronouns and referring to...

We all know how tolerant radical Shari’a Muslims are toward Christians, especially when it comes to kidnapping, torture, hangings, and beheadings. As brutal as they are toward Western Christians, they are even worse (if that’s possible) toward Islamic converts. It’s also no secret that Shari’a based Islamic governments don’t like to be criticized for the iron veil of oppression by which they control their populations. So in 2009 when an Iranian web publisher petitioned Sweden for asylum in order to escape political persecution from the strangulating Iranian government, one would think the welcome mat would have been laid out...

The Salvation Army on Tuesday settled a decade-old lawsuit that charged it with engaging in religious discrimination by requiring its government-funded social service employees to reveal their beliefs and to agree to act in accordance with the Christian gospel. As part of the settlement, approved by a federal judge in Manhattan, the Salvation Army will distribute to its New York employees who work in programs that receive government financing a document stating that they need not adhere to the group’s religious principles while doing their jobs, nor may they be asked about their religious beliefs. The Salvation Army, which is...

It’s a compelling story, isn’t it? A 7 year old’s birthday party invitation returned to the senders (two gay dads) with that note on it? The radio station posted that note on their Facebook page mid week this past week, and of course, readers went completely crazy over it, expressing their due outrage and offering their sympathy and support to the fathers. It spread like wildfire. The problem with the story, though, is that Steve Harper and Deanna (last name unknown) made up the entire thing, right down to the actual invitation, which they apparently hand-crafted. And they wrote this...

Her story is the stuff Hollywood films are made of. She is a severely disabled woman with an inspiring story and the singer of a sweet song entitled "Alone and Yet Not Alone," a piece about the person who stood by her side and helped with her struggles.  The song was recently nominated for an Academy Award. The singer is Joni Earekson Tada, who was left a quadriplegic at age 17 after a diving accident crippled her for life.  She can't even use her hands.  But despite her disability, she became an artist, an author, and a speaker.  A strong and powerful advocate...

In his excellent and prophetic book Trousered Apes, Professor Duncan Williams documented extensively the banishment of God from society in the West and said that as a result, "the Western world and its culture is saturated with violence and animalism....We are teaching savagery and are naively appalled at the success of our instruction." Professor Williams continues, "What shocks an audience today will be acceptable tomorrow and thus the contemporary dramatist [or reality show producer, my note] is constantly impelled to seek further excesses to gratify a warped taste which he has himself implanted in the public mind....The whole modern cult...

LOS ANGELES, January 28, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Sunday night’s Grammy Awards show was all about shock value. Scantily-clad singers, same-sex “marriages” set to anti-Christian lyrics, simulated sex acts and a performance full of demonic imagery by pop star Katy Perry – who used to be Christian artist Katy Hudson – were just a few of the on-stage stunts that seemed custom-designed to offend Christian believers. While most of the industry insiders in attendance cheered the provocative displays, at least a few decided they’d had enough, as one Christian nominee walked out in the middle of the show, and one Grammy...

Praying for a big chest, believing in aliens and winning Wisconsin for Obama—where do we begin? Katy Perry really opened up to GQ, giving the magazine plenty of interesting —and, OK, super strange— tidbits about her life. Perry dished about her signature sexy bod, saying that her prayers were answered at the age of 11. "I lay on my back one night and looked down at my feet, and I prayed to God. I said, ‘God, will you please let me have boobs so big that I can't see my feet when I'm lying down?’… God answered my prayers. I...

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Militants in Iraq targeted Christians in three separate Christmas Day bombings in Baghdad, killing at least 37 people, officials said Wednesday. In one attack, a car bomb went off near a church in the capital's southern Dora neighborhood, killing at least 26 people and wounding 38, a police officer said. Earlier, two bombs ripped through a nearby outdoor market simultaneously in the Christian section of Athorien, killing 11 people and wounding 21, the officer said. The Iraq-based leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Louis Sako, said the parked car bomb exploded after Christmas Mass and that none...

This year, I took a trip that I thought I might never actually experience — a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. My wife and I decided to do this more than a year before we left, prioritizing it over a few maintenance items for the house, and stuck with it even with a serious health issue in our family. The timing ended up being fortuitous; our pastor, who had lived in the area for a time and who led this pilgrimage, got promoted to an important post within our diocese, so we had two weeks to spend with him before...