Free Republic

“No one will know what you’re doing.” I recently took an evening for a movie – a fairly rare undertaking. The movie was Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life, which depicts the story of a Catholic man and his family who refused to take an oath of loyalty to Hitler during World War II. He dies a martyr. The story is based in truth. Living in a small valley in the mountains of Austria, his life was already a hidden thing. When his refusal to cooperate with the demands of the State come to light, he begins to hear the mantra,...

No. 1 LSU (14-0) vs. No. 3 Clemson (14-0) Location: New Orleans | When: Jan. 13 (8 p.m.) | TV: ESPN | Line: LSU -5.5 HOW THESE TEAMS GOT HERE LSU: LSU ascended to new heights in its third season with Ed Orgeron as full-time head coach. And it took a major shift in offensive philosophy for the Tigers to take off. All offseason, Orgeron talked up his decision to hire New Orleans Saints assistant Joe Brady to run the offense alongside longtime confidant Steve Ensminger. It wasn’t just lip service. LSU went from the 69th-best offense in college football...

Tom Steyer, the billionaire investor and Democrat 2020 candidate, wants Americans to provide cheap housing to illegal immigrants. “A Steyer Administration will … ensure that all undocumented communities have access to affordable and safe housing,” Steyer said in his immigration proposal.

In Christ we have infinite forgiveness for every sin—past, present, and future. On Israel's Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) the high priest selected two goats. One was sacrificed; the other set free. Before releasing the second goat, the high priest symbolically placed the sins of the people on it by laying his hands on its head. This "scapegoat" was then taken a great distance from camp and released—never to return again (Lev. 16:7-10). The Greek word translated "forgiveness" in Ephesians 1:7 means "to send away." It speaks of cancelling a debt or granting a pardon. Like the scapegoat, Christ carried...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Music in The Bible) Psalm 85 Psalm 85[a] For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm. 1 You, Lord, showed favor to your land;     you restored the fortunes of Jacob. 2 You forgave the iniquity of your people     and covered all their sins.[b] 3 You set aside all your wrath     and turned from your fierce anger. 4 Restore us again, God our Savior,     and put away your displeasure toward us. 5 Will you be angry with us forever?     Will you prolong your anger through all generations? 6 Will you not revive us again,     that your...

Remember when Joe Biden bragged about how he coerced Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor by threatening that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees from them. While this type of interference in a foreign government by the then-Vice President of the United States is highly inappropriate in itself, what makes it even worse is that the prosecutor he got fired was probing a firm for which his son Hunter Biden worked. It was a huge money laundering. Ukraine, Biden’s to the DNC, all starting to make sense after Paul Sperry’s latest tweets.

Republican voters have lamented for years over the lack of pushback from their elected leaders. Democrats and the media hurl baseless and libelous accusations at Republicans, only to be met with a weak defense at best, or silence at worst. Republicans want to push granny off a cliff, make senior citizens eat dog food, starve children and put them in cages. Republicans are racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, Islamophobic, mean-spirited, and ignorant. Watch any cable news show and get a healthy dose of this garbage. If you don’t like the news, watch late night “comedy,” entertainment award shows, or virtually any...

Martin Luther called it “the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls.” He called on pastors to take it back to their churches and “beat it into their heads continually.” The Reformation saw untold numbers of believers across Europe go willingly to the flames because they refused to loosen their grip on this single conviction: Sola fide—justification by faith alone. It’s good to remember believers who explored theology not merely as an academic exercise but as a life-and-death endeavor. It’s good for us to pause and remember the doctrines for which our forebears in the faith died. And it’s...

“Find the feet first,” I kept saying to myself. “Feet first, not the head.” I did not want to find the head. I had to find the body. There was no-one else in the small fishing village of Cordova AK who had SCUBA gear. The fisherman had fallen from the Cordova fishing pier, falling 20 feet into freezing Alaskan waters.

As college textbook prices have increased 88 percent since 2006, education reformers wonder how universities can make books more affordable. One simple thing they could do is to stop selling textbooks with absurdly high mark-ups, the difference between the cost incurred by the bookstore for textbooks and the price at which they’re sold. While some progress has been made within the UNC system, much room for improvement remains. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, for example, signed a contract with Barnes and Noble in 2009 to merge its university bookstore with Barnes and Noble. That conjunction promised students lower...

The notion of burning books is, or should be, quite repugnant to those with an interest in maintaining a free society. Whether it’s environmentalists setting ablaze a book which challenges man-made global warming theory, or conservatives putting flames to a progressive’s anti-white-themed offering, never should Ray Bradbury’s warning of Fahrenheit 451 be forgotten. But in “equity” consultant Kimya Dennis’s case, she’d likely shrug off that notion — because Bradbury was a white man.

Two school districts in the Phoenix, Arizona area have implemented educational programs promoting racial divisions and social justice. The two programs attack students on the basis of their skin color and other characteristics. Chandler Unified School District passed the equity and inclusion initiative in February 2018. Kyrene School District also implemented it. Word has gotten out on how awful these programs are. On November 8, Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired a piece on one of the two programs, called Deep Equity. Carlson described the teaching this way, “America is based on a hierarchy of various oppressions: men oppress women, Christianity...

A British socialite stole nearly $300,000 from her dementia-suffering grandmother to fund her lavish lifestyle, including designer clothes and stays in Beverly Hills hotels, according to local reports. Emily Rosina Evans-Schreiber, 38, had only about $50 in her bank account when she was given control of her 94-year-old grandmother Rosina Evans’ finances in April 2018, a Northampton crown court heard Friday, according to the BBC. The former model’s mother had become worried about her daughter’s “high life” in London, and bought her a house in Naseby, tasking her with taking care of her grandma, prosecutors said. Over the next eight...

God does not tell us why angels appear as male in the Bible and not female. Angels do not have gender since gender is a biological function, and angels are not biological. The only angels that are named in the Bible include Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer, who are referred to in the masculine. Other angels are referred to in the masculine sense even though they are not named. Judges 13:21, "Now the angel of the LORD appeared no more to Manoah or his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the LORD." 1 Chronicles 21:27, "The Lord...

“A wicked messenger falleth into mischief: but a faithful ambassador is health” (Proverbs 13:17).

Calling the state legislature into session last Wednesday, Gov. Ralph Northam could not have been more elated. His Democrats have taken over the state legislature and are giddily preparing to exercise every ounce of their new-found powers. Northam’s expansive legislative agenda includes: passage of the long-dead Equal Rights Amendment (the deadline for ratification expired in 1982); decriminalization of marijuana; big spending on “save the planet” environmental nonsense; further liberalization of abortion laws; and, of course, far-reaching strict gun controls.

... California is one of many states to ask teachers and textbooks in recent years to cover the contributions of specific immigrant groups, including Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders, European-Americans and Mexican-Americans. These additions are part of the reason California books are almost always longer than their Texas counterparts. California’s Board of Education adopted an expansive 842-page social studies framework in 2016. Two years later, Texas’ school board streamlined its social studies standards, which are now laid out in 78 tightly compressed pages. Critics of California’s approach say that making state standards and textbooks longer and more inclusive can be overwhelming to...

Morning "Jehoshaphat made ships of Tharshish to go to Ophir for gold: but they went not; for the ships were broken at Ezion-geber" 1 Kings 22:48 Solomon's ships had returned in safety, but Jehoshaphat's vessels never reached the land of gold. Providence prospers one, and frustrates the desires of another, in the same business and at the same spot, yet the Great Ruler is as good and wise at one time as another. May we have grace today, in the remembrance of this text, to bless the Lord for ships broken at Ezion-geber, as well as for vessels freighted with...

LAUGHLIN, NEVADA- As Sunday’s mass ends, the priest says to his parishioners: “Don’t forget to visit the bar on your way out!” No, he’s not encouraging them to get drunk after church. Father Charlie Urnick says this because he’s giving mass inside of Riverside casino in Laughlin, Nevada. The bar he’s referring to is a table-bar that casino employees use as a bar to sell drinks at other (non-church related) events. But just before, during, and right after mass, it’s used to sell candles, medals, books, and other religious items. Along with those, church-goers can find casino chips. While Father...

Anti-government protests in Iran have entered a third day today after Tehran finally abandoned its pretence and admitted shooting down a passenger jet. Dozens of protesters gathered and chanted slogans at a Tehran university today amid a wave of public anger after the plane was shot down with dozens of Iranians on board. A string of celebrities have also turned on the regime and two state TV hosts have quit over Tehran's three days of false reporting on the crash. Leading Iranian film director Masoud Kimiai has pulled out of Tehran's annual Fajr Film Festival in protest, saying he was...