Free Republic

Sumter - Gov. Nikki Haley and two high profile health care advisors boarded a private plane to Bentonville, Ark., more than a year ago for a closed-door meeting with Wal-Mart executives. They hoped to convince the largest retailer in the country to launch a new primary care strategy in South Carolina. "We told Wal-Mart, 'We think this is perfect,'" said Tony Keck, director of the state Medicaid agency, who attended the meeting. It seems Wal-Mart agreed. On Thursday, the company opened its fourth and fifth "Care Clinics" in Sumter and Florence. The first three clinics, staffed by licensed nurse practitioners,...

The U.S. Secret Service detected a security breach at the S.C. Department of Revenue on Oct. 10, but it took state officials 10 days to close the attacker’s access and another six days to inform the public that 3.6 million Social Security numbers had been compromised. The attack also exposed 387,000 credit and debit card numbers. The stolen data included other information people file with their tax returns such as names and addresses. Businesses’ taxpayer identification numbers also potentially have been comprised in the attack that is being described as one of the nation’s largest against a state agency. The...

South Carolina’s voter ID law does not violate the federal Voting Rights Act, a federal court in Washington, D.C., has ruled. However, the law -- which requires voters to present a state-approved ID with their picture at the polls before casting a ballot -- will not take effect until 2013, meaning it will not affect S.C. voters during the November presidential election. The U.S. Justice Department had blocked implementation of the new law, passed in 2011. Civil rights groups also had challenged the law, saying it unfairly discriminated against minority voters, who were less likely to have access to the...

Robin Natanel picks up a compact black pistol, barrel pointed down range. Gripping the gun with both hands, she raises the semi-automatic and methodically squeezes off five shots. If the target were a person's head or heart, he'd probably be dead. Natanel is a Buddhist and self-avowed "spiritual person," a 53-year-old divorcee who lives alone in a liberal-leaning suburb near Boston. She's a tai chi instructor who invokes the benefits of meditation. And at least twice a month, she takes her German-made Walther PK380 to a shooting range and blazes away. Natanel is one of a growing number of people...

On April 10, Bob Seashols, a Coordination Center Officer for the Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) at the Richmond International Airport (RIC) and an administrator for Atheists United’s Facebook page, took part in a coordinated effort to populate pornographic images, extreme profanity, and sexually explicit anti-Christian hate-speech on the Facebook page of Ken Ham, an internationally known Christian ministry leader who serves as president of Answers in Genesis-U.S (AiG) and the popular Creation Museum, located near Cincinnati, Ohio. Sunday afternoon visitors to Mr. Ham’s “public person” Facebook site found pages of sexually explicit commentary aimed at mocking him and deriding...

Well, someone figured out why Obama nominated Elana Kagan for the Supreme Court.... Pull up the Supreme Courts website, go to the docket and search for Obama. She was the Solicitor General for all the suits against him filed with the Supreme Court to show proof of natural born citizenship. He owes her big time. All of the requests were denied of course. They were never heard. It just keeps getting deeper and deeper, doesn't it? The American people mean nothing any longer. It's all about payback time for those that compromised themselves to elect someone that really has no...

WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. — James King said it was an act of God that led him to find Nadia Bloom in a thick swamp early today. “God directed me to her,” King said hours after finding the 11-year-girl alive. A day earlier, the 44-year-old University of Central Florida alum was part of a volunteer search crew that had been unable to find Nadia. But at first light today, King, a military contractor, entered the woods armed with two cell phones, his shoes taped to his feet and some food and water to give Nadia if she was found. He prayed,...

-snip- Here's how it works at Christian Healthcare: Members send in a monthly fee, resembling an insurance premium, which can range from about $50 for a single person to $450 for a family of four. That money, along with the payments from thousands of other members, is then distributed to pay sick members' medical bills. There's no guarantee that people's bills will get paid off — that would legally turn a sharing ministry into insurance. But Howard Russell, executive director of the 29-year-old nonprofit, can't think of a time that money has run short. -snip- The country's three largest sharing...

TETELESTAI! IT IS FINISHED! by Dr. R. L. Hymers, Jr. A sermon preached on Lord’s Day Morning, October 29, 2006 at the Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost” (John 19:30). Jesus hangs dying on the Cross. Earlier that day He had been offered a drink of vinegar mixed with gall and had refused it. But now, moments before His death, He cries out, “I thirst.” Dr. John R. Rice said, This thirst is foretold in Psalm 22:15, “My...

A group of Christians, including a former atheist and a philosopher, have launched a new campaign that calls fellow believers to "pray for an atheist" beginning with April Fools' Day. "We want you to select an atheist friend or relative and pray for them by name each day during the month of April, 2010 (and beyond!). It’s easy and could make an eternal difference for someone you love," the campaign states on its Facebook page. Currently, "Pray for an Atheist" is purely a Facebook initiative and is designed to not only encourage Christians to pray for nonbelievers but also to...

A quarter of American Christians identify as charismatic or Pentecostal, a new survey shows. Those aged 26 to 44 are most likely to claim the Holy Spirit-filled identity (29 percent) compared to other age groups, the Barna Group found. Meanwhile, the Baby Boomers (aged 45 to 63) – the generation that introduced America to "Jesus freaks" – are least likely to take up the Pentecostal or charismatic identity (20 percent). The Ventura, Calif.-based research group, which conducted the study among 1,005 adults last month, defines charismatic and Pentecostal as those who consider themselves to "have been filled with the Holy...

Well-known evangelical preacher John Piper announced Sunday that he will be taking his first-ever break from ministry to reexamine his soul. The long-time preacher apologized to his congregation for not a specific deed but for the "sins of my own soul," "ongoing character flaws" and stresses that they have caused to others. "I see several species of pride," Piper told Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. "They may not rise to the level of disqualifying me for ministry. Nevertheless, while I don't think they do, I grieve over them." Piper, who is considered one of the most influential preachers among Protestant...

At a traditional Passover seder, you'll find the broken matzo, taste the bitter herbs and listen to a retelling of the Exodus story. You won't hear a mention of Jesus. But some churches -- including an East Manchester Township congregation -- are now hosting Christian seders, adding Christian symbolism to a 3,000-year-old Jewish ritual of remembrance. At these seders, the stripes and holes in the matzo are said to represent Jesus' whipped and pierced body. The matzo is broken and wrapped in a white cloth, as was Jesus' body for burial. Some Jews consider such seders to be offensive and...

GREENSBURG, Pa. - Congregation, heal thyself. That is a judge's message to a western Pennsylvania congregation divided over the removal of two church elders because one was allegedly quarrelsome and the other hasn't spoken in tongues. Pastor Roy Aiken Jr. sued in January to enforce a November vote ousting the men from the Christian Fellowship Center of Greensburg's board of directors. Since then, the pastor and the ousted elders have formed separate boards vying for control of the church. Westmoreland County Judge Anthony Marsili on Monday ordered the church to, instead, be governed by the board that existed before the...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (BP)--Among all the attributes of the Bible celebrated by Southern Baptists and other evangelicals, the attributes of waterproof and durable can be added to that list. The idea for the "Waterproof Bible," formerly called "The Outdoor Bible," came to Bobby Bardin and Michael Marsee, whose love for God's creation and His Word often resulted in wet pages. Their mutual desire for a waterproof Bible was the impetus for their founding of Bardin & Marsee Publishing. Suitable for missionaries preaching in the rain, soldiers on foreign battlefields, pastors baptizing new Christians and fumble-fingered duck hunters, the Waterproof Bible's pages...

A Southern Baptist congregation's emphasis on health and fitness has sparked a primetime series devoted to reversing a trend in a city regarded as one of the nation's most obese. Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution" is set for a two-hour premier March 26 at 8 p.m. Eastern on ABC, and First Baptist Church in Kenova, W.Va., in the Huntington area is featured throughout the six-week series. "I started noticing all the health problems we had due to obesity. It sounds so strong, but that's what it was," said Steve Willis, First Baptist's pastor, said. "We had a lot of health issues....

There's this odd sleight of hand going on in the nation's capital.It used to be that you called the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) or someone at the Vatican to get the Catholic Church's side of things. With evangelicals - a far more diverse and scattered group - you could call a certain handful of organizations, magazine editors and pastors and pretty much get the drift of what the born-again crowd thought. That all changed around the time of the 2004 elections. Liberal folks realized that religion was important to the electorate and if you can't beat them, not...

A quarter of Republicans believe President Barack Obama might be the Antichrist, according to a Harris Poll released Wednesday. In a survey by the same organization a year ago, Obama edged out Jesus as the figure most often named a hero by Americans. Now 24 percent of Republicans, and 14 percent of Americans overall, believe he might be the adversary of the Christ, Harris Interative reports. Other findings in the online poll of 2,230 people conducted from March 1 through 8: Two thirds of Republicans -- 67 percent -- and 40 percent of Americans overall, believe that Obama is a...

When the one time pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak was stammering through his bizarre press conference announcing that he and his cohorts would support ObamaCare, a friend texted me, "That's all she wrote." I fired back, "Hardly." Here's why: if I asked you to name a famous battle of the American Civil War, what would you say? Most would name Gettysburg, some might mention Bull Run, Antietam, Shiloh, or even Sherman's March to the Sea. But left off most everyone's list would be the battle that started it all...the firing on Fort Sumter. That's primarily due to the fact that though...

Are We as Citizens to be Subject to Civil Authorities Such as Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin Prominent U.S. Pastor of Grace Community Church, John MacArthur, teaches his congregation that we must be subject to the civil authorities even to Hitler or Stalin Contact: Steve Klein, 951-492-8753, steve@kleinus.com; www.altarorabolish.comLOS ANGELES, March 4 /Christian Newswire/ -- Using Nehemiah as an example, Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment have notified the Mayor, 15 City Council Members, the City Attorney and the Police Chief of Los Angeles they will go to the public sidewalks at Grace Community Church in accordance with the First Amendment...