Free Republic

The director of the National Institutes of Health revealed Wednesday that confronting death sparked his journey from atheism to Christianity. Dr. Francis Collins, NIH director and leader of the Human Genome Project, recounted to Bloomberg’s David Rubenstein how facing the reality of death and the questions it posed during his third year at medical school led him to become a Christian. The conversation, published Wednesday, revealed that Collins initially settled on agnosticism and then shifted toward atheism before ultimately placing his faith in Jesus Christ. Collins said that his spiritual journey began in college where he first confronted differing ideas...

Rima Fakih, the 2010 Miss USA who made headlines by becoming the beauty pageant’s first Muslim winner, is converting to Christianity. Fakih, who is from Michigan and is now 30, will marry Maronite Christian music producer Wassim Salibi later this month, according to Christian Today.

The trouble at home started when, as a teenager, he began questioning the beliefs and actions of his parents, both ardent Hamas supporters. “I ended up having a big fight with them, and ran to Israel,” the youth told The Times of Israel in a phone conversation Monday from Edmonton, Canada, where he eventually sought political asylum. A tragic experience in an Israeli prison cell that night sparked a chain of events which would turn the teenager’s belief system on its head, leading him to convert to Christianity and change his name to John Calvin, after the 16th century French...

Mohammed Bakr al-Baghdadi, the brother of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is the Caliph of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, has converted to christianity, reports Al-Jazeera this morning. The move has brought the man an unprecedented backlash from the Salafist Sunni community that has ordered a fatwa, or death-sentence, on the man as soon as the news was spread in media around the muslim world. "He is no more my brother then the miscreant American pigs we slay everyday" told the self-proclaimed Caliph to a large crowd of his followers. "Let Allah not forget this treacherous swine when he pleads on his...

Star of David carved into Alaa Alsaegh's back Israel news photo: courtesy of Alaa AlsaeghAn Iraqi poet who converted from Islam to Christianity, and who expressed pain over the loss of six million Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, has paid the price for his beliefs. Over a month has passed since Alaa Alsaegh was attacked over his Arabic-language poem, “Tears at the Heart of the Holocaust,” featured on the “Arabs For Israel” blog. The site is run by Arabs and Muslims who believe they can “support Israel and still support the Palestinian people.... support the State of Israel and the...

A Florida judge has ruled a teenager from Ohio must return after running away to Florida in fear that her parents would harm her for converting from Islam to Christianity.

SNIPPET: "MISSING CHILD Endangered Runaway FATHIMA RIFQA BARY" SNIPPET: "Last seen on 07-19-09 in Westerville, Ohio."

From Monsters and Critics.com South Asia NewsAfghan convert is willing to die for his faith By DPA Mar 26, 2006, 19:00 GMT Rome/Kabul - An Afghan man at the centre of an international outcry because he risks being sentenced to death for converting to Christianity has said he is ready to die for his faith. In an interview published on Sunday by Italian daily La Repubblica, Abdul Rahman said: \'I do not want to die. But if God will decide this way, I am ready to confront my choices, until the end.\' Rahman, who is 40 and has two...