Free Republic

Washington D.C., Mar 22, 2023 / 14:47 pm A coalition of conservative organizations is taking legal action to obtain documents from the Department of Justice related to the surge in pro-abortion attacks on churches and pro-life pregnancy centers and a lack of prosecution from the agency. Based on data compiled by CNA, there have been more than 100 attacks on churches and pro-life pregnancy centers since the May 2022 leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which overturned the abortion protections guaranteed in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The DOJ has...

A 60-year-old black man was arrested in Atlanta last month after he allegedly vandalized a historic Baptist church with spray-painted imagery of swastikas as a hanging. Atlanta Police arrested James McIntyre on February 19 in connection to the vandalism after surveillance cameras caught him tagging Providence Missionary Baptist Church on Benjamin E. Mays Drive, according to Fox 5. Officials said that during the investigation, they found McIntyre sitting across the street from the scene of the crime.

VIENNA (AP) — Austrian police warned Wednesday of a possible “Islamist-motivated attack” in Vienna against churches and other houses of worship, citing undisclosed information received by the country’s intelligence service. Police in Vienna tweeted that they had heightened security in front of certain buildings and increased the presence of officers in the Austrian capital. “There is a nonspecific threat of an assault against churches,” Vienna police tweeted. “As (a) precautionary measure ... points of interest have been put under increased guard by regular and special operation police forces.” “If there is a concrete danger for the population at a concrete...

Enforcers of the county’s rules reported the number of cars in the parking lot, whether or not masks were being worn, and even instances of hugging.SAN JOSE, California (LifeSiteNews) — A Christian church in California’s Santa Clara County was hit with hefty fines and its members were surveilled via stakeouts, cell phone monitoring, and other measures “reminiscent of totalitarian regimes” after the church defied the county’s draconian COVID-19 lockdown rules in 2020, according to a March 5 report by independent journalist David Zweig. San Jose’s Calvary Christian Fellowship, headed by pastor Mike McClure, openly defied the Silicon Valley county’s harsh...

There’s a lot to celebrate in Christian worship services. Singing hymns, prayers, and the learning of God’s Word are all part of corporate worship, and I happily participate in that. I also participate in confession. The Protestant tradition involves both a public and silent confession of sins. It’s an acknowledgement that we are sinful by nature, and have sinned by thought, word and deed. Through this confession and our earnest repentance, we seek and receive forgiveness through God’s grace. I sin every single day. I don’t like that I sin but as a member of the human race, it is...

A trio of Florida Republicans are among 20 GOP lawmakers demanding that the FBI explain why it is targeting conservative Catholics for surveillance and intelligence-gathering. Sen. Rick Scott and Reps. Greg Steube and Bill Posey, of Sarasota and Rockledge, respectively, signed a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray expressing deep concerns about the Richmond field office’s warning about “Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology.”

Churches are closing at rapid numbers in the US, researchers say, as congregations dwindle across the country and a younger generation of Americans abandon Christianity altogether – even as faith continues to dominate American politics. As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year in the country – a figure that experts believe may have accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic. The situation means some hard decisions for pastors, who have to decide when a dwindling congregation is no longer sustainable. But it has also created a boom market for those wanting to buy...

Hundreds of Roman Catholic churches have been attacked since the violence that erupted nationwide following George Floyd’s death in May 2020, according to a Catholic nonprofit. Since May 2020, there have been nearly 300 attacks against U.S. Catholic churches as far afield as Emmonak, Alaska, with the most recent tally at 275 as of Sunday, according to a tracker from CatholicVote. The religious nonprofit organization noted that “while the riots and looting mostly died down in the summer of 2020, the attacks on Catholic churches have continued and escalated.” The attacks against churches include arson, broken windows, decapitated statues and...

Nearly all U.S. House Democrats voted against a resolution condemning attacks against anti-abortion facilities and churches. The vote came after a report was published showing violence escalated against churches and pro-life groups last year ahead of and after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The House passed the measure Wednesday mostly along party lines. Three Democrats voted for it: Reps. Vicente Gonzalez of south Texas, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington. The resolution “condemns recent attacks of vandalism, violence, and destruction against pro-life facilities, groups and churches” and “calls upon the Biden Administration to use...

The news is astounding. Churches with fewer than 250 in average worship attendance account for 92% of all churches in the United States. At Church Answers, we call these congregations “standard churches” because they represent all but 8% of churches. It is incumbent upon us, therefore, to discern what important trends and developments are taking place that have direct bearing on standard churches. Here are five major developments. 1. There will likely be a migration to neighborhood and rural churches. We are certainly aware that the greater majority of attendees are in larger churches. But we are also aware that...

Johnson’s political muzzling silenced the primary moral and religious voices that Founder John Adams said were essential to the life of the Republic.. In 1954, then freshman U.S. senator Lyndon B. Johnson was running for re-election in a hotly-contested Democratic primary against fellow-Democrat State Representative Dudley T. Dougherty. THE NEW DEAL WITH THE DEVIL IN 1954: GIVE UP YOUR MORAL AND FREE SPEECH RIGHTS IN EXCHANGE FOR TAX WRITE-OFFS In the heat of that 1954 Texas primary campaign, Johnson introduced his now infamous “Johnson Amendment” in the U.S. Senate. His revisions further restricted the free speech of churches and religious...

At least 420 acts of hostility against churches occurred in the United States over the past five years, while 57 of those hostile acts between January and September 2022 have been related to abortion, an analysis suggests.The new report by the Family Research Council, a Christian conservative activist organization based in Washington, analyzes publicly available data between January 2018 and September 2022 to document acts of hostility targeted at 397 individual churches across 45 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.Those acts include vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents and bomb threats. The report finds that the severity and frequency of such attacks can...

In an op-ed for Christianity Today, Carl H. Esbeck, R. B. Price Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Missouri, offers a positive assessment of the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA). He writes, “All in all, RMA is a modest but good day’s work. It shows that religious liberty champions and LGBT advocates can work together for the common good.”With due respect to Prof. Esbeck’s legal knowledge, I categorically differ from his assessment.I have already challenged the Republican senators who voted to advance the bill this week. Here, I want to focus on Prof. Esbeck’s reasoning.He writes, “Some conservatives...

merica is about to learn that what liberals actually mean when they claim to support “separation of church and state” is they want to use the power of government to silence those who disagree with them on same-sex marriage. For years, liberals have perverted the meaning of Thomas Jefferson’s “absolute wall of separation” for keeping the state out of the church to keeping those in the church who uphold the Bible’s definition of marriage out of the public square. The occasion for this teachable moment is the “Respect for Marriage Act” now before the Senate. Democrats claim the proposal is...

An arson investigation was underway on Tuesday after seven fires erupted overnight at two churches, a gas station and four other buildings near Mississippi's Jackson State University, officials told local media. Video footage showed the worst of the seven fires near the historically Black college left Epiphany Church in ruins. There were no reports of any injuries, ABC affiliate WAPT reported.

A fight that appears periodically about election time in United States has been resurrected again this year – by a George Soros-supported leftist group that is demanding the IRS use the Johnson Amendment against churches. That statute says religious groups cannot endorse or oppose election candidates, and it's been little used because of the likelihood it violates the First Amendment. Having the amendment to use as a threat might in many cases seem to be more attractive than using it – and having a court throw it out entirely.

All throughout last week, some five or six Coptic churches in Egypt have “caught fire”— ... the Church of Abu Seifein (named after Saint Mercurius of Caesarea, who is revered by the Copts). At least 41 Christians — 18 of whom were children — were either burned alive, killed by asphyxiation, or ... Considering that Muslims have torched or bombed hundreds of Coptic churches over the decades in Egypt — and often when churches are packed — it is, of course, difficult to resist that explanation. Moreover, this last week was the “anniversary” of when Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers torched 62...

A California church that defied safety regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic by holding large religious services won't have to pay about $200,000 in fines, a state appeals court ruled. Calvary Chapel San Jose and its pastors were held in contempt of court and fined in 2020 and 2021 for violating state and county limits on indoor public gatherings. The rules were aimed at preventing the spread through close contract of the virus, which has caused more than 10 million confirmed cases and more than 93,500 deaths since the pandemic began in mid-2020, according to state public health figures.

Representative Jim Jordan reads off a list of all the pro-life churches and centers attacked by the radical left recently.. In recent months numerous crisis pregnancy centers, pro-life health centers, and churches have been vandalized, firebombed, and otherwise attacked by radical left pro-abortion rioters. Groups such as “Jane’s Revenge” and “Ruth Sent Us” have claimed responsibility for the vast majority of these attacks, yet the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are doing everything they can not to put a stop to these domestic terrorist attacks. ... Similarly, the mainstream media is hardly covering these events. Lives are being...

Officials say vandals damaged three churches in Bethesda, Maryland, this weekend with fires being set at two of them. Investigators believe it is arson. Around 2:15 a.m. on Sunday, Montgomery County firefighters responding to a call found several church pews on fire at Saint Jane Frances de Chantal Catholic Church, located on Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda near the Capital Beltway. Within hours, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service had launched an arson investigation into the fire.