Free Republic

One winter morning in a conventional suburb outside Albany, N.Y., Nancy Salzman, the 63-year-old president of a self-improvement company named Nxivm, sat on a mahogany-colored stool in her kitchen. Her tasteful home was surrounded by other Nxivm members’ modest townhouses or capacious stone mansions that seemed to spring up out of nowhere, like mushrooms, on the suburban streets. In Salzman’s den, a photo of her with her two adult daughters hung on a wall, the three of them wearing smiles as wide as ancient Greek masks of comedy; the same happy photo served as the wallpaper on Salzman’s laptop. A...

First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress has denounced former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's accusation that he's a "religious bigot." "Robert Jeffress says 'you can't be saved by being a Jew,' and 'Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell.' He's said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem," Romney tweeted on Sunday. In an interview with Fox Business host Lou Dobbs Monday night, Jeffress said he took issue with Romney's claims and asserted, "I am not a bigot." "Many of those comments [in...

Failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney issued a vicious statement condemning Dr. Robert Jeffress, one of the nation’s most prominent evangelical ministers and a spiritual adviser to President Trump. [Snip] "Robert Jeffress says 'you can't be saved by being a Jew,' and 'Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell,'" Romney wrote on Twitter. "He's said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem." [Snip] Jeffress, who is a regular guest on my nationally-syndicated radio show, was stunned by Romney's ugly remarks. "Historical Christianity has taught...

Former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney lashed out at the decision to have a controversial evangelical leader give a blessing at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem Monday, calling him a "religious bigot." The Senate candidate from Utah criticized the inclusion of the Rev. Robert Jeffress — the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas who is also an an adviser to President Donald Trump. The president recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital last year. "Robert Jeffress says, 'You can't be saved by being a Jew,' and 'Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell,'" Romney wrote in...

WACO — The fire rose above the Texas prairie like a portent, an inferno consuming David Koresh and more than 70 of his followers in the Branch Davidian compound. Koresh's personal apocalypse was televised live worldwide just after noon on April 19, 1993. Questions about what went wrong began to mount before the ashes were cool. How could a 33-year-old ninth-grade dropout convince so many people that he was the Lamb and God had willed this terrible end - nurses and teachers, a postman and a Harvard-educated lawyer, Australians and Brits, New Zealanders and an Argentinian-born Israeli Jew? Above all,...

Scientology is commonly known as the religion of the stars. Its reach inside Hollywood is deep, and celebrity recruitment is a huge component of the group’s marketing strategy. It sounds strange to describe the proselytizing efforts of a religion as a marketing strategy, but Scientology is unlike any other American religion. It operates as a business at best and as a cult at worst. In Los Angeles, Scientology’s most expensive outpost is the Celebrity Center. At a 1999 fundraiser for the Center, actress Leah Remini said, “Celebrity Center is my second home, and there is not a person here that...

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert hosted a blasphemous segment with New Age Oprah that they called, “‘Oprah Winfrey gets some career advice from a slightly less famous figure: the Lord.” During the show, they openly mocked God and Jesus. As the show opens, Steven Colbert begins to introduce Oprah, but she interrupts before he can say her name. “We’re here with” Colbert begins, then Oprah blurts out, “God.” Colbert continues, “Miss Oprah Winfrey.” Being that there was a skit planned with a character “god” later in the segment, many would wipe this off, but with all the hype around...

BOSTON Two separate crimes against children in recent days have one haunting similarity: authorities have pointed to Voodoo rituals as a possible motive. But practitioners of Haitian Vodou, which adherents spell differently to distinguish it from other variants, say the religion does not sanction violence and fear the crimes will spark a backlash against their community. "We are being targeted," said Maude Evans, a Haitian native and Vodou priestess in Boston's Mattapan neighborhood. "I'm really concerned that that's how it's going to be from now on. They will do things and blame it on Vodou." Two sisters in East Bridgewater...

A group of Mormon cult leaders is being charged with organizing sexual religious rituals with underage girls and threatening them with damnation if they did not participate, according to court documents filed in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Wednesday.

Remember when the left proudly hailed former President Barack Obama as a "Lightworker?" Time magazine was so in awe of Obama that they even compared him to Jesus, complete with halo pictures. Children of liberals were inducted into performing songs of praise for Obama that sounded as if they were singing about a Great Leader in Pyongyang. And yet Reza Aslan, former host of CNN's Believer, is now squawking about The dangerous cult of Donald Trump:

Professor Bret Weinstein, who has been at the center of the chaos unfolding at Evergreen State College, gave an interview to Joe Rogan Friday in which he describes what has been going on at the college both before and after this story became national news. It’s a long interview but a compelling one. I’ve transcribed some of the most interesting bits for those who don’t have time to listen to all two and a half hours of it. Many of the points Weinstein makes here have been made by conservatives many times, but the fact that he is a progressive...

A pair of Tennessee rehab facilities run by members of the Church of Scientology have been shut down after police discovered that patients there were being held against their will. The facilities in Cannon County came under investigation after police received a 911 call from a man who claimed to be trapped in one of the facilities. When they came to investigate, they found the man locked in a cabin with no way to escape. The facilities were little more than a handful of cabins and a double wide trailer concealed in the middle of the wilderness. Police described the...

Lately, Chavez declared himself a member of a charismatic congregation, thus allegedly belonging to his country's fastest-growing branch of Christianity. But then he angered the country's National Catholic Bishops Conference by communing at a Mass organized by a priest of pro-Communist leanings. Should you have any doubt that Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is in serious decline, consider this: His bust is being removed from the altars of his country's popular religion, a renowned anthropologist told United Press International on Monday. Less than four years ago, the syncretistic Maria Lionza cult celebrated Chavez as the reincarnation of Simon Bolivar, (1783-1830),...

The Freewinds cruise ship is the Holy Grail for any dedicated Scientologist: a coveted destination where members can mingle with rich and powerful A-listers - for a price. Hollywood celebrities, such as Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley and Kirstie Alley, and top-ranking management - most notably leader David Miscavige - have attended extravagant parties on Freewinds.

Like Obama, I grew up in a single-parent home. I had the audacity to have big dreams and to hope. . . . As Obama' tenure comes to an end, I see with fresh eyes that the decision to adorn my wall with his image was loaded with meaning. In my modest apartment, I have framed pictures of my family members lining the mantel and leaning along the bookshelves. Only Obama has a sacred place on the wall.

Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath gives a voice to victims of the Church of Scientology despite public attempts to discredit them.

Last week I wandered into the Church of Scientology in Pasadena, California, and what happened during my visit made me afraid for the church's members. While shopping along Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena last week, my friend and I stopped into the Church of Scientology to take a free personality test that was advertised on an A-frame chalkboard sign just outside. As a Christian, I wasn’t really searching for guidance or salvation, but I wanted to hear the Church of Scientology’s elevator pitch. I wanted to know what they said to make people fork over massive amounts of money,...

*******THERE ARE MANY IMPORTANT LINKS EMBEDDED IN THE POST. ARE THERE REALLY 38,000 DIFFERENT DENOMINATIONS? by Damon Whitsell Is Christianity really as divided as some people say it is? Are there really around 38,000 differing denominations? These questions are relevant to the Word of Faith movement because its teachers can be quite anti-denominational at times. And since some in the Word of Faith movement such as Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen along with the Pope and many others are calling for Charismatics and the Roman Catholic Church to unite, saying the Protestant protest is over, these questions are really important...

But the curriculum he developed is still in place. To begin with, the lessons seem to remove blame from the perpetrator and instead shift it onto the victim, as well as the parents. In one example, where a boy molests his younger sisters, the sisters are condemned for dressing immodestly, and the parents are also shamed for “exposing the boy to temptation” through the act of having him change his sister’s diapers. “Modesty was a factor. It was not at the level it should have been in my family. It was not uncommon for my younger siblings to come out...

On April 16, the United Muslim-Christian Forum (UMCF) held an interfaith event in Owego, New York, featuring Christian and Muslim speakers, including the mayor of the town. Its Web site proudly hosts a photo of Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan holding a UMCF sign. Far from the model of tolerance it casts itself as, the UMCF is a front for an anti-Semitic, Islamic extremist group named Muslims of the Americas (MOA), and the keynote speaker warned that Allah will destroy whoever supports Koran burnings, and possibly the entire country. The MOA was exposed in the Christian Action Network’s (CAN) 2009...