Free Republic

(RNS) — In a striking move that ends a nearly four-decades-old relationship between the federal government and the Episcopal Church, the denomination announced on Monday (May 12) that it is terminating its partnership with the government to resettle refugees, citing moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa who have been classified as refugees by President Donald Trump’s administration. In a letter sent to members of the church, the Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe — the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church — said that two weeks ago the government “informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of...

HELL — Infernal sources have just confirmed that Satan has decided to join the communion of the Episcopal Church. According to Hell's spokesdemon, Satan had been attending ELCA and United Methodist churches for the past few years before deciding that the Episcopal Church was right for him. "The Devil just lines up theologically with everything the Episcopalians are preaching," said Junior Devil Shmerklwitz, who serves as Satan's media liaison. "He wasn't really convinced for many years, but one fire-and-brimstone sermon from a gay transwoman bishop on how circumcision was an Old Testament picture of gender transitioning young babies really changed...

When Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde lectured President Trump and Vice President Vance about immigration during her sermon at the National Prayer Service on the day after they were inaugurated, leftists hailed Budde for standing on principle and giving the Bad Orange Man a good scolding. As it turns out, however, Budde may have motivations that were a bit more tangible than principle: her church’s Episcopal Migration Ministry (EMM) rakes in millions from a number of taxpayer-funded entities for bringing the migrants. And the Episcopal Church is by no means alone in this: other churches that have recently taken principled stances...

New footage shows the trio who cops believe accosted a flashy Brooklyn bishop and snatched up more than $1 million in jewelry during a live-streamed church service. The footage, released late Thursday and marked with a timestamp of Sunday around 11:05 a.m. – minutes before the heist at the Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries – shows the three suspects walking on the sidewalk with their hoods pulled up and their faces covered. Bishop Lamor Whitehead, 44, was in the middle of his sermon at the Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries in Canarsie around 11:14 a.m. when the trio burst in,...

Evangelical Christian author and pastor Max Lucado apologized Thursday for a past sermon on homosexuality he said “wounded people,” but it wasn’t enough for the liberal congregation that invited him. The “Begin Again” author and pastor of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, wrote a letter apologizing to the LGBTQ community after he preached a virtual sermon last weekend at the Washington National Cathedral. But it wasn’t Lucado’s guest sermon on the Holy Spirit that upset the cancel culture mob in D.C. It was comments he made 17 years ago. “In 2004 I preached a sermon on the topic...

“This church has about 30 more years before it is dead,” stated one young man at a 2016 forum at the Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) in Alexandria, Virginia, as quoted in the recent book The Seduction of the Episcopal Church. Therein Anglican author David Virtue, a longtime critical observer of worldwide Anglicanism, reviews the Episcopal Church’s decades-long fall from grace in an exposé of Christian folly in accommodating a secularized, sexualized modernity. Virtue tells the depressing, detailed “story of a once proud Christian denomination that stood as a landmark church in a nation that has seen presidents, senators and business...

November 5, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The National Abortion Federation (NAF) has announced that its new president and CEO is Katherine Ragsdale, a lesbian Episcopal “priest” and longtime abortion activist. “Abortion providers are some of my personal heroes and modern-day saints,” Ragsdale said when the news was announced. She had been NAF’s interim president and CEO since September 2018. In 2011, she “married” another female Episcopal “priest,” Mally Lloyd. It is unclear if they are still together; Ragsdale’s bio on NAF’s website makes no mention of Lloyd. “For decades, Katherine Ragsdale, a false prophet, has been trying to put religious vestments...

For one of the last abortion doctors in Missouri, harassment, stalking and death threats are a part of regular life. But this year, it's been worse than ever. Colleen McNicholas, the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, is one of many providers who told CBS News they've seen an uptick in violence this year, both against themselves and their clinics. They say the increased harassment has coincided with newly enacted state laws restricting legal abortion and polarizing rhetoric surrounding the procedure. The National Abortion Federation has been tracking violence against abortion providers...

Rev. Thomas Brown, who is married to a fellow priest, was ordained as a bishop of the diocese of Maine in the Episcopal Church June 22. Immediately following his ordination, Brown referred to God as a "she" twice in the Nicene Creed. "She is worshipped and glorified. She has spoken through the prophets," the just-ordained Bishop Brown said, referring to the Holy Spirit. ...

I'm so old I can remember when disseminating communist propaganda in public schools was frowned upon. Last Friday afternoon, I was sitting at my computer when I received an email from Peachjar. This is a service used by several school districts near me in the Portland area that sends home digital fliers to parents in lieu of paper fliers to advertise extracurricular activities sponsored by various groups in the community. My son's middle school uses this service, and I receive a few emails a month from them. I've used the service myself to send advertisements for recruiting events for Scouts,...

While the state may have chosen to expand its definition of marriage to accommodate for some of the above legal benefits normally given to a husband and wife, it is not necessary for the Church to change its definition or understanding of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony to match the State’s definition. It is time for the Church to stop functioning as an agent of the State in issuing marriage licenses.

FULL TITLE: Church leaders say Roy Moore is 'infected by a false Christian religious virus' as they hold a rally in Alabama arguing he is unfit for US Senate A group of church leaders in Alabama have spoken out against Republican US Senate candidate Roy Moore saying he is infected with a 'false Christian religious virus'. The Rev. William J. Barber, a leading figure among religious liberals, led a rally against Moore at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Birmingham on Saturday after he was dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct involving teenage girls decades ago. Barber told the crowd of 100...

POTOMAC, MD — The Trump family has selected the new school for Barron Trump, according to recent reports. The 11-year-old will attend St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, about 15 miles from the White House. St. Andrew's opened in 1978 with 40 students, grades seven to nine, in the basement of Pilgrim Lutheran Church on Massachusetts Avenue. Today, it has a total enrollment of 580 students in preschool through grade 12. The school operates on 12-week trimesters. The school focuses on diversity, according to its website. “We value and respect all differences, including but not limited to age, ability, ethnicity,...

<p>SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Episcopalians voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow religious weddings for same-sex couples, solidifying the church’s embrace of gay rights that began more than a decade ago with the pioneering election of the first openly gay bishop.</p>

Episcopalians voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow religious weddings for same-sex couples, solidifying the church's embrace of gay rights that began more than a decade ago with the pioneering election of the first openly gay bishop.

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) - Issues have been reported at some polling locations in Davidson County on this Election Day. he polling location at the Church of the Redeemer in Oak Hill opened an hour and 10 minutes late because election officials said a church employee left the wrong key for poll workers. Three satellite locations were given as alternatives for the voters who were affected. Some voters were frustrated, while others just shrugged it off.

Its numbers and coffers shrinking, the church votes for pet funerals but offers little to the traditional faithful. Episcopalians from around the country gathered here this week for their church's 77th triennial General Convention, which ended Thursday. Although other Protestant denominations have national governing councils, the Episcopal Church's triennial gathering stands apart. For starters, it's one of the world's largest such legislative entities, with more than 1,000 members. General Convention is also notable for its sheer ostentation and carnival atmosphere. For seven straight nights, lavish cocktail parties spilled into pricey steakhouses, where bishops could use their diocesan funds to order...

Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters today streamed toward the corner of Canal Street and the Avenue of the Americas to re-occupy Duarte Square, right next to New York's offices. The gravel square, dotted with planters and chairs and normally open to the public, is actually owned by Trinity Wall Street Episcopalian church, a onetime supporter of the original Zuccotti Park encampment — providing meeting spaces, electricity, bathrooms, as well as supplies — that now seems more adversary after denying an Occupy request for access to Duarte Square. "Wrong, unsafe, unhealthy and potentially injurious," was how church officials described the...

A spokesman for Washington National Cathedral says at least three of the four pinnacles on the central tower have fallen off and the central tower appears to be leaning. The pinnacles are the top stones on the cathedral's towers. Richard Weinberg, director of communications for the cathedral, said the cathedral has been evacuated and stone masons are assessing the damage.

He tried marriage and fatherhood, flirted with being a governor, he accepted being gay and then he finally announced he would be a priest. But it isn't time to call ex-New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey 'father' just yet - for his bid to join the Episcopal Church has been rejected. Church sources have said that McGreevey's sexuality has nothing to do with the rebuttal and everything to do with him being a 'jackass'. McGreevey shocked the nation when it was discovered that only 34 days after he came into office the then-married governor embarked on a homosexual affair with an...