Free Republic

Of all the problems besetting Los Angeles, the most fundamental is this: It doesn't have much of a middle class.

New Hampshire is the least religious state in the U.S., edging out Vermont in Gallup's 2015 state-by-state analysis. Mississippi has extended its eight-year streak as the most religious state, followed closely by neighboring Alabama. These state-by-state results are based on over 174,000 interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking in 2015, including more than 480 interviews in every state and more than 1,000 interviews in most states. Complete results and sample sizes are shown at the end of the article. Gallup classifies Americans into three religious groups based on their responses to a question measuring religious service attendance and...

OKLAHOMA CITY — A granite monument of the Ten Commandments that has sparked controversy since its installation on the Oklahoma Capitol grounds was being removed and will be transported to a private conservative think tank for storage. A contractor the state hired began removing the monument shortly after 10:30 p.m. Monday. The work comes after the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s June decision that the display violates a state constitutional prohibition on the use of public property to support “any sect, church, denomination or system of religion.” The state is paying the contractor about $4,700 to remove the monument and take it...

Gov. Jerry Brown’s plans for massive water tunnels have yet to win approval, but a report shows California already is planning to take up to 300 farms to acquire land for the project. A 160-page report prepared by state contractors lays out plans to move rapidly to eminent domain to acquire land for two 30-mile-long tunnels. The tunnels would help ferry water from Northern and Central California to Southern California. …

Free Republic is and will remain a pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-constitution, pro-liberty site. Our constitution took a couple big hits this week, but there is no way we should surrender or give up the fight. America is and always has been a Judeo-Christian nation. We believe our unalienable rights are bestowed upon us by our Creator and cannot be lawfully removed by a godless socialist/fascist government gone awry. We will fight on. As long as God gives me breath, I will fight to defend our Constitution. As the man said, give me liberty or give me death!

Something is coming. I don’t know what. But we must be ready. Here’s the key question: Is America heading towards a terrible implosion or a great awakening? I feel a tremendous sense of urgency about this column. The United States is hurtling towards severe trouble, and the events of the past few months — and what may be coming over the next few months — grieves me a great deal. Something is coming. I don’t know what. But we all must be ready in every possible way. Consider where we are in the summer of 2015: •Violence is exploding in...

I can't post the tweet images in here, so you'd have to find those at the site. Prayers. "I hate that this is where we are in this country. I hate that a reprehensible, stomach-turning act like the Charleston shooting ever takes place. I hate the vitriolic responses to it on twitter. And I really, really hate that I have to write something, anything other than: My prayers are with the victim’s families, and America this morning. I also really hate that that statement in and of itself will generate controversy. There was a time in this country where we...

Americans lack confidence in the government’s ability to protect their personal safety and economic security, a sign that their widespread unease about the state of the nation extends far beyond politics, according to the latest Associated Press-GfK poll. […] The poll found that Democrats tend to express more faith in the government’s ability to protect them than do Republicans. Yet even among Democrats, just 27 percent are confident the government can keep them safe from terrorist attacks. Fewer than 1 in 5 say so on each of the other issues, including climate change. […] Urbanites tend to be more confident...

WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group is planning to release, through its liberal imprint Convergent Books, a manuscript titled God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships. Is the Christian world about to suffer through another World Vision moment? The book’s author, Matthew Vines, is a homosexual activist and Bible revisionist known for manipulating Christian terminology to advance the counter-Christian homosexualist agenda. Despite his frequent use of a Christian-like lexicon, Vines surprisingly admits to running an apostate enterprise that he calls The Reformation Project. An unabashed denier of Biblical teaching on sexual morality, Vines has publicly acknowledged...

That's why it's pretty chilling to hear Vladimir Putin hurling accusations at the West and pointing out that what's going on is identical to what went on when communism was established and religion was completely expunged from the Soviet Union. Between 1917 and 1937, almost a quarter of a million Christians were executed, and churches that survived destruction were converted into things like museums of atheism. Russian President Putin, who hasn't been shy about expressing his disapproval of homosexuality and has banned what he defined as "homosexual propaganda," had this to say: Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their...

You want others to know the hope you have in Christ. We want to help. Let us help you reach your friends, neighbors and family who don’t yet know Christ. We’ll walk with you as your learn how to pray for them and how to invite them into your home this November for a special program called My Hope With Billy Graham.

A graphic designer is suing a hotel after claiming he was turned down for a job there because he is a Christian. Jamie Haxby said he felt “victimized and persecuted” after allegedly being told he could not design adverts for the Essex venue due to his faith. Haxby, a regular worshiper at his local church, says manager Celie Parker apologized for inviting him to the interview after discovering he was a committed Christian. He claims he was then told he would not be considered for the role as his beliefs could upset atheists working there. …

Nearly four in ten U.S. residents say the severity of recent natural disasters such as Superstorm Sandy is evidence the world is coming to an end, as predicted by the Bible, while more than six in ten blame it on climate change, according to a poll released on Thursday. The survey by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Religion News Service found political and religious disagreement on what is behind severe weather, which this year has included extreme heat and drought. Most Catholics (60 percent) and white non-evangelical Protestants (65 percent) say they believe disasters like hurricanes...

When the DNC caved and invited Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan to deliver their convention's closing benediction tonight, it presented the mainstream media with a problem. Would they cover his DNC benediction any differently than they covered his RNC benediction last week in Tampa? There it was a mixed bag. Fox News covered it as the last featured event of the convention, which it was. CNN merely played the audio of the benediction in the background, while MSNBC ignored it entirely. The curiosity surrounding Cardinal Dolan's treatment at the DNC tonight was heightened by yesterday's disastrous Democratic platform "put God...

##"Cheating that’s rampant today in everything from education to finance to government. The financial meltdown of 2008 was a bonfire of bad behavior on all sides. Fannie Mae is built on the lie that every American is capable of paying a mortgage. Mortgage lenders steered victims into loans they could never pay. But the victims were not all innocent. Many lied on loan applications, claiming incomes they never had. President Obama wrote a biography based on fabrications, which he admitted to this year. The oddest of those lies concern the “girlfriend” he now says was a “compression” of real people....

This will make your blood boil. While New York City officials rush to build the Ground Zero mosquestrosity, a 15-story middle finger to America, they've allowed the rebuilding of the 95-year-old St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which stood at the base of the World Trade Center towers and was destroyed by Muslim terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, to be mired in obstruction and endless red tape. The church has fought a 10-year-long sisyphean battle to rebuild that magnificent icon, but still can't rebuild, while the Islamic supremacist grifters behind the Ground Zero mosque have been helped by city officials to...

One of the first books that made me thirst for God was, ironically, about His polar opposite. The book is Andrew Delbanco's The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil, The author describes the disastrous results of Americans rejecting the concept of evil. When Satan was alive and well, citizens practiced the Ten Commandments, atoned for their sins, and worried about eternal damnation. But today, inhabitants eschew the devil as an anachronism of days gone by. And what has been the result of the Death of Satan? More bloodshed than ever before in the history of...

A new survey of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths. Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn't know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ. More than half of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the person who inspired the Protestant Reformation. And about four...

FAITH UNDER FIRE Banished! City forbids Bible studies in homes 'This letter will serve as a 10-day written notice to quit such use' Posted: March 13, 2010 12:20 am Eastern By Bob Unruh © 2010 WorldNetDaily The city of Gilbert, Ariz., has ordered a group of seven adults to stop gathering for Bible studies in a private home because such meetings are forbidden by the city's zoning codes. The issue was brought to a head when city officials wrote a letter to a pastor and his wife informing them they had 10 days to quit having the meetings in their...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7fbYKD7xcQ&feature=related America under Barack Obama in 2010