Free Republic

Is this a Christian country? There are likely as many ways to answer the question as there are stripes on our flag. Yes, the country was populated at its beginning with Christians looking for a place to worship freely. But that was before we became a country. Yes, many of our founding fathers were sincere professing Christians. But many of them were not. Yes, we are Christian in the same sense as all of Europe is Christian — it is the faith tradition of the majority in our country. But no, we have rejected the faith of our fathers. Yes,...

I find it frustrating when I read or hear columnists, pundits, or journalists dismiss Christians as inconsistent because "they pick and choose which of the rules in the Bible to obey." Most often I hear, "Christians ignore lots of Old Testament texts---about not eating raw meat or pork or shellfish, not executing people for breaking the Sabbath, not wearing garments woven with two kinds of material and so on. Then they condemn homosexuality. Aren't you just picking and choosing what you want to believe from the Bible?" I don't expect everyone to understand that the whole Bible is about Jesus...

Believers in Unbelieving Churches What Should Be Done by Christian People Who are in a Modernist Church? What is the duty of Christian congregations or Christian individuals who find themselves in a church that is dominated by unbelief? Shall they remain in such a church, or shall they withdraw from it and become members of a consistently Christian Church? That is certainly the question of the hour for the orthodox part of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Various attempts are being made to answer the question. Various considerations are being urged on one side or the other. If we...

Rosaria spoke for 35 minutes and then fielded questions from the audience for another hour and a half. While she received many challenging questions from opposing viewpoints, the audience was mostly very respectful of her and her time. In short, the Gospel was clearly proclaimed both in her lecture and during Q&A. Even several from USF’s administration told how thankful they were for her lecture and for how smoothly the whole event ran. As I reflect on the events of the past week, especially the past 48 hours, it is difficult to express all that the Lord has done through...

Editor note: This essay below is worth the read. [The following essay explores the role that Francis Schaeffer played in the rise of the pro-life movement.  It examines the place of How Should We Then Live?, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, and A Christian Manifesto in that process.]One of the most enigmatic, controversial, and influential figures in the growth of the “pro-life” movement was Francis August Schaeffer.  It was the issue of abortion in particular that drove Schaeffer to shift his later work in the direction of political involvement and mobilization.(1)  Yet, despite the enormous impact of his books...

The town where J. Gresham Machen, the founder of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, last preached before his death has shown up again in the news, this time in a horrible way. While Machen's direct denominational influence was fairly narrow, as the key leader of the secession from the Northern Presbyterians and founder of Westminster Theological Seminary, Machen has a lasting role in American Calvinism that is far larger than the Orthodox Presbyterian Church which he founded. In his own lifetime, however, Machen's role was even more important and went well beyond Reformed circles. As a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary,...

For the past year, a pastor at a Boca Raton church has been serving up the good word from the pulpit while higher-ups in the faith look into allegations that he was sexually involved with a teenager in the 1980s. Kirk A. McCormick has been a pastor for the past 18 years at Grace Community Church, a Presbyterian congregation on West Camino Real. But in early June, the pastor abruptly "renounced the jurisdiction" of the congregation's parent body, the Presbyterian Church (USA). McCormick's decision came just as testimony was to begin in an inner-church trial over the accusations. By bailing...

Editor's note: On Sunday morning, officials with the fire department confirmed that the sanctuary was actually spared.The bells at Trinity Presbyterian Church will not toll this morning as flames engulfed the historic church Saturday night after a fire spread from the attic and brought the roof down. Capt. Scott McBurney of the Opelika Fire Department said he believed the church was struck by lightning. McBurney, who lives near Trinity, said he heard thunder and then a pop an hour before the station received a call at approximately 6:46 p.m. "We were on the scene in three minutes," McBurney said. "Smoke...

All teens need to be taught by their parents, teachers, pastors and mentors that their sexual desires are not their identity, nor do they need to be controlled by them. Who we are is so much greater than our appetites, sexual or otherwise. And all of us can learn, by God’s grace, to master and subdue our desires.

One man’s coffin nail could be the hinge pin keeping the PCA from going over the abyss. Jason Stellman’s flirtation with the Roman church-state right in the middle of his halfhearted prosecution of fellow closeted Roman Catholic, Peter Leithart, could be the means by which the PCA reverses its decision affirming Leithart’s gross heresy as being within the bounds of the Westminster Confession, even his rejection of justification by faith alone and imputation. Three PCA presbyteries that still believe that the Gospel is worth fighting for have “approved an overture requesting the General Assembly to assume original jurisdiction over TE...

The Reformed Presbyterian Church in the U.S., at it meeting on April 19, 2013, adopted a statement concerning Homosexuality and Same Sex marriage. They intentionally included positions from the Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church with the hope that they would once again join in making a prophetic statement to those in civil authority that the fear and judgment of God may at least move enough legislators and judges not to approve of or support legalizing “same sex marriage.” Their desire is that the whole Christian, and especially the Reformed church, should protest this matter. Resolution Adopted...

Advocates for churches and Christian institutions reconsidering biblical teaching on sexual morality frequently claim that such cultural accomodationism is "needed" if Christian communities are to have any hope of surviving in an America whose secular culture is increasingly intolerant of moral boundaries for sexual expression (beyond consent). If one is going to take such arguments seriously, it makes sense to consider how well that has worked in the denomination that has most prominently pioneered enthusiastic abandonment of biblical values on marriage and sex. The United Church of Christ (UCC) attracted heaps of polarized public attention in 2005 with its embrace...

"And make no mistake, the Catholic Church is disruptive. It is audacious and confrontational, sucker-punching and line-in-the-sand drawing. Like the Lion Aslan from C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, it is not a tame Church, and will make no promise not to devour and discomfit its subjects as they partake of its life-giving water, causing them to constantly bend the knee and cede their worldly wisdom to the foolishness of the cross. In the words of Aslan to Jill, who expressed fear about letting down her guard to drink from the water by which he stood, “There are no other streams.”...

The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) are vying for ecumenical partners as each jockeys for recognition by the wider Christian community. TEC recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Episcopal-Lutheran Concordat wherein the Episcopal Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) entered into full Communion. While this was initially met with much enthusiasm and idealism in the hope that the two denominations would usher in a new era of inter-denominational cooperation, the occasion went mostly unnoticed. In February of this year, the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church in...

The young man in my office was impeccably dressed and articulate. He was an Ivy League MBA, successful in the financial world, and had lived in three countries before age 30. Raised in a family with only the loosest connections to a mainline church, he had little understanding of Christianity. I was therefore gratified to learn of his intense spiritual interest, recently piqued as he attended our church. He said he was ready to embrace the gospel. But there was a final obstacle. "You've said that if we do not believe in Christ," he said, "we are lost and condemned....

Next Thursday, as the rest of us tuck into our turkey feasts, hundreds of needy families in Southern California will open "Boxes of Love." Delivered by several churches led by Pacific Crossroads in Santa Monica, Calif., the boxes contain ingredients for a Thanksgiving meal for six. They allow impoverished families to skip food lines and neighborhood pantries and enjoy the holiday in their own homes. What's unusual about the Pacific Crossroads congregation—and what underpins efforts such as Boxes of Love—is its theologically conservative raison d'être. A member church of the Presbyterian Church in America, Pacific Crossroads is committed to Reformation...

Next Thursday, as the rest of us tuck into our turkey feasts, hundreds of needy families in Southern California will open "Boxes of Love." Delivered by several churches led by Pacific Crossroads in Santa Monica, Calif., the boxes contain ingredients for a Thanksgiving meal for six. They allow impoverished families to skip food lines and neighborhood pantries and enjoy the holiday in their own homes. What's unusual about the Pacific Crossroads congregation—and what underpins efforts such as Boxes of Love—is its theologically conservative raison d'être. A member church of the Presbyterian Church in America, Pacific Crossroads is committed to Reformation...

Editor’s note: In light of recent decisions by other denominations to approve openly homosexual individuals for ministry, to sanction the blessing of same-sex unions, and because of the public debate on legalizing same-sex marriages, it is appropriate to publish the position of the Presbyterian Church in America on these issues. Here is a brief overview of actions of past General Assemblies and summaries of these actions: In 1977 the following was adopted: That the Fifth General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America affirms the biblical position for our denomination which states that: 1. The act of homosexuality is a...

Today we see an age of anomie—lawlessness. The laws of God are being ignored and His commandments jettisoned. Indeed, it is a lawless age in which we live—reminiscent of what Jesus said in parable about what would come when He went off to a far country. The citizens would hate Him, and they would cry out, “We will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14). The great question before the nations is: Will men and nations submit to having Jesus Christ, the Divine Creator of the world reign over them? God’s purpose in this world is to...

A Statement from Truth in Action Ministries, Oct. 14, 2011 "While having the deepest respect for the moral and ethical standards of the Mormon people and their church, we must sadly reject their teachings as false and not Christian." –D. James Kennedy, Ph.D. Texas pastor Robert Jeffress generated headlines last week when he told reporters that Mormonism is a cult—a belief system at odds with historic Christianity. Since then he has been accused of bigotry, called a “poster boy for hatred,” and a “moron.” Despite those harsh charges, Jeffress, who backs Texas governor Rick Perry for the GOP presidential nomination,...