Free Republic

It’s abundantly clear that religion stood at the center of the Civil War for both sides. Both North and South looked to God for meaning, and each side believed—that God was on its side... The new Confederate Constitution, adopted on February 8, 1861, officially declared its Christian identity, “invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God.” Southern leaders chose as their national motto Deo Vindice (“God will avenge”.) Confederate President Jefferson Davis proclaimed that the time had come “to recognize our dependence upon God … and supplicate his merciful protection.” This national acknowledgment of religious dependence, as the South frequently...

The U.S. Department of War further amended its recently revised list of recognized religious affiliations Monday after several Mormon members of Congress expressed outrage that Mormonism was initially listed as separate from other Christian denominations. "Last week, a proposed list of simplified faith codes was released to the media. The Pentagon list included redundant and unnecessary labeling, and the mistake has been fixed," the Department of War said in statement that was forwarded to The Christian Post."The goal of this effort is to simplify a previously out-of-control 'belief' coding system that had ballooned to over 200 codes. In order to...

The Pentagon revised a religious classification list after pushback from Utah lawmakers, but questions remain about why The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was left off the list of Christian religions in the first place. BYU religious historian Joseph Stuart said the answer lies in a debate that has been going on for nearly 200 years. After Sen. Mike Lee shared a post online asking if anyone could explain why the Pentagon removed the LDS faith from its list of Christian religions, Stuart said, “The discussion that I would have hoped to have had is to say, ‘You...

When you import the Third World, you import the Third World's problems. Right now, that's never been more apparent than in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where an immigrant variously described as Sudanese and Somalian brutally attacked a young Irish man. The UK's Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, is outraged. The post reads: KIER STARMER: Belfast stabbing was "sickening." Irish officials and law enforcement have urged the public not to circulate footage of the African migrant, citing concerns of unrest and "misinformation." PM Keir Starmer called the attack “horrific” and “sickening,” saying he had “absolutely no tolerance” for violence like this. The footage...

Thomas Albert Howard's "God and the Atlantic..." is a thoroughly researched examination of the contrasting religious paths between Europeans and Americans... Moving beyond Alexis de Tocqueville’s oft-quoted appraisal of American religiosity, Howard’s analysis progresses in two directions. First, he examines negative assessments both from the left (America viewed as overly religious) and the right (America’s religion is too distinct from Europe and thus represents bad religion). Second, he explores two European elites who each wrote about and lived in the United States: Philip Schaff, a Swiss-German Protestant church historian, and Jacques Maritain, a French Catholic philosopher... British intellectuals who were...

Republicans have pounced on an old statement as they seek to make gender politics the focus of the Senate campaign.A few days before he won the race to be the Texas GOP’s candidate for U.S. Senate, Ken Paxton tried to call an ad-spend truce with his runoff opponent, the four-term incumbent John Cornyn. Ostensibly, a ceasefire would enable him to pour those dollars into campaigning against the Democratic candidate, James Talarico. The scorched-earth line of attack that a PAC affiliated with him landed on: Talarico thinks God isn’t a dude. Or, in exact terms, that one time he said...

LLMs prefer secular, rational reasoning, and while they'll still get religious on occasion, they have a negative view of Jehovah's WitnessesIf you're looking for one of the leading AI models to push faith as the answer to your otherwise neutral queries, you haven't got a prayer. Major LLMs ignore faith and use secular-rationalist reasoning to answer ethical questions, says a consortium of religious universities. But one thing the models all have in common is a negative view of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Secular, humanist, and scientifically derived responses to questions that aren’t framed in a religious manner are at the heart of...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV called Monday for robust regulation of artificial intelligence and for its developers to work for the common good rather than profit, issuing a sweeping manifesto on safeguarding humankind as the technology impacts everything from work to war. “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), Leo’s first encyclical, has been eagerly awaited ever since history’s first U.S.-born pope announced days after his election that he considered AI to be the biggest challenge facing humanity today. In the text, Leo denounced the “culture of power” driving the AI race, especially in developing ever more sophisticated methods of remote...

Americans no longer understand the biblical roots of our constitutional order. When a professor at Princeton begins a by recounting that students at one of the world’s most prestigious universities had to have the Ten Commandments explained to them, the natural reaction is disbelief. Surely Gregory Conti was exaggerating? But within days, his essay had drawn corroborating testimony from a chorus of academics at other elite institutions. A Northwestern professor teaching students who had never encountered the word “Exodus.” A former University of Virginia faculty member undergraduates who could not parse Martin Luther King Jr.’s references to that same story...

Conventional wisdom in the entertainment industry has held that religion is a risky subject—polarizing, niche, and best avoided in mainstream storytelling. New research however, suggests the opposite...even among viewers with no religious affiliation... A national survey conducted by HarrisX in partnership with the Faith & Media Initiative, released in late January 2026, examined how American audiences respond to religious themes embedded in mainstream films and television... 77 percent of entertainment consumers agreed that the presence of faith in television and movies is broadly appealing. This sentiment was remarkably consistent across generational lines...Political affiliation made little difference... A telling example came...

The trend that we are seeing is a very positive one. People are seeking tradition...It's a learning lesson for a lot of pastors I talk to. If you are not creating an environment where the people that come to your church can find holiness and meaning and be elevated, you're not doing your job. There was a time in the nineties where people were hungry for a personal encounter with God, and Evangelicalism I think offers that better than some Catholicism circles. Maybe that's to be debated, but times change and needs an appetites change. And I could tell you...

Vermont Principals’ Association to pay $566K to Christian school in transgender athlete dispute

I recently did something that will likely make both my Christian and atheist friends a little uncomfortable: I asked a popular AI engine to evaluate the world’s major belief systems and tell me which one makes the most rational sense. To be clear, I didn’t prompt it to favor Christianity. I didn’t ask leading questions or try to stack the deck. I asked it to analyze the heavyweights — Atheism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity — using a simple two-step framework: First, which worldview best explains reality, and second, which one does so while requiring the fewest unsupported assumptions? In...

Former Chicago Bulls guard Jaden Ivey says his wife isn’t speaking to him after the team cut him amid fallout from anti-LGBTQ+ comments he made on an Instagram live stream. “That’s why my wife in here, and she not even texting me,” Ivey, 24, revealed on another Instagram live stream on Tuesday, March 31, “Those who are around me, those who are my family members betraying [me] because of what I spoke. The truth. Betraying me. Saying that I’m losing my mind. Saying that I’m crazy. … Those are my own household. All because of the Gospel. All because I...

"Paula White, appointed by Trump as president of the White House Faith Office, conducts an exorcism session to drive evil spirits out of the audience by blowing into the microphone." ...

Support Free Republic join me in supporting FR as the deadline approaches... "Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves... Iran says it attacked an anti-drone depot in the United Arab Emirates operated by Ukrainians defending an American base... Your host self-identifying as a great hypocrite with a song about hypocrisy penned... A clue about what Epstein was up to with all his international contacts in the story of French diplomat Fabrice Aidan now being investigated by French authorities......

Paula White-Cain urged attendees of her 2026 Unleashed Conference last week to give a “sacrificial seed” in support of the ministry of her friend Eddie James. The pastor of City of Destiny Church in Apopka, Florida, urged people to give out of obedience to God, and she tied their giving to spiritual breakthroughs. “How many of you want to help me with Eddie James? How many of you want to be a blessing?” she asked. “Because I’m telling you, there’s an anointing of release right now. I want $100,000 to come in. I want $100,000. There are 10 people that...

(LifeSiteNews) — In an extraordinary White House proclamation issued on the Feast Day of St. Joseph, President Trump identified the earthly father of Jesus as the “Terror of Demons” and called for young men to emulate him, urging them to “embrace faith, get married, start a family, and raise the next generation of proud, freedom-loving, God-fearing American citizens.” “Saint Joseph—the earthly father of Jesus Christ and one of the most revered figures in the Bible … was a model father, husband, and worker, as well as a living embodiment of Christian virtue,” began the president. “He spent his life working...

KANSAS CITY, MO (WDAF)-A pastor in Missouri was suspended last week after it was discovered she worked for and managed the private island of late-sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for nearly a year. On Thursday Bishop Robert Farr of the Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church placed Rev. Stephanie L. Remington on leave, pending a review by the episcopal office. Remington reportedly worked as Epstein's administrative assistant and temporary property manager of his private island, Little Saint James, from August 2018 to May 2019...

"Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world,"