Free Republic

Earlier this week, Truett Foster McKeehan — who performed as Shiloh, truDog, and TRU — died suddenly of cardiac arrest at the age of 21. Kevin Michael McKeehan, better known as TobyMac, shared a heart-wrenching statement after the sudden death of his son, along with the moving last text messages between them. TobyMac stood by his faith in God despite this tragedy.

Why do bad things happen to good people? There is no real answer to this question, because it is a flawed question! The question assumes we are good. There really are no “good” people, so how in the world could any of us tell “bad” things from “good” things? The question we actually need to ask is: “Why would a good God let those trying to do His will suffer?” This question has real answers. First, we need to review where we stand. We are fallen creatures, inclined to do wrong, and wrong thoughts and acts have bad consequences –...

Few seem to have good answers for the question: “Why didn’t God just create us so that we would never have to experience pain, suffering, or sadness?” After all, God has the power to make the world free of evil, yet He chose instead to make us creatures with free will. Thus, free will was the door left open for the possibility of evil entering our lives.What is the purpose of pain, suffering, and evil? Why does God allow humans, who were made in His image, to live on a planet where evil abounds? God could have made us...

Job | The Great Unknown

Imagine yourself a parent whose 22-year-old son was brutally murdered by three thugs, two of whom have lengthy criminal rap sheets. And imagine the trial of your son’s killers delayed not once, not twice, but three times over the past three and a half years, owing to the legal maneuvers of lawyers representing the accused. That’s the ordeal Pastor Ron Armstrong has endured. And today he makes his way to a Southern California courtroom – yet again – praying that his son’s killers will finally answer for their crime. Pastor Ron freely admits that his soul has been tormented since...

This is the 10th anniversary of what some have said is a seminal event in our national history. I would argue it was less a seminal event, and more an awakening as to the danger posed to the West since the 17th century when the armies of Kara Mustafa – capitalizing on the previous century’s work of warlord Suleiman the Magnificent – attacked Christian armies across eastern Europe. Suleiman’s and Mustafa’s wars were Jihads against the West. And though stopped at the Gates of Vienna in 1683, that Jihad has never ceased. But the enemy has been unable to effectively...

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore, appearing on Friday night’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO to plug the DVD release of his Capitalism: A Love Story screed, cited the 250,000 killed in Haiti, which he snidely described as an unregulated “Republican’s paradise,” as an apt analogy to justify further regulation of U.S. banks. Live via satellite from Manhattan, Moore spouted: Chile had an earthquake this past week that was 500 times greater than the earthquake in Haiti. But here's the big difference. In Chile, they have various -- very serious regulations when it comes to building codes. So a thousand...

n an interview with TPM, state Del. Bob Marshall (R-VA) disputed the full accuracy and context of a local news article that quoted him as saying that an increase of disabled children was a punishment from nature for abortion. "I don't believe that disabled kids are God's punishments, period, end of discussion," said Marshall. "I have defended disabled kids. I was almost kicked out of the Republican caucus because I forced a vote on a bill, because autism parents did not get a vote in a subcommittee." Marshall insisted that his comments had been taken out of context. (Here's the...

Skeptics, atheists, and agnostics, have every reason to ask me, as a Christian, how my loving God could allow the earthquake in Haiti. And, as a Christian, I must face the fact that God, indeed, could have prevented the quake and spared the Haitian people such agony. And yet He chose to allow it.

Why God Hates Haiti The frustrating theology of suffering. By Lisa Miller | NEWSWEEK Published Jan 15, 2010 From the magazine issue dated Jan 25, 2010 Haiti is surely a Job among nations. It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere: half its population lives on less than a dollar a day. With 98 percent of its forests felled and burned for firewood, Haiti is uniquely vulnerable to flooding from hurricanes. In 2008 four storms in as many weeks left a million homeless. Haiti has an infant-mortality rate worse than that of many African nations, and its people are...

Why does God allow there to be evil in the world? Are we not all created in the image of God? Many ask, and few seem to have good answers, for the question of, "Why God didn’t just create us so that we would never have to experience pain, suffering, and sadness?" After all, He has the power to make the world free of evil, yet He chose instead to make us creatures with free will. Thus, free will was the door left open for the possibility of evil to exist. If we have the right to chose between...

Hard Times May Reignite Our Country’s Faith April 23rd, 2009 by Chris Benguhe The latest wide-ranging study on American religious life hit the presses last month, and it said that the American religious landscape is shrinking. In April Newsweek Magazine ran “The End of Christian America” as their cover story.That’s pretty alarming unless you see it as a wake-up call, one that might help get us back on track.Nationally the study found the percentage of Christians has declined by a smidgen over the last few years, but more notably a whole lot more people say they have no religion at...

The Westboro Baptist Church, whose members tour the country protesting at military funerals because they claim America is tolerant of homosexuality, is thanking God for record flooding in North Dakota. “God sent the flood waters to cover the evil people of Bismarck and Fargo, ND, where you flipped off God and raised your hands against His anointed by criminalizing WBC’s gospel preaching against” gays and their supporters, declared a statement released Wednesday by the church, which is in Topeka, Kan. The statement referred to House Bill 1040, a North Dakota state law passed in January 2007 that bars protestors from...

Calling the economic downturn a "blessing," Russian Orthodox patriarch Kirill said it would allow people to consider and re-evaluate their lives. "The crisis, in a sense, may help our people reach the right attitude toward work," Kirill was quoted as saying during a visit to Russia's Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad. "Everyone should ask himself whether his salary is proportional to his real contribution." The crisis has put millions in Russia out of work, after nearly a decade of oil-fueled growth. Kirill compared it, however, to a flood that is sweeping away economic falsehoods and excessive self-indulgence and helping to...

Where do you stand on this pre trib, mid trib or post trib and why.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us—that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us partway there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two people's worries and fears.

Whether the problems in America are plagues or not, God is still in control. The revisiting of the ten plagues of ancient Biblical times makes it easier to understand the reasons why America is in the mess that it is in today. All the possible plagues that have been mentioned could become even worse as days, months and years pass. But, one thing is for sure, if America does not repent as a nation, God will send some form of punishment. God will not be continually mocked by sinful Americans who rebel against Him.

A young man got caught in the river's rage while trying to recover more of his folks belongings. He died in those merciless waters. At the rate the river was moving, it boggles the mind that his body could be recovered. Yet instead of being swept away, he was found relatively close by. God was hanging onto him for his family's sake. Perfect strangers were driving up to people's houses and would just start loading belongings. No questions asked, just pitching in. Getting people and parts of their life to safety. God was the matchmaker, giving people that could help...

John Piper pastors Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, whose main campus is about 1 mile from the I35 bridge over the Mississippi River that collapsed August 1. His reflections on that tragedy has been distributed far and wide and helped provide a biblical perspective on such events. Piper also responded forcefully and helpfully to the awful, God-dishonoring, soul-destroying and comfort-robbing words of Rabbi Harold Kushner on that tragedy. Both articles are worth reading and passing along to anyone and everyone who wonders "why bad things happen to good people." They are models in pastoral theology and ministry. Roger Olsen used...

The floods that have devastated swathes of the country are God's judgment on the immorality and greed of modern society, according to senior Church of England bishops.   The Bishop said pro-gay laws were to blame for the floods One diocesan bishop has even claimed that laws that have undermined marriage, including the introduction of pro-gay legislation, have provoked God to act by sending the storms that have left thousands of people homeless. While those who have been affected by the storms are innocent victims, the bishops argue controversially that the flooding is a result of Western civilisation's decision to...