Free Republic

Christians are "filthy" in the sight of Allah and worthy of being looted and slaughtered "in a time of jihad," according to an American imam and professor of religious studies at a prestigious private college in Tennessee. These are words Professor Yasir Kazi now disputes he ever said. Kazi (also spelled Qadhi) is a professor of Islamic studies at Rhodes College, a four-year liberal arts college in Memphis, Tennessee. He has two master's degrees from Yale and one from the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia. He is expected to complete his doctorate soon from Yale's department of religious studies,...

GOP candidates debate for first time since terror attacks.

A Syrian priest who escaped to the West after being held for months by Islamic State believes his life was spared because of his interfaith work.Syriac Catholic priest Rev Jacques Mourad was abducted from the Mar Moussa monastery. He believed he was going to be killed, but was instead held captive in the terrorist group's capital, Raqqa.According to RNS, he told members of Rome's Foreign Press Association: "During these 84 days that I was a prisoner in this bathroom in Raqqa, it could be said that it was one of the most difficult experiences that a person can go through; that...

Donald Trump, defying skeptics and overcoming an avalanche of mockery from establishment Republicans, has extended his streak as the party's presidential frontrunner for almost five months. With the Iowa caucuses less than two months away, Republican leaders are growing deeply alarmed by Trump's resilience. Anxious that his lead may not fade before the voting starts, GOP strategists have begun to brace for a long and painful nomination fight, with Trump's opponents hoping to grind him down over a period of months. In a new CNN/ORC poll released Friday, Trump leads the GOP field of White House hopefuls at 36% --...

Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it. On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a "strong, true, consistent conservative."...

PART I When you have seen scenes of poverty and squalor in many Third World countries, either in person or in pictures, have you ever wondered why we in America have been spared such a fate? When you have learned of the bitter oppressions that so many people have suffered under, in despotic countries around the world, have you ever wondered why Americans have been spared? Have scenes of government-sponsored carnage and lethal mob violence in countries like Rwanda or in the Balkans ever made you wonder why such horrifying scenes are not found on the streets of America? Nothing...