Free Republic

Officially, it’s all part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s campaign to eradicate absolute poverty in ethnic minority areas by teaching local people new skills to enable them to increase their incomes and improve their livelihoods. These so-called “vocational training programs”, made infamous by the Muslim Uighur camps run in western Xinjiang, have more recently been extended to Tibet. But it is evident from official Chinese declarations in Tibet and Xinjiang that it’s not only about educating “rural surplus workers” in ethnic minority areas Beijing perceives as “backward.” Official Chinese documents on “poverty alleviation” quoted extensively by the non-partisan, Washington-based Jamestown...

The Secular Democrats of America PAC prepared a report for Joe Biden and his transition team that outlines a roadmap to "boldly restore a vision of constitutional secularism and respect in the land for religious and intellectual pluralism." The federal political action committee "represents secular Democratic individuals and organizations" and advocates for "secular governance, promote respect and inclusion of nonreligious Americans, and mobilize nonreligious voters." The proposal was formally presented by Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin and Jared Huffman, co-chairs of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, and endorsed by Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney. “We’ve offered the new administration a roadmap to restore...

Minister for Education, Kirsty Williams, is pushing an education Bill which requires all pupils to study atheism or ‘non-religious’ views such as Humanism with no parental right of withdrawal. Under the new system a non-religious committee in each area is given a veto power over all religious teaching. So humanists, who actively oppose all religion, are to be handed control over religious teaching in schools. The sensitive issue of sex education is also being given a total rewrite, imposing compulsory sex education for all pupils from the age of three. All existing safeguards on inappropriate materials are scrapped by the...

WASHINGTON (RNS) — A Democratic group dedicated to representing secular values unveiled a slate of recommendations for President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration on Monday (Nov. 30), outlining a sweeping agenda designed to roll back many of President Trump’s actions involving religion and to “restore a vision of constitutional secularism.” The 28-page document, crafted by the Secular Democrats of America PAC, is being presented to the incoming administration by Democratic Representatives Jamie Raskin and Jared Huffman — both co-chairs of the Congressional Freethought Caucus. The SDA’s agenda offers a wide range of policy recommendations to push back against the so-called “Christian...

Former evangelical Steve Chalke has claimed that churches could soon face prosecution over their treatment of LGBT people. He tweeted over the weekend: "When I began to welcome LGBT people into my church, the Evangelicals threw the charity I founded out of their alliance. "But I believe what amounts to the abuse of LGBT people by churches is likely to soon see a crop of high-profile prosecutions." His tweet was in reference to the Evangelical Alliance, which in 2014 discontinued membership of the Oasis Trust, the charity founded by Chalke, after he came out in support of same-sex relationships. Since...

For many Americans, the most painful consequence of the coronavirus lockdowns is the closing of church services. The grace and peace of Sunday makes it easier to make it through the week. But our media and political elites are indifferent to that pain, or openly hostile. The New York Times recently proclaimed in a headline, "Churches Emerge as Major Source of Coronavirus Cases." A three-reporter team announced the newspaper constructed a database to count church-spawned infections as the "virus rages" and blamed 650 infections across America on church activities. How is this a "major source" of cases? Most regular churchgoers...

The blessing of what's being called "the official Bible for the new U.S. Space Force" at the Washington National Cathedral on Sunday is drawing an outpouring of criticism on social media and condemnation from a prominent religious freedom advocacy group. "The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) condemns, in as full-throated a manner as is humanly possible, the shocking and repulsive display of only the most vile, exclusivist, fundamentalist Christian supremacy," MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein wrote in a statement denouncing the Bible blessing. "The utilization of a Christian bible to 'swear in' commanders of the new Space Force or...

The Chinese Communist Party instructed the Bible and other religious texts to be rewritten in an expressly pro-communist perspective that conforms with the party’s goals. In November, a group of 16 different experts and religious representatives were called on to attend a meeting of the Chinese Committee for Ethnic and Religious Affairs of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Those religious leaders were then instructed to review their religious texts and reinterpret them to conform with the values of the country’s communist party doctrine, according to the Daily Mail. Wang Yang, Chairman of the Chinese People’s...

FULL TITLE: 'I think we're very close': Freed pastor Andrew Brunson urges young American Christians to prepare for persecution The American pastor whose two-year imprisonment plunged Turkey into a diplomatic feud with the United States urged young Christians in his home country to prepare for the persecution he sees gathering for them on the horizon. Pastor Andrew Brunson, 51, told the Washington Examiner how troubled he has been by the ominous trends he has observed in American culture during the year since his dramatic, high-stakes release from a Turkish prison. Drawing on the ordeal he recounts in God's Hostage, his...

In a Register interview, Cardinal Willem Eijk discusses his concerns about gender ideology, and how faithful Catholics can respond to the current moral crisis in the Church. Gender theory, the notion that male and female roles have no, or merely a remote, connection with the biological sex, sets the human race and world order “against the Christian faith,” Cardinal Willem Eijk warned at a Rome conference. Speaking May 16 at the Rome Life Forum, an annual meeting of members of the international pro-life movement, the archbishop of Utrecht, Netherlands, explained how the ideology, which has spread rapidly, is rooted in...

PRETORIA, March 22, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – In South Africa, a high court ruled that the Dutch Reformed Church’s adherence to its teachings that marriage is for one man and one woman amounts to “discrimination.” On March 8, the Gauteng Division of South Africa’s High Court in Pretoria ruled that the Dutch Reformed Church may not exclude certain members of the church from the full and equal enjoyment of the rights and freedoms offered to all of its members. This would include allowing “marriage” for same-sex couples. “If a member of the [Dutch Reformed] Church is permitted to study to become...

Chinese security forces continue to surround the Kirti Tibetan monastery in Sichuan after local residents tried to stop them from arresting the 2,500 monks holed up inside. The standoff began earlier this week, when hundreds of people living in Sichuan's Aba region converged on the monastery determined to stop police from removing the monks for reeducation. The monks could soon face food shortages because they depend on offerings from locals, the Voice of America reports. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the U.S. is concerned about China's actions in Aba, which it called it inconsistent with the internationally recognized principles...

A former Union High School teacher who resigned nearly six years ago after posting anti-gay comments on social media has settled her long-standing lawsuit against the district for $132,500. Jenye "Viki" Knox will receive $24,500 for back wages, $63,833.33 for claims of emotional distress and $44,166.67 for attorney's fees, according to court papers. The news was first reported by NJ Civil Settlements, which compiles a partial list of settlements paid by New Jersey government agencies and their insurers to those who have sued them. Knox, a 56-year-old Union Township resident who taught special education, described homosexuality as a "perverted spirit"...

Straight couples will be asked by the Government if they would like the option of having a civil partnership rather than getting married. Minister for Women Victoria Atkins is to launch a poll on the issue this month. The move comes before the start of a Supreme Court case tomorrow challenging the law restricting civil partnerships to same-sex couples. In a civil partnership - which came into law for same-sex couples in 2005 - a couple is entitled to the same legal treatment in terms of inheritance, tax, pensions and next-of-kin arrangements. Last night, a spokeswoman for the Equal Civil...

Bishop John Keenan of Paisley criticised the video for encouraging anti-Catholic prejudiceThe Bishop of Paisley has criticised BBC Scotland after a video said Holy Communion “tastes like cardboard and smells like hate”. The video was posted on the Facebook page of BBC The Social, a project aimed at young adults and managed by BBC Scotland, under the title “This is how homophobia feels in 2018”. At one point it depicts a priest holding a Mini Cheddar in a parody of the Host, and giving it to a woman who makes the sign of the cross. The narrator says Jesus “saved...

A three-judge court panel ruled Wednesday that a World War I memorial in the shape of a cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, is unconstitutional, a decision that a legal scholar says could imperil other similar memorials. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the 40-foot cross erected 92 years ago violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. “The monument here has the primary effect of endorsing religion and excessively entangles the government in religion,” Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote for the majority. “The Latin cross is the core symbol of Christianity. And here, it is 40...

Hillary Clinton was so frustrated about the infamous scandal surrounding her use of a private email server that she was “tempted” to construct voodoo dolls in the images of “certain members” of the news media and Congress, and then “stick them full of pins.” So Clinton wrote in her 494-page new memoir, What Happened, which was released today. In the book, Clinton complained that the “attacks” against her use of the private email server “were untrue or wildly overstated, and motivated by partisan politics.”

Attempting to create the impression that faithful Christians whose beliefs are at odds with newly sanctified cultural mores are incapable of doing their job. "Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?" Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Notre Dame Law School professor Amy Coney Barrett, a nominee for a federal appeals court, yesterday. Since Durbin inquired in the form of a question, we can only assume that Barrett's answer was pertinent to the confirmation. That is problematic considering the Constitution explicitly states that no religion—not even a belief in orthodox liberalism—should be a prerequisite for holding a federal office. At least...

During Barack Obama’s war on Hobby Lobby his administration said flatly; “We Can and Will Force Christians to Act Against Their faith.” This is what they believe. This is how they see Christians. This was the opening battle in the Democrats’ War on Christians. It was directed by a quintessential stereotypical Democrat. Their Christian attacks are usually led by phony “Catholics” so as to more easily deflect rightful criticism for their dirty business. Putative Catholic Kathleen Sebelius was joined in her war on Hobby Lobby by putative Catholic Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in what was fortunately a losing effort....

At the March 29th rally in Janesville Wisconsin, outlined several ideas one of which was do away with 501C3 status of churches which he says contributed to the pulpit being silenced in the political world and infringe upon free speech.