“The reason people are going to the streets and making revolution is their desire not to live in a fear society,” Mr. Sharansky says. In his taxonomy, the world is divided between “fear societies” and “free societies,” with the difference between them determinable by what he calls a “town square test”: Are the people in a given society free to stand in their town square and express their opinions without fear of arrest or physical harm? The answer in Tunisia... Read more

 Tariq Ramadan, point man of the Caliphate By UWE SIEMON-NETTO Martin Luther considered the rise of Islam a sign of the impending apocalypse and God’s ferule for the backs of a wayward church. He was by no means the first great theologian to believe this. St. John of Damascus (676-749 A.D.) and the medieval mystic Joachim of Fiore (1135-1202 A.D.) viewed Islam as an anti-Christian power of the end of time and Mohammed as a precursor of the Antichrist. None... Read more

Matthew Franck In 22 years, not one prosecution has occurred under this provision of Pennsylvania law. Until now. In the Gosnell prosecution, Philadelphia district attorney R. Seth Williams has a choice. Does he go forward with the 33 counts of “illegal late-term abortion” (a fraction of the actual number of such abortions Gosnell performed, but all that can be solidly proven under a two-year statute of limitations) — as well as the eight murder charges? Or does he quietly drop... Read more

Friends, this is from an Egyptian Copt, a friend of Gail Lambert. Dear Friends, Thank you to all of you who have expressed concern about what is going on in Egypt and asked about my family. I have been able to talk to some members of my family almost every day, and they are all fine. All of them are staying at home and hoping that things will calm down soon. When we were in Egypt last January, the country... Read more

Russell Moore Are we witnessing the death of America’s Christian denominations? Studies conducted by secular and Christian organizations indicate that we are. Fewer and fewer American Christians, especially Protestants, strongly identify with a particular religious communion—Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, etc. According to the Baylor Survey on Religion, nondenominational churches now represent the second largest group of Protestant churches in America, and they are also the fastest growing. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703437304576120690548462776.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion Read more

Friends: This is from my student Marie Guirguis, who is from Egypt, shared by permission. It gives us a peek into the afflictions facing Copts, who are Egyptian Christians. Gerry Thank you so much for your warm feelings and your prayers. My family and I are safe here in the U.S., as well as my church family. As for my family in Egypt, they are on high alert, guarding their houses and properties in shifts. They have consolidated all our... Read more

Eugene Korn The facts indicate two very different stories unfolding for these Christians: one in Israel and the opposite in territories of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Israeli Christians have grown from 40,000 in 1948 when Israel was founded to 155,000 today. Indeed Israel is the only place in the Middle East where the Christian population has grown over the last 60 years. And this increase continues: the Israeli Christian population has risen by an average of 2.1% annually in... Read more

David Mills The trampoline, that upset them. We bought one of the big round ones for our eldest’s sixteenth birthday a few years ago, and parents we knew (mothers more than fathers) were appalled that we’d bought such a dangerous thing and horrified that our children were allowed to jump on it when we were not there. Fortunately, no one ever asked how many children we let on the trampoline at one time, since sometimes all four jumped on it... Read more

Jody Bottum Dr. Gosnell was a little befuddled at his arraignment on January 20. Indicted for eight murders, the Philadelphia abortionist told the court that he understood the first count, a charge of third-degree murder for the death of a woman on whom he had operated. He didn’t understand, however, the seven other counts—the first-degree charges for the deaths of seven babies delivered alive and then killed in his clinic. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/live-and-die-philadelphia_537628.html?nopager=1 Read more

John Allen We’re talking about a deeply faithful Orthodox Jew, the father of a large Jewish family in the Bronx which keeps kosher and strictly observes the Sabbath. Yet in 2003, Weiler published the best-selling book A Christian Europe, pleading for the European Union to embrace its Christian heritage. Sporting a kippah, Weiler also recently stood before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights to defend Italy’s right to display the crucifix in public school classrooms. He... Read more