TruthBook Religious News Blog

Basic premise of this site: People watch movies to let you know why you shouldn't watch them. Christian reviews of secular as well as Christian movies and videos. Incidentally: you can add your own comments to the reviews, so everyone will know you went ahead and watched anyway...

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Religious Anti-War Movement Update

U.S. religious leaders and activists who opposed the war in Iraq say while the sudden end to the war has caused a sense of confusion among the ranks of anti-war protesters about what to do next, they will continue their work, particularly in opposing what they say is an overextension of American power abroad and a potentially perilous foreign policy in the Middle East and throughout the world.

"I think the single most overarching foreign policy question for Americans in the next decade and beyond is: What kind of lone superpower are we going to be?" said Ronald Sider, executive director of Evangelicals for Social Action.

Sider called the United States the most powerful and dominant force in the world since the Roman Empire. "Do we use that power for shorter-term self-interest or do we take the lead and create a different kind of world that is genuinely free and democratic?" he asked.

Jim Wallis of the Washington-based Sojourners community said, however, that it won't be enough for U.S. faith groups to merely oppose or protest what is increasingly being called the "Bush Doctrine" in foreign policy; it will be necessary to develop concrete, specific alternatives to U.S. policy.

"Churches have to say more than `no,"' Wallis said. "Having an alternative (policy) is better."

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Tuesday, April 29, 2003

The end is near - Or so some Americans believe

A Time/CNN poll has found that 17 per cent of Americans -- nearly one in five -- believe that the end of the world will come in their lifetimes, and 59 per cent believe that the prophecies about the end of the world found in the Christian New Testament Book of Revelations are true and will happen, if not in the near future.

The war against Iraq, the ancient biblical Babylon described in repeated references in Revelations, has booted Americans' eschatological thoughts into overdrive.

End-times allusions abound. Revelations Chapter 9, Verse 11, for example -- yes, indeed, 9:11 -- talks about a king who is "the angel of the bottomless pit" commanding an army of locusts with the power of scorpions, the king's name being Abaddon in Hebrew or Apollyon in Greek, both meaning "Destroyer," an Arabic translation of Saddam.

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Monday, April 28, 2003

Some Muslims fear spiritual crusade headed for Iraq

As Southern Baptists fill care packages for shipment to war-torn Iraq, the Rev. Sam Porter insists the endeavor is humanitarian, not evangelical.

For Liyakat Takim and other Muslims, it will take some convincing that American Christian charity comes with no strings - or proselytizing - attached.

"If they really are concerned about our welfare and aid, then why slip the Bible in between?" said Takim, an assistant professor of Islamic studies at Denver University. "If it were purely a humanitarian cause, then Muslims would welcome it. But there is clearly a hidden agenda."

Although Porter says Southern Baptists have been instructed not to include any religious material in their aid packages, other Christian relief agencies - including some whose leaders have publicly denounced Islam - indicated they would take the opportunity to evangelize.

Many Muslims - and some Christians - warn that the mix of relief and religion could damage U.S. efforts to help create a democratic system in Iraq and ensure stability in the often-volatile Middle East.

And some Muslims and Christians fear that it could end up strengthening Osama bin Laden and his followers, who long ago predicted a new Christian crusade.

After all, President Bush at one point called his war on terrorism a "crusade" - evoking images among Muslims of the early clashes between the two religions, as well as 19th- and 20th-century colonialism, in which Christian missionaries poured into the Middle East after British and French troops.

The International Bible Society is soliciting donations to print and ship to Iraq a new Scripture-filled pamphlet for Iraqi refugees. World Concern, an international relief organization dispatching volunteers and supplies to Iraq, pledges to serve "all people equally regardless of creed" but never hides its Christian orientation. "We do seek appropriate ways to communicate the love of Christ in both word and deed."

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69% of Russians profess religion

In recent years the number of Russians who consider themselves religious believers and the number of Russians who consider themselves Orthodox has increased.

According to a recent survey by the Public Opinion fund , this year 69% of respondents said that they profess a religion. Moreover, 59% of those questioned identified themselves as Orthodox, 8% Muslim and 2% other religions. 30% of those questioned did not consider themselves religious. In 1997 the same index had 62% professing a religion and 38% not professing a religion.

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Thursday, April 24, 2003

Religious discrimination complaints spike

More workers are expressing and practicing their spiritual beliefs at work - something many experts say can be good for business. At the same time, workplaces are becoming more religiously diverse. The result? The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that complaints of religious discrimination on the job jumped 21 percent in 2002 - and a whopping 85 percent over the last decade.

Years ago, people tended to leave their faith at the office door, but that attitude is changing. Whether clashes occur between supervisors and subordinates or among co-workers, the responsibility ultimately becomes the employer's. Workplace religious studies are proliferating. Numerous books advocate enhancing work spiritually. Employees are asserting their rights to wear religiously mandated apparel and to work schedules that accommodate their worship times. Meanwhile, employers struggle with how far they need to go to accommodate workers' religious needs while running an efficient business.

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Wednesday, April 23, 2003

Religion, sprituality, health + wellness

"There is evidence to support how religion and spirituality help to promote health and wellness," said the Rev. Will Baumgartner, pastor at NBGH."I have seen it in my own patients, but also in the crusades of others in the medical field such as Dr. Christina Puchaski."

In a survey by the George H. Gallup International Institute in 1997 found that people overwhelmingly desire to reclaim their spirituality in dying.

The survey showed 65 to 95 percent want their physicians to address their spiritual issues with them, yet only about 10 percentof their physicians actually do.

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Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Few atheists in U.S. foxholes

The old saying "There are no atheists in foxholes" turns out to be virtually correct, at least for the U.S. armed forces. About 0.1 percent of all American military personnel officially declare themselves to be atheists. That doesn't mean, however, that all service members belong to a particular religious denomination. About 27 percent do not volunteer to have a specific religious preference inscribed on their dog tags.

Congress prohibited the U.S. Census Bureau from inquiring about the religious affiliations of the general populace, which means there are no official statistics on the size of the various American faiths. The military, however, does ask about religion since it employs nearly 3,000 chaplains to meet soldiers' religious needs.

Overall, 44 percent of Americans in the volunteer military call themselves Protestants and 24 percent say they are Catholics, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center. The other major world religions are not heavily represented: Muslims and Jews make up 0.3 percent each, Buddhists 0.2 percent and Hindus 0.1 percent. The "other" category numbered 5 percent.

The religious makeup of the armed forces is similar to that of the general population. A 2000 Gallup Poll found that 56 percent of all Americans consider themselves Protestant, 27 percent Catholic, 2 percent Jewish, 1 percent Orthodox, 1 percent Mormon, and 5 percent "other." An additional 8 percent gave their religion as "none." That doesn't mean, though, that 92 percent of the public is active in an organized religion. About one of every three Americans said they did not belong to a church or synagogue.

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Monday, April 21, 2003

In church, women lead the way

Nationwide, churches find the most devoted followers are female. Women's devotion is a phenomenon that's been noticed for decades, and its recognition was reinforced in the Barna survey of 4,755 adults conducted and released in 2000. The survey found that 75 percent of women see a closer relationship with God as a desirable goal, compared with 65 percent of men. The poll had a sampling error of 2 percentage points.

"Women, more often than not, take the lead role in the spiritual life of the family," Barna said. "Women typically emerge as the primary - or only - spiritual mentor and role model for family members."

In modern churches, women are 33 percent more likely to volunteer than men, according to Barna research. That means women tend to take the lead in lay leadership, though nine out of 10 senior pastors are men.

"Sometimes the leadership issue is explained by the idea 'Men create theology but women carry it forward,' " said the Rev. Nancy Dean, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Millcreek.

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Self-absorbed and selfish, we've lost our beliefs - and the plot

Modern secular societies are self-absorbed and self-contained, seeing the spiritual dimension of human beings as a private matter for each individual. Social relationships and the norms that govern them are no longer central to many. Modern information technology enables them to create their own microworlds of virtual friends and colleagues.

Scientific, technological and economic advances offer better explanations for the secularisation of modern society than sin, though they may also open up new occasions for evil conduct. They present a challenge that those of us who are practising Christians have yet to meet. Indeed, we are in danger of castigating and condemning them, like so many Canutes ordering the tides to turn back.

Secularisation in Britain has gone so far ? despite, or perhaps because of, the existence of established Churches, the Church of England and in Scotland the Presbyterian Church ? that fewer than one person in 10 is a regular church attender. The decline in the USA is much less dramatic than it is in Europe. A very large majority of Americans believe in the fundamental Christian doctrines, and regularly go to church.

The Catholic writer G K Chesterton once said that the trouble when people stop believing in God is not that they thereafter believe in nothing, it is that they thereafter believe in anything. The spiritual void in secular societies is filled by a mélange of dreams, emotions, pagan myths and a vague mysticism engendered by popularised versions of Asian religions, especially Buddhism and Hinduism. That mélange may be a spiritual accompaniment to globalisation, a picking and choosing among religious ideas and experiences easily accessible through the proliferation of channels of communication and sources of information.

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Saturday, April 19, 2003

People are finding religion on the Internet

United Kingdom

More Britons are defining their spiritual journey online, with traffic to UK religion sites up over 150 per cent since this time last year, according to market analysts Hitwise. In contrast to the European Values Study recently published in the Economist which states that less than 15 per cent of Britain’s population physically go to church at least once a month, it seems that online religion is quickly becoming the new way for people to get in touch with their spirituality. Hitwise statistics reveal that the average session duration for religion sites is 5 minutes and 37 seconds, increasing from 5 minutes and 23 seconds in March 2002. And with only 22 per cent of traffic to religion sites directed at domestic services, Britons do appear to be looking for answers overseas, signifying the fact that religion and spiritualism have indeed moved beyond the local parish.

Australia

More than 80 per cent of seekers of spiritual guidance on the Internet visit overseas sites, including the popular Gospel Communications Network and Belief Net. "Young people are using the Internet to define their spiritual journey and beliefs without setting foot in a church," said Hitwise senior vice-president Tessa Court. Ms Court said almost a third of visitors to Australian religion sites were aged 25 to 34. World unrest has also prompted many more people to seek out websites promoting human rights.

New Zealand

New Zealanders are turning to God... but they're doing it on the Internet. Internet intelligence company Hitwise says there has been a jump in the number of kiwis setting off on their spiritual journeys along the information super-highway. Hitwise spokeswoman Tessa Court says young people are using the Internet to define their spiritual journey and beliefs without having to set foot in a church. She says it's little wonder that congregations are aging and attendances at church services are down. And it seems the Christian tradition of involvement in social issues continues on the web - last week a massive 8.8% of visitors to The Churches Agency on Social Issues left with the intention of returning by adding this site to their "favorites" list

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Thursday, April 17, 2003

A season for new faiths

Tallying how many people have "shifted their spiritual loyalties" is difficult, says Egon Mayer, a co-author of the American Religious Identification Survey 2001. The survey of 50,000 people, conducted by the Graduate Center of City University of New York, updated a 1990 survey on religious identity.

It also asked for the first time whether someone had changed his or her religious preference, and 16% said yes. The biggest shifts were a move to no religion, not a new faith, or a move to shed any specific label.

Such statistics are snapshots of "people on a journey that may not be over," says Ariela Keysar, another co-author of the survey, noting that 1% to 5% of people returned to their original religion.

Among "switchers," interfaith marriage seems to be a primary force, Keysar says.

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U.S. faith broad but not deep, Gallup says at DBU

Contrary to reason, Americans are becoming both more and less religious year by year, veteran pollster George Gallup Jr. told a luncheon audience at Dallas Baptist University March 31. "America's religion is broad but not deep," Gallup observed. "Fortunately, we're seeing pockets where religious faith is maturing and deepening." "Americans' level of biblical illiteracy has not improved over the last half century. In fact, it has not kept pace with increasing literacy on the whole," Gallup reported.

"This leaves them vulnerable to cults, many of which glorify self, not God."

The influence of cults and various religious ideas, compounded with Americans' poor theological foundations, has produced "a great deal of fuzziness in spirituality," he said. That particularly has taken its toll on mainline denominations--Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian--each of which has lost about one-third of its membership in the past three decades.

"The bad news about religion in this country is there is a lot of superficiality," he added. For example, the Gallup Organization has polled people who simultaneously claim to be born-again Christians and say they practice "channeling" with spirits.

"It's not that Americans don't believe anything," Gallup said. "They believe everything."

"People are looking for moorings to a degree we haven't seen in seven decades of polling," he said. "People are thirsty. There is this profound hunger for God."

"Our Christian worldview ought to shape everything we're about," Lindsay said. "Christ causes our lives to be ordered. The drive for spiritual emphasis and spiritual growth is pervasive."

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Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Clergy avoid war talk

A study by the Pew Research Center just before the Iraq war began found that most regular American churchgoers were hearing their clergy allude to the war. Only 21% of those ministers, however, voiced their own opinions about the conflict.

Vietnam War protests, which were initiated on college campuses, later were channeled onto Main Street through the Sunday sermons of ministers in America's churches and synagogues. Although clergy members were latecomers to the protests, they multiplied so quickly that by November 1966, 52% of parish ministers publicly stated that the United States should begin to withdraw its troops from Vietnam, according to a National Council of Churches poll. The surge in support from the country's clergy increased the public's perception that the anti-war movement had moral justification. At the same time, it helped to silence those congregants who supported the war.

In contrast, during the 1991 Gulf War, a Gallup Poll found that only 31% of church leaders preached their opinion (most who did favored that war).

Ministers' growing silence is striking considering 61% of U.S. clergy members now in senior pastor positions are members of the baby-boomer generation, so many of whom protested against the Vietnam War. Now, however, they are willing to instruct but not take a position.

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Monday, April 14, 2003

Mommy, Did the Jews Kill Jesus?

So what can parents say? I know what I wish Christian mothers and fathers (and priests, ministers, and Sunday school teachers) would say to children. After teaching them that the Roman soldiers, encouraged by some Jews, killed Jesus, telling the tale in the way that they understand it, they might ask, ?Why do you think that some of the Jews wanted Jesus to be killed?? Eventually, the answer comes -- perhaps some of the ancient Jews thought that Jesus, who was Jewish himself, was a heretic, teaching ideas dangerous to what they believed was the true faith and to their way of life.

And then those who teach children could tell them that this is the very same reason that at different times in history Catholics murdered Protestants, Protestants murdered other Protestants, Christians murdered Muslims, Muslims murdered infidels, and Christians murdered Jews.

?Isn?t it sad,? they might say, ?that people think you can kill an idea by killing the people who believe it?? Or, ?Isn?t it sad that religion, which teaches us to be good, also leads people to do such horrible things?? Or, ?Why do you think that people get so afraid of people who have different beliefs or come to hate them so much?"

How different this telling would be. And what a different discussion might follow. These children might come away with a sobering sense of the tragic things that people do to one another. They might also learn a lesson, not in pride and intolerance, but in true Christianity -- a lesson in forgiveness and brotherhood.

We must tell our children what we believe to be the true Biblical stories, but we can choose the lessons they learn from them.

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Sunday, April 13, 2003

Religious revival on college campuses predicted

William F. Buckley, a Roman Catholic who later became editor of the conservative National Review, an author and the longtime host of the PBS show 'Firing Line," has long predicted that there would be a religious revival on elite college campuses. He was wrong, said Professor John DiIulio, who spent 13 years at Princeton before moving to the University of Pennsylvania. But that revival is about to take place. "Sit tight because the religious revival that did not materialize a half century ago is about to happen," Dr. DiIulio said. "And it will be in full swing by the end of the decade." Since the publication of "God and Man" in 1951, the abandonment of traditional religious belief has been more pronounced at elite colleges than in the population at large, he said, citing polls that show more than two-thirds of all Americans pray every day and Bible study groups have grown. And what is ironic about this campus revival is that it is, in part, a rebellion by the children and grandchildren of the baby boomers who dropped out of traditional religion, Dr. DiIulio said. "College students say religion is important to their lives," Dr. DiIulio said. "Every major campus-based survey says students are interested in talking about God and want more resources."

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Wednesday, April 09, 2003

Religious Girls Less Likely to Have Sex

A new study by the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) shows religious teenage girls are less likely to have sex. "Religion affected their attitude about sex and it was those attitudes, in turn, that made them less likely to have sex," Ann Meier, of the University of Wisconsin, said. She said being involved in a religious environment made a huge difference in those teenagers' attitudes. The study was comprised of 90,000 teens in the seventh through 12th grades. The NICHD is hoping the information helps health researchers come up with programs to prevent teens from engaging in sexual activity.

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24 percent of Americans read religious books

In a January 2003 survey, Barna, a marketing research company that studies cultural trends of Christianity, discovered that 51 percent of American teenagers and 48 percent of adults have read at least one Christian book in the past year other than the Bible. What's more, the survey found, one-third of all U.S. adults (35 percent) and teenagers (34 percent) purchased at least one Christian book (other than the Bible) within that same time frame.

The Barna survey compares to a Gallup poll that found 24 percent of Americans were "very likely" to have read books on religion and theology within the last year. In fact, among 13 categories of books, the genre of religion and theology scored third in the Gallup poll, with biographies or books about history ranking first (30 percent) and thriller or suspense novels second (25 percent). Self-improvement books ranked just under religion and theology in the Gallup poll at 23 percent.

Ken Stephens said he believes people are interested in books on spirituality because "as humans, we are all by nature spiritual beings."

In fact, the Barna study revealed that many people not affiliated with Christianity had read at least one Christian book other than the Bible in the last year. That includes one-sixth or 17 percent of atheist/agnostic adults polled, one-fifth or 20 percent of those who don't attend church, one-third or 34 percent of those who don't consider themselves born again, and half or 46 percent of adults associated with a faith other than Christianity.

The Barna study also revealed, of adults who purchased Christian books in the last year:

--75 percent were evangelicals;
--48 percent were political conservatives;
--47 percent were non-evangelical born-again Christians;
--46 percent were adults who attend church regularly;
--45 percent were African American;
--44 percent were women;
--44 percent had been divorced;
--43 percent were Protestant; and
--32 percent were Catholic.

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Tuesday, April 08, 2003

Churches are peace symbols

DRESDEN, Germany -- This city's Church of Our Lady was reduced to a heap of smoldering ash and rubble in the allied firebombing during World War II. Today, with another war raging far away in the Persian Gulf, some Germans are trying to turn it into a symbol of peace and reconciliation. Jost Hasselhorn led several dozen people Wednesday in a prayer to end hostilities in Iraq. ''Put an end to the spiral of violence, vilification, hatred, and revenge. Grant everyone, especially those in positions of power and responsibility, the understanding that the way to peace is not war, but support for justice.'' This is the spiritual ground zero of Dresden's antiwar movement.

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Sunday, April 06, 2003

God's children prefer talking to fighting

Yesterday, parishioners from the Dee Why's Uniting Church and St John's Anglican Church joined neighbours and the curious as the mosque, with local police support, opened its doors. A couple from Collaroy Plateau, Mark and Roslyn Hubble, took their son Christopher, 9, to improve their understanding of the Muslim community and to show support. They were surprised by the mosque's neighbourly setting and ordinariness, as well as that the small differences were religious, not cultural. The Reverend Steve Salmon, minister of St John's, praised the mosque leaders' bravery for opening their doors and reflected on the similarities binding the faiths. Abraham was a religious patriarch for the Jews, Muslims and Christians, and Muslims deeply respected Jesus.

"We know any parents hates for their children to fight and I'm convinced God grieves when his children fight," he said.

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Friday, April 04, 2003

Bush Mix of God and War Grates on Many Europeans

The religious overtones in President Bush's speeches increasingly grate on many ears in Europe, where leaders invoking God in times of war are widely suspect of misusing faith for political purposes. Europeans remember how German soldiers trooped off to World War One with "Gott mit uns" (God with us) stamped on their belt buckles.

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Australian Teens: war is 'biggest problem'

64 per cent of the Australia's teens believe terrorism and war are the biggest problems facing the world, according to a recent national youth survey. Those from the country proving more fearful of it than city teens. Almost half the respondents, at 47 per cent, believed in God or another religious figure, 20 per cent were non-believers, 27 per cent were unsure, and six per cent chose not to comment.

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Wednesday, April 02, 2003

Properly observed, faiths lead us away from warfare

"The church's political job is not to provide public policy, but to be an alternative public policy. The church is a paradigm for a society the world considers impossible." - Methodist Minister, Will Willimon

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Survey along the Tigris River

We?re immersed in polling data that monitor American and British opinion about the war in Iraq, but those opinions may be the second and third most important to measure. What are ordinary Iraqi citizens thinking? David B. Hill found some data at Iraq.net, Iraq4u.com and iraqipapers.com to get a flavor of Iraqi thought. Here are some tantalizing Iraqi poll results:

? How are you dealing with the crisis? Prayer, 32 percent; being optimistic, 31 percent; less news, 12 percent; exercise, 5 percent; other, 20 percent.

? Future Iraqi constitution? Totally secular, 23 percent; secular, but cannot contradict Islam, 75 percent; Islamic, 2 percent.

? Which of these values comes first to you? My homeland, 42 percent; religion, 38 percent; ethnicity, 4 percent; political party, 2 percent; other, 13 percent.

? After Saddam, I expect Iraq to have: democracy, 38 percent; civil war, 21 percent; religious rule, 10 percent; breakup, 8 percent; who knows, 22 percent.