TruthBook Religious News Blog

By TRACIE SIMER
July 4, 2009

Today is the day the United States celebrates its independence. This country's forefathers are considered by most to be patriotic.

There is debate, however, about whether any of those men were Christians or even religious, and if they founded the United States as a Christian nation.

Micah Watson, assistant professor of political science at Union University, said the United States has never had a Christian government.

"The forefathers could've put in explicitly Christian language in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; that would've been quite common for that time, but they did not," Watson said.

According to a 2006 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 81 percent of Americans identified themselves as Christian. Almost 2 percent said they were Jewish, and 0.5 percent said they were Muslim.

Those who identify as "non-affiliated" or "other" were about 15 percent, the survey said.

Watson said there is only one mention of God in the Declaration, with mention of a "Creator." Men such as Thomas Jefferson who authored those documents were most likely theistic, he said.

"We have always been a predominately Christian people," he said. "Even if they weren't devout, they were respectful of Christian ideals and norms."
A Muslim nation?

In June, President Barack Obama talked with a French reporter before his trip to the Middle East, saying that America could be one of the largest Muslim nations in the world.

Watson said Obama's speech about America's religious identity was about him trying to present a new face to the Muslim world. He grew up in the Muslim culture and has credibility others didn't, he said.

"We do have a lot of Muslims, but if you look at the percentages, it doesn't quite work," he said. "Most Muslims hear that and say 'Yeah, right.'"

Lucy Overstreet, who attends Evangelical Community Church in Jackson, disagrees with Obama's views on America's religious culture. She said America is not and never will be a Muslim nation and was founded on Christian principles.

This only the first of a three-page article. Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: America, Christianity, Declaration of Independence, religion, Tracie Simer

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Women’s Spiritual Voices: Muslim, Jewish, and Christian

July 2nd, 2009

On May 21, 2009 the Moroccan American Cultural Center and the American Jewish Committee sponsored an interfaith panel discussion in New York City on “Women’s Spiritual Voices: Crossing Continents, Finding Common Ground.” Panelists explored the roles of women religious leaders in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and they included three Moroccan women, Fatima Zahra Salhi, Nezha Nassi, and Ilham Chafik, who are “mourchidates” or religious counselors; Mahara’t Sara Hurwitz, a member of the rabbinic staff at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, New York; Rabbi Stephanie Dickstein, spiritual care coordinator at the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services in New York City; the Reverend Elizabeth Garnsey, associate rector at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City; and moderator Sarah Sayeed of the Interfaith Center of New York. In 2006, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI created the mourchidates program for women to serve as religious counselors in community health programs, women’s detention centers, and mosques. Fifty mourchidates are chosen from approximately 1,000 highly qualified applicants, and they receive intensive training in 32 subject areas including law, psychology and theology. They must also have learned at least half of the Qur’an by heart. Watch excerpts from the panel discussion edited by Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly intern Juliana Comer, a senior at James Madison University.

Please click on "external source for access to the complete article, including video.

Labels: Christianity, interfaith, Islam, Judaism, spirituality, women

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Friday, June 19, 2009

Christian Belief Through the Lens of Cognitive Science: Part 4 of 6

by Valerie Tarico

Tue Jun 16, 2009 at 10:45:05 AM PDT

The Iranian election. Muslim charities. "God hates fags" at Garfield High. Imprecatory prayers for the death of Obama. Papal dialogue with First Nations. To understand the politics of our world you have to understand religion. It's gotten to the point that cognitive science has a lot to say.

IV: The Born-Again Experience

Valerie Tarico's diary :: ::

I prayed harder and just then I felt like everything I was saying was being sucked into a vacuum. When I stood up, I felt like thin air; I had to brace myself. I felt this energy, it was a kind of an ecstasy." --Cathy "Something began to flow in me—a kind of energy . . . Then came the strange sensation that water was not only running down my cheeks, but surging through my body as well, cleansing and cooling as it went." --Colson "It was a beautiful feeling of well-being, warmth and loving . . . I went home and all night long these warm feelings kept coming up in my body." --Jean "I felt something real warm overwhelming me. It was in just a moment, yet it was like an eternity. . . . a joy, such a joy hit me with such a tremendous force that I jumped . . . and ran." --Helen. (From Conway & Siegelman, Snapping, pp 24, 32, 12, 31)

For many Christians, being born again is unlike anything they have ever known. A sense of personal conviction, yielding or release followed by indescribable peace and joy – this is the stuff of spiritual transformation. Once experienced it is unforgettable, and many people can recall small details years later. In the aftermath of such a moment, an alcoholic may stop drinking or a criminal fugitive may hand himself in to the authorities. A housewife may sail through her tasks for weeks, flooded by a sense of God’s love flowing through her to her children. A normally introverted programmer may begin inviting his co-workers to church.

This experience, more than any other, creates a sense of certainty about Christian belief and so makes belief impervious to rational argumentation. A believer knows what he or she has experienced and seen. Even converts who don’t feel radically transformed after praying "the sinner’s prayer" may feel overwhelmed by God’s presence during subsequent prayer or worship. Evangelical and Pentecostal forms of Christianity that are gaining ground around the world particularly emphasize emotional peaks such as faith healing or speaking in tongues. Worshipers may get caught up in exuberant singing, shouting, dancing and tears of joy.

What most Christians don’t know is that these experiences are not unique to Christianity. In fact, the quotations that you just read come from two born again Christians, a Moonie, and an encounter group participant. Their words are similar, because the born again experience doesn’t require a specific set of beliefs. It requires a specific social/emotional process, and the dogmas or explanations are secondary.

To access this whole series of articles, and the rest of this article, please click on "external source."

Labels: born again, Christianity, conversion, God, Snapping, Valerie Tarico

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Friday, June 05, 2009

CULTURE DIGEST: Spiritual immaturity stymies church, researcher Barna says

Posted on Jun 1, 2009 | by Erin Roach

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--An unclear understanding of spiritual maturity may be an underlying reason why there is so little progress in seeing people develop spiritually in the United States, despite overwhelming access to churches and unlimited products and resources, The Barna Group says.

"America has a spiritual depth problem partly because the faith community does not have a robust definition of its spiritual goals," David Kinnaman, Barna's president, said. "The study shows the need for new types of spiritual metrics."

Barna found that most Christians equate spiritual maturity with following the rules described in the Bible. Also, many churchgoers were unable to identify how their church defines spiritual maturity. Most Christians, Barna said, offer one-dimensional views of personal spiritual maturity, giving answers such as having a relationship with Jesus, living a moral lifestyle or applying the Bible.

Most pastors struggle with articulating a specific set of objectives for spirituality and instead list activities over attitudes, the study said. Pastors are willing to acknowledge that a lack of spiritual maturity is one of the largest problems in the nation, but few of them say spiritual immaturity is a problem in their church.

This is a very interesting and informative article, and addresses the idea of "spiritual maturity." Please see "external source" to access the entire article.

Labels: Barna Group, Christianity, David Kinnaman, Erin Roach, faith, spiritual maturity, spirituality

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Friday, May 08, 2009

Back to the Bible focuses on relationship with God, not religion

Back to the Bible focuses on relationship with God, not religion

BY ERIN ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star
Monday, Apr 27, 2009 - 12:17:20 am CDT

Years before Newsweek magazine proclaimed the decline and fall of Christian America, Woodrow Kroll worried about the skyrocketing number of self-professed Christians who owned but rarely, if ever, read the Bible.

So in 2004, Kroll, president of Back to the Bible, the Lincoln-headquartered international Bible ministry program, established the Center for Bible Engagement, an organization dedicated to studying, understanding and solving what he calls “the plague of Bible illiteracy in America.”

Countering that illiteracy is the main focus of Back to the Bible as it marks its 70th anniversary, said Tami Weissert, vice president of media and communications for Back to the Bible. The organization has never been about church attendance, tithing or even “religion.” It’s always been about helping people develop “a personal relationship with God,” she said.

Back to the Bible got its start in 1939 when a young preacher from Oklahoma walked into Lincoln’s KFOR radio station and spent his last $65 for a week’s worth of air time. Thomas Epp believed he could help people work through the confusion and conflict of the world by spreading God’s Word through short devotionals.

Churches need to change their strategy from teaching content to teaching people why they need and how to have a personal relationship with God, according to a new Center for Bible Engagement report. Back to the Bible plans to help with that through its own programs such as Powered by 4 emails and 411God cell calls, and by working with ministers across the globe.

This interesting article also contains results of a survey regarding Bible literacy and engagement. Please click on "external source" for complete article.

Labels: Bible, Center for Bible Engagement, Christianity, Erin Anderson, Woodrow Kroll

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Young Americans Losing Their Religion

New Research Finds Number Who Claim No Church Has Risen Sharply
By DAN HARRIS
May 6, 2009

New research shows young Americans are dramatically less likely to go to church -- or to participate in any form of organized religion -- than their parents and grandparents.

"It's a huge change," says Harvard University professor Robert Putnam, who conducted the research.

Historically, the percentage of Americans who said they had no religious affiliation (pollsters refer to this group as the "nones") has been very small -- hovering between 5 percent and 10 percent. However, Putnam says the percentage of "nones" has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans.

Putnam calls this a "stunning development." He gave reporters a first glimpse of his data Tuesday at a conference on religion organized by the Pew Forum on Faith in Public Life.

The research will be included in a forthcoming book, called "American Grace."

This trend started in the 1990s and continues through today. It includes people in both Generation X and Y.

While these young "nones" may not belong to a church, they are not necessarily atheists.

"Many of them are people who would otherwise be in church," Putnam said. "They have the same attitidues and values as people who are in church, but they grew up in a period in which being religious meant being politically conservative, especially on social issues."

Putnam says that in the past two decades, many young people began to view organized religion as a source of "intolerance and rigidity and doctrinaire political views," and therefore stopped going to church.

This movement away from organized religion, says Putnam, may have enormous consequences for American culture and politics for years to come.

"That is the future of America," he says. "Their views and their habits religiously are going to persist and have a huge effect on the future."

This data is likely to reinvigorate an already heated debate about whether America is, or will continue to be, a "Christian nation." A recent Newsweek cover article, entitled "The End of Christian America" provoked responses from religious thinkers all over the spectrum.

This is the first of a two-page article. Click "external source" for complete article

Labels: Christianity, Dan Harris, religion, teenagers

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The End of Christian America

The End of Christian America

The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.

By Jon Meacham | NEWSWEEK
Published Apr 4, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Apr 13, 2009

It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life—the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, "this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified." As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America's religious culture was cracking.

"That really hit me hard," he told me last week. "The Northwest was never as religious, never as congregationalized, as the Northeast, which was the foundation, the home base, of American religion. To lose New England struck me as momentous." Turning the report over in his mind, Mohler posted a despairing online column on the eve of Holy Week lamenting the decline—and, by implication, the imminent fall—of an America shaped and suffused by Christianity. "A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us," Mohler wrote. "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture." When Mohler and I spoke in the days after he wrote this, he had grown even gloomier. "Clearly, there is a new narrative, a post-Christian narrative, that is animating large portions of this society," he said from his office on campus in Louisville, Ky.

There it was, an old term with new urgency: post-Christian. This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population.

According to the American Religious Identification Survey that got Mohler's attention, the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. The Jewish population is 1.2 percent; the Muslim, 0.6 percent. A separate Pew Forum poll echoed the ARIS finding, reporting that the percentage of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years, to 16 percent; in terms of voting, this group grew from 5 percent in 1988 to 12 percent in 2008—roughly the same percentage of the electorate as African-Americans. (Seventy-five percent of unaffiliated voters chose Barack Obama, a Christian.) Meanwhile, the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased about fourfold from 1990 to 2009, from 1 million to about 3.6 million. (That is about double the number of, say, Episcopalians in the United States.)

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing—good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance. It is good for Christianity, too, in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state that protects what Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters, called "the garden of the church" from "the wilderness of the world." As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America's unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom—not least freedom of conscience. At our best, we single religion out for neither particular help nor particular harm; we have historically treated faith-based arguments as one element among many in the republican sphere of debate and decision. The decline and fall of the modern religious right's notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.

NB: This is only a small excerpt of a four-page article which can be accessed by clicking on "external source" at the bottom of this snippet.

Labels: ARIS, Christianity, culture, Jon Meacham, Newsweek magazine, politics, post-Christian, religion

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Broken connection

Broken connection
Growing number of Christians claim no church affiliation
BY PAM THARP
APRIL 12, 2009

This is the first of a three-page article which is well worth reading. Please click on "external source" to access the complete piece.

Natasha Allen does not have a church she calls home, but she prays every night.

Allen is among a growing number of Americans this Easter with no religious affiliation, a group that's almost doubled in size during the past 18 years, from 8 to 15 percent, according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) released last month. Fewer Americans also say they are Christians now than did in the 1990 survey.

And even though three-quarters of those polled still identify themselves as Christians, area pastors say the survey is an indicator of a church culture that's not fulfilling its God-given mission.

"Jesus gave us the blueprint and the church is not following it and the church is dying," said Pastor Ocie Poole of Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Richmond. "The imperative is to go and teach and the whole thing is driven by love, but too many believers won't do it and they're not concerned about the lost."

The church isn't reproducing itself because some Christian parents have failed to disciple their children in the faith, said Pastor Laura Altman of St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Richmond.

"Parents are letting children make their own decisions. Faith has to be taught," Altman said. "You don't get it by osmosis."

ARIS showed few gains in atheism, those who don't believe in God, said Liberty Church of Christ senior minister David Soper. It's the "nones," who have no connection to a church, that are most concerning, he said.

"The 'nones' are a growing trend," Soper said. "People know what the church is against and not what it's for. The church doesn't have good answers to people's problems and it's not addressing the problems they face.

"We've spent too much time in politics rather than living out our lives in Christ and in love. We need to focus on what the church was called to do: serve, love, teach and disciple. That's where the true influence lies."

Labels: ARIS, Christianity, church, Pam Tharp, religion

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Friday, April 17, 2009

Religion in America: A many splendored thing

By ARTURO MORA

Should America be guided by any specific religious viewpoint? You’d think the answer was obvious, considering the First Amendment.

Yet there are politicians and religious leaders who insist we are a Christian nation, and demand the majority religion should set the rules. They want it to dictate our laws, our education system, and even how we shop. (“There’s a “War on Christmas!” they complain.)

But are we a Christian nation?

The Pew survey also showed a lot of movement between religions. Americans are searching for meaning in their lives, and they care less about specific creeds or traditional faith lines.

For example, few in the survey said they were Buddhists. Yet mindfulness practice and meditation have grown beyond the fads they once were. Popular writers such as Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and Thich Nhat Hanh mix Eastern and Western spiritual teachings. God, they say, is not Christian or Buddhist. God is just God.

So even if we were to agree Christianity should set the rules, whose Christianity would that be exactly?

Instead of claiming you’re oppressed, instead of yelling at one another, how about we talk to each other?

A relative of mine, a traditional Christian, called last year during a health crisis, and asked, “Have you thought that maybe the reason you got sick is you’re worshipping the wrong God?”

I explained the Buddha is not a God, and described what God meant to me. We talked for an hour about the role spirituality plays in our lives, and she directed me to a wonderful passage in Philippians (4:6-8), which helped me through my crisis. I go back to it often.

I’d love to have such discussions with many traditional Christians. If you see God and Jesus in a traditional way, or take the Bible as literal truth, I respect your beliefs.

Labels: America, Arturo Mora, Christianity, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, spirituality

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Easter coupled with articles about Americans' religious beliefs

by Elizabeth Hovde, Oregonian columnist
Friday April 10, 2009, 3:00 PM

A couple NEWSWEEK articles -- published just in time for Easter, the pinnacle of the Christian calendar -- are creating some controversy and mixed feelings.

The first, by Jon Meacham, is titled, "The End of Christian America." Check it out. It discusses surveys that show the percentage of self-identifying Christians has fallen 10 points in two decades time while the number of people calling themselves atheists or agnostics has increased about fourfold from 1990 to 2009.

Christians still make up the majority of Americans (76 percent of Americans in the survey still identify as Christians), but other faiths are on the rise and there has been an increase in the number of people who are religiously unaffiliated. And those people are more apt to identify with being "spiritual" rather than "religious." Meacham writes that the present belief system out there "is less about the death of God and more about the birth of many gods. The rising numbers of religiously unaffiliated Americans are people more apt to call themselves 'spiritual' rather than 'religious.'"

The next article, "One Nation Under God?," by Daniel Stone, reiterates that the U.S. remains a deeply religious nation. But Stone writes:

"A nation facing problems of biblical proportions appears to be looking less and less to religion for answers. According to a new NEWSWEEK Poll, the percentage of Americans who think faith will help answer all or most of the country's current problems dipped to a historic low of 48 percent, down from 64 percent in 1994. "The poll also shows changing perceptions about the religious makeup of the United States and its politics. Since Barack Obama took office earlier this year, the number of people who consider the U.S. a Christian nation has fallen to 62 percent, down from higher numbers during the Bush administration (69 percent last year and 71 percent in 2005)."

He adds:

"Americans' personal beliefs about religion haven't changed much in the last 20 years. The number of Americans with faith in a spiritual being--nearly nine in 10 -- has not changed much over the past two decades, according to historical polling. Seventy-eight percent said prayer was an important part of daily life, an increase of 2 points since 1987. Eighty-five percent said religion is 'very important' or 'fairly important' in their own lives -- a number that hasn't changed much since 1992. Nearly half (48 percent) described themselves as both 'religious and spiritual,' while another 30 percent said they were 'spiritual but not religious.' Only 9 percent said they were neither religious nor spiritual."

Christ is a champion of underdogs, offering endless mulligans to those who dare to believe in something much greater than themselves. He lived a life worth celebrating, worth remembering, worth affiliating with.

Labels: America, Christianity, Daniel Stone, Easter, Elizabeth Hovde, Jon Meacham

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Friday, April 10, 2009

After 4,000 Comments, Taking the Pulse on Modern Christianity

Kurt Soller

...Newsweek proclaimed "The Decline and Fall of Christian America" on its cover. The Washington Post/Newsweek "On Faith" blog featured a post that belittled the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection. The Discovery Channel aired a documentary that painted Jesus as little more than an opportunistic politician who caught a bad break in a trial."

Whether valid or not, it's portrayals like these that have you readers -- especially Christians -- up in arms. The majority were using our forum to share their beliefs on where Christianity is headed. And as Christians, there were some great first-hand accounts of life in an increasingly "post-Christian" society. "As an Evangelical Christian from Africa, I should say this article was long overdue... I have always been bothered by Political Evangelical Christianity in America and the spreading of the same Political Christian dose in Sub Saharan Africa," wrote commenter Katm. "Any thinking and discerning evangelical Christian should take the critique in this article as a positive." Many agreed, echoing an overarching idea that Christianity in America has long been too political, and that this post-Christian America may be well-warranted. "Raised as I was, I am very familiar with the teaching of Christianity, and I am painfully aware of the holes my parents conservatism left in my education," echoed one reader."But, my favorite bible verse is the one about man being created in the image of God. Isn't that another way of saying that God and man are the same? To me it's just that simple."

With the numbers of believers down in this year's American Religious Identification Survey -- the inspiration for our cover -- I was surprised by the commenting Christians who were open about why the left organized religion. "People are not abandoning Christianity so much as abandoning organized religion," offered commenter xargaw. "Many of us have found a deeper faith in our own searching and in our communities outside of the church where irrelevant doctrine and hypocrisy are hard to ignore. There is often more of God at work in volunteerism in your town and being a true friend to someone in need than in the church building. Many are striving to live as Jesus directed rather than simply warming a pew once a week." But why forget organized Christianity? Others were quick to explain: "Most Americans still believe in God. But the last several decades the most visible voices of Christianity have been those who preach judgment, hatred, anger and violence."

Getting even more specific, there seemed to be an overwhelming amount of blame placed on the previous administration and the effect it had on politicizing religion. "I watched with dismay as the religious right hijacked the political process and decisions that were previously individual became part of a movement to impose a group's religious views on all of us," wrote Bookfan. "Abortion, intelligent design, stem cell research, and gay marriage became the property of voters' sectors--rather than a personal moral decision." Even Christians agreed, many of whom were unwilling to refute Meacham's assertion that we've entered a new era when discussing how the church interacts with the state: "Although I was raised in the US and in the Christian faith, I have come to see it primarily as something very ugly and divisive," wrote the reader 'Meditating.' "Instead of concentrating on loving one another, the Old Testament Christians (yes, it's an oxymoron) seem to have taken over the religious dialogue of my faith and turned it into a weapon intended to wound anyone who disagrees with them. What moral person would want to identify themselves with a faith like that? I don't and I am now one of those people who would not want to be identified as a Christian. It seems no one injures the name of Christ like the Christian have done."

That's certainly a harsh response, and it's worth pointing out that many Christians who read the piece were justifiably worried that Meacham and the magazine were dismissing Christianity. That's not the case; since the cover's publication, Meacham has published a follow-up -- asserting that faith, regardless of how it interacts with politics and American society, will never disappear. "The Newsweek of my childhood would have included historical data on church affiliation/attendance in America over the last two centuries," wrote Bobsf_94117. And others agreed that they wish our article had provided more context into how we've been approaching this post-Christian status." With that, came myriad arguments explaining what the Founding Fathers intended, as Christians or non-Christians, when they wrote The Constitution. But obviously, constitutional interpretation -- even as it interacts with religion -- is a different, and very huge, topic. Another time? On that note, I won't address the hundreds of comments that went back and forth arguing whether Hitler was a Christian. Not relevant...

Of all the thousands of comments though, the story about declining Christian identification focused squarely -- and nicely -- on one topic: the purpose of Christianity in society. I'm obviously not the right person to answer that, but I was intrigued by the hundreds of readers who wished religion away in sum, despite it's long history in American society. "This can only be good for the United States," argued one commenter. "We have lost our competitiveness in Science and the quality of our Education has been declining thanks in part to religious minded people who have been corrupting both Science and Education with nonsensical concepts such as Intelligent Design." In a less-specific away, hundreds agreed: "I am pleased!," wrote commenter Thevail. "How wonderful that humans have chosen once again to think for themselves, rather than depending on "the big book of answers." Religion is supposed to inspire us to be better people, make us aspire to higher goals, make us think before we act. But the truth is that if Christianity is wounded..it's a self-inflicted wound." Immediately, a committed Christian took it a step futher: "Another sensational title by Newsweek; however, as Christianity goes, so does America....maybe, that's why this country is going into the toilet."

As I'm sure you realize, it's impossible to cull more than 4,000 thoughts on Christianity into a few concise paragraphs. But from all these viewpoints, we can glean a few things: Faith isn't headed away, but our country an impasse between what Christians want from their government, and how the rest of non-Christian America views Christianity. Whether you believe Christianity is impure, or that our Democracy itself is faulted, it's clear that both politics and religion are in a time of flux. When do you think it will settle? And how will both religion and democracy -- even in a post-Christian society -- intersect? Your comments below.

Please click on "external source" for a look at a collection of reader comments...

Labels: 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, believers, Christianity, faith, God, Kurt Soller, Newsweek magazine, organized religion, politics

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Youth Survey: Teens lose faith in droves

Youth Survey: Teens lose faith in droves

Islam and atheism are on the rise while Christianity fades

Teens lose faith in drovesEvery day, Mohamed Hadi wakes up before sunrise for morning prayer. The 19-year-old then boards a bus for the 90-minute ride from his home in Richmond, B.C., to the campus of Simon Fraser University, where he’s studying to become a physiotherapist. He’s involved in the Muslim Students’ Association, and with Rich in Faith, a Muslim youth group he founded that offers tutoring and mentoring services. Hadi’s a busy guy, yet he always finds time for his religion, including prayer five times a day. “It helps me stay composed,” he says, “and to maintain balance in my life.”

Such devotion is rare among teens these days—or at least, among those from Protestant and Catholic households. Just as the younger generation is abandoning the Christian faith, though, non-Western religions, such as Islam and Buddhism, are growing in Canada at a surprising speed. According to new data from Project Teen Canada, more teens now identify as Muslim than Anglican, United Church of Canada and Baptist combined. As a group, the percentage who adhere to so-called “other faiths”—including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism—has grown fivefold since Project Teen began its surveys in 1984, while the percentage of teens who identify as Roman Catholic has declined by one third, and the percentage who identify as Protestant is down by almost two-thirds.

A side effect of this trend is a hollowing-out of the religious middle ground in Canada. Reginald Bibby, the University of Lethbridge sociologist who heads up Project Teen, says the grey zone of those who believe in God, but don’t regularly practise an established religion, is rapidly emptying out, leaving behind two distinct camps: teens who are very religious and actively practise their religion, and those who don’t believe in God at all. “For years I have been saying that, for all the problems of organized religion in Canada, God has continued to do well in the polls,” Bibby writes in The Emerging Millennials, a new book based on Project Teen’s latest findings. “That’s no longer the case.”

The growth in popularity of faiths such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism can largely be attributed to immigration, Bibby says. Indeed, there are more new Canadians than ever—immigrants made up 20 per cent of the population in 2006, according to Statistics Canada, up from 16 per cent in 1981. And the majority of new Canadians now hail from the Middle East and Asia, whereas most came from Europe a decade before.

Foreign-born teens are more likely to be religious when they arrive, but whether that faith will persist over the coming generations remains to be seen. “Because these faith groups are so small, they often can’t hang on to their kids,” Bibby explains. “They have this maddening tendency to socialize with Protestant, Catholic, and ‘no religion’ friends, and marry out of their parents’ groups.” But immigration will continue to supply fresh believers, so it’s likely that their community support will grow too. That’s been Hadi’s experience. Amongst his friends, many of whom are Muslim, “we all know when it’s time to pray. If we forget, we’ll remind each other,” he says. “Community is an integral part of the equation.”

For Canada’s Christian teens, meanwhile, the community is shrinking like never before. Since 1984, the percentage of teens who call themselves Christian has almost been cut in half while the number who call themselves atheist has grown to 16 per cent, up from just six per cent in the mid-1980s. Just as the boomers shifted toward agnosticism, teens are now going a step further and rejecting religion entirely. “Belief is learned, pretty much like the multiplication table,” Bibby writes. “So is non-belief.”

Labels: belief, Buddhism, Canada, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Project Teen, religion, teenagers

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Friday, March 27, 2009

Survey: Millions of Non-Christian Iraqis Watch Christian TV

By Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter
Sun, Mar. 22 2009

A new survey found that about 5.3 million Iraqis, or about 19 percent of the population, watch the Christian satellite programs on SAT-7, the ministry reported Friday.

As Iraq’s tiny Christian community numbers less than 600,000, it is safe to say that most of SAT-7’s viewers are Muslims. According to the CIA World Factbook, 97 percent of Iraq’s population is Muslim (Shia 60-65 percent, Sunni 32-37 percent).

Data collected in the recent nationwide study conducted by Intermedia, an independent audience research firm, found that 97 percent of Iraqis have access to satellite television, and 18.8 percent watch SAT-7. The study also found that 2.6 million are watching on a regular daily or weekly basis.

SAT-7 is a Christian television ministry created by and for the people of the Middle East and North Africa. Its mission is to make Christ’s message of hope available to every home in the Middle East.

Each week, between nine and ten million people tune into the network, whose programs are broadcasted in three languages – Arabic, Farsi and Turkish.

The study by Intermedia found that SAT-7 is only 1.7 percentage points behind BBC Arabic in the number of people aware of the channel.

In addition to effective use of funds, SAT-7 says it is also glad that it can provide desperately needed support to the struggling Christian community in Iraq.

“Iraqi Christians have really suffered in recent years and many have fled the country,” says David Harder, SAT-7’s communications manager. “Iraqis often call and text us asking for prayer. Fortunately, through our programs, SAT-7’s Arabic producers and hosts can show God’s love and offer encouragement.”

Though SAT-7 has for years been aware of its impact in Iraq from the responses they receive, the recent study has confirmed to the ministry just how far they are reaching.

Established in November 1995, SAT-7 aired its first broadcast in May 1996. Aside from strengthening believers, the satellite TV ministry has been working to present a more accurate image of Christianity in the Arab world, where people often associate Christians with negative images from the Western world.

Labels: Christian TV, Christianity, Ethan Cole, Intermedia, Iraqis, Muslims, SAT-7, satellite TV

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Johnson: Religion survey shouldn't be alarming

3/21/2009
Jessica Johnson

Results of the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, released last week, have caused many to ponder the future of Christianity in our nation. The survey found that mainline churches have experienced a sharp decline in membership, while the number of people identifying themselves as nondenominational Christians has been on the rise since 2001.

The highlight that may have been most interesting to many was that the survey concluded the challenge to Christianity in America is not coming from other religions but "from a rejection of all forms of organized religion."

Many Christians like myself have wrestled with "organized religion" in our faith in the same manner the Apostle Paul struggled with the thorn in his flesh. As a child growing up in Ebenezer Baptist Church West in Athens, I always wondered why there were different denominations that claimed to believe in the same God.

Although many Americans today are, according to the ARIS findings, rejecting organized religion, I don't interpret this trend as completely negative for Christianity. I think many people who still profess to be Christians are discarding man-made ordinances - not necessarily the order of the church - to find a more intimate and meaningful relationship with God.

The Bible clearly explains the order of the church in terms of the ministry gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers that are to edify the body of Christ, but it also speaks of truly knowing God through a personal walk of faith.

Many of the Christian respondents questioned in the ARIS survey who are non-denominational are most likely looking to fill a spiritual void. Historic mainline churches are known for messages to keep believers on the straight and narrow, which we definitely need, but many people are also yearning for teachings that illustrate how they can get to know God for themselves.

We speak of having faith constantly in the church, but in order to grow in faith one must trust in God. The word "trust" occurs 152 times in the Old Testament, as documented in the Scofield Study Bible, and "trust" is the Old Testament term for faith.

When thinking of how David wrote songs emphasizing trust, such as Psalm 13:5, which reads, "but I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation," it's clear God desires much more from us than just adherence to his statutes.

The ARIS data concerning the state of Christianity in the United States have alarmed many, but I think the numbers reveal something much deeper.

Now, more than ever, many Americans are looking to their faith to sustain them through the trying times they are facing. They are seeking to strengthen the temple within themselves amid uncertainty and apprehension about the future.

It is my prayer that those on this spiritual path, who have discarded the manmade precepts of religion, will find the fulfillment in God for which they have been diligently searching.

Labels: ARIS, Christianity, church, faith, Jessica Johnson, trust

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Friday, March 20, 2009

Author: New forms of religion take shape

By Peter Smith
March 17, 2009

This is the first of a two-page article - interesting...since institutional religion seems to be on the wane, what might take its place? Please click on "external source article" for page two.

Three authors offered an unapologetically radical vision of Christianity at a conference yesterday, saying that churches may actually be able to return to their core principles now that they have lost the cultural dominance they enjoyed in past generations.

And their view of core principles, they contended, is not to focus on personal salvation or getting people into heaven but rather to build communities, fight social injustice and try to solve the urgent problems of the day.

"One of the reasons people get nervous about evangelism is … they don't want to be the marketing department for a narcissistic message," author Brian McLaren said last night at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. "When we discover God is recruiting people to join in the healing of the world, that's a whole different deal. I bet a lot of us … (would) get up and knock on doors for that."

McLaren and authors Diana Butler Bass and Marcus Borg brought those views -- which for years have drawn conservative criticism -- to the seminary's annual Festival of Theology. The festival, which brought an overflow crowd to the seminary's chapel, drew on the theme, "New Ways of Being Church."

The speakers agreed that churches -- particularly historically Protestant denominations that once dominated the social establishment -- face an identity crisis now that their numbers are declining.

A major survey released last week by Trinity College in Connecticut indicated that self-identified Christians have declined from 86 to 76 percent of Americans since 1990, while people with no religion have nearly doubled to 15 percent.

McLaren, author of such books as "Everything Must Change" and "A Generous Orthodoxy," is a leading voice in the "emerging church" movement of church leaders seeking to get past traditional labels of liberal and conservative. The movement seeks to reach a world that has shed many of the institutions and other cultural forms that dominated the 20th century.

McLaren's evangelical critics say his focus on solving social problems undercuts the need to proclaim the gospel.

Labels: Brian McLaren, Christianity, church, Emergent church, intentional community, Peter Smith, social issues

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Worldly religions find their way to Franklin

By VICTORIA GRAY
Sunday, March 15, 2009

FRANKLIN — Those interested in learning about world religions don't need to go to Harvard Divinity School, or even a closer university or college. They only have to go as far as West Main Street, where a series of interfaith dialogues begins today at Franklin Congregational Christian Church.

Rev. Jeff Stevens, pastor, said as part of the church's adult education program he has invited speakers representing various religions and members of the public to participate in these discussions.

The first of these dialogues is today at the church hall at 1 p.m. and features Mohamed Ebrahim, PhD, an Imam and director of the Dover-based Islamic Society of the Seacoast Area, as the guest speaker.

The next discussion is scheduled for Thursday, March 19, when Manitonquat, an elder of the Assonet Band of the Wampanoag Nation, will speak about his culture's spiritual traditions.

Manitonquat, whose name translates to Medicine Story, is a counselor and lecturer with a Ph.D. in Religious Counseling. He is a retired ceremonial leader and is currently involved in a prison spirituality program in New England, including at the Concord State Prison for Men.

Manitonquat, who lives in Greenville, said he is looking foward to Thursday's discussion in Franklin.

"I'm always interested in interfaith dialogues," Manitonquat said. "It's very exciting for me to connect with people from various faiths and talk to them about Native American spiritual beliefs."

He added that Native American spiritual beliefs do not constitute a religion or religions and that there are many different traditions among the various tribal councils and nations in North America.

One universal belief is that of respect — that everything in creation, including every person, deserves respect.

He said that, in his prison programs, this concept resonates with inmates, many of whom have neither been given nor seen examples of respect in their lives before.

The next common belief is in "the primacy of the circle as the form in which people should gather together."

The circle, also an important symbol of the life and death cycle, symbolizes the equality of members in gatherings, as there is no head or end.

The third belief is one of continually thanking the spirit and natural world.

Manitonquat has written a book that is soon to be published, called "The Original Instructions," which he said is based "on a lifetime of listening to elders and trying to figure things out."

He said the title comes from a frequent answer elders gave when he asked, "What is wrong with human beings today?"

The answer he often got was "They have forgotten the original instructions."

Manitonquat says this means that the earliest inhabitants of world, including on the North American continent, lived more in harmony with the natural and spiritual world than people do today.

He said since Europeans settled the continent it has been their religions and spiritual traditions that have dominated and been propagated.

"No one really understands the wealth of spiritual understanding that existed here before," Manitonquat said.

Stevens said that, as the population in New Hampshire becomes more diverse, it is increasingly important that people learn about and respect each other's cultural, spiritual and ethnic backgrounds.

He added that there is a Buddhist population in the state and a growing number of Sikhs and members of the Bahá'í faith.

Sikhism is a religion that formed in India approximately 500 years ago. Followers believe in a single, formless God who can be known through deep meditation. They believe in samsara, karma and reincarnation as Hindus do, but reject the caste system.

Stevens has been pastor at the church since December 2007.

Originally from Williamstown in Western Massachusetts, Stevens received a master's degree from Harvard Divinity School and has always been interested in world religions.

He said one of the professors at the school, Diana Eck, started and still directs the "Pluralism Project," which began in 1991 to explore America's changing religious landscape. The project has recorded the growth of religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism in the U.S. as a new wave of immigration that began 30 to 40 years ago continues.

"The Lakes Region is sort of on the edge of the movement toward more religious diversity, this wave of great change," Stevens said.

He said he is excited that the first speaker will be discussing Islam, as he worked with Muslim (followers of Islam) communities in the greater Boston area while at Harvard.

Stevens said despite the substantial Muslim population in the U.S., many people still know little about Islam, though the religion, along with Judaism, shares some of the same history as Christianity.

He noted that Thomas Aquinas, in the 1100s, wrote a letter to Christians, Jewish people and Muslims about the things their religions shared in common.

Islam began in the Middle East more than 1,400 years ago and is the second largest religion in the world with more than 1 billion followers. The word Islam means "submission to the will of God (Allah in Arabic)".

Muslims believe there is only one God and that God sent a number of prophets to humanity to teach them how to live, including Jesus, Moses and Abraham.

The final Prophet was Muhammad, who Muslims believe most perfectly delivered God's message, therefore they follow his example (called the Sunnah) and base their laws on the holy book, the Qur'an.

The five basic Pillars of Islam are a declaration of faith, praying, fasting, charity and undertaking a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in one's lifetime.

The Islamic Society of the Seacoast Area is located in Dover and serves more than 300 Muslim families in coastal communities in New Hampshire and Southeastern Maine.

...Amala Dharmacharini, program director of the Aryaloka Buddhist Retreat Center, will lead a discussion on Buddhism.

Buddhism developed out of the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama who, in 535 BCE, reached enlightenment and assumed the title of Buddha.

He promoted 'The Middle Way' as the path to enlightenment rather than the extremes of mortification of the flesh or hedonism. Buddhists believe in reincarnation and that, after many lives, a person can attain nirvana by releasing their attachment to desire and the self.

Stevens said he also is working on booking a speaker from the Bahá'í Faith, a faith that arose from Islam in the 1800s. Bahá'í beliefs promote gender and race equality, freedom of expression and assembly, world peace and world government.

Other speakers may include representatives from neopagan traditions and from the Jainist religion.

Jainism is one of the oldest religions in India and its followers believe that the way to true bliss is through lives of harmlessness and renunciation. Followers believe every living thing in the universe is sacred and has a soul. Because of this, they follow a strict vegetarian diet and live in a way that minimizes their impact on the environment.

Labels: Bahá'í, Buddhism, Christianity, God, interfaith, Islam, Jainism, Native American Church, Pluralism Project, religion, Sikhism, Victoria Gray

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The coming evangelical collapse

The coming evangelical collapse

An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise.

By Michael Spencer
March 10, 2009

Oneida, Ky. - We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

This is a lengthy article, well worth reading. In it, the following questions are asked, and answered:

Why is this going to happen?

What will be left?

Is all of this a bad thing?

Please click on "external source" to access the article in its entirety.

Labels: Christianity, evangelicals, Michael Spencer

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Do Christian Schools Make Students More Religious?

A new study says they might, but adds that parents and peers have more influence.
Tobin Grant | posted 2/11/2009 11:17AM

Parents deciding between religious and public schooling face many unknowns. One of the most important factors is how the schools might affect the faith of their children. Yet for all the debates over education, we know little about the effectiveness of Christian education on the spiritual lives of students. Students at religious schools are probably more religious than are public-school students. At issue, however, is why they are more religious. Is it just that they come from more religious families, or does the school itself directly affect the religiosity of teens?

A recent study by Jeremy Uecker, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, provides a major step forward in answering this question. Uecker uses the National Survey of Youth and Religion (NSYR) — the best survey to date on adolescent religious life — to compare the religious lives of students in different types of schools: Catholic, Protestant (most of which are evangelical), public, home, and secular private schools. The NSYR includes a wide range of questions on the spiritual lives of over 3,200 adolescents, their parents, and their friends. The information on parents is critical because it allows Uecker to tease out the effect of schools while taking into account the religiosity of the family.

There are two major findings that parents — and prognosticators — should consider when evaluating school options.

1. Protestant schools affect the private religious practices of students, but have no impact on church-related activities.

2. Parents and peers have more shaping influence on the religious lives of teens than do schools.

The good news for parents is that while the choice of schooling is important, the most effective thing they can do to affect the religious life of their children is to take their own spiritual life seriously and to encourage their children to build friendships with peers who are also faithful Christians.

As with any study of this kind, it is important to remember that the differences that Uecker finds are average differences. Some students may become more religious in a secular, public educational system. Parents need to consider the unique characteristics of their children and the educational mission of their local Christian schools. This study should help parents as they make their evaluations. While there are still many questions that need to be studied, this is a long, first step toward understanding how different educational choices may affect the religious lives of adolescents.

Labels: adolescents, Christianity, Jeremy Uecker, National Survey of Youth and Religion, public school, religious education, schools, Tobin Grant

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Monday, February 09, 2009

Europe does religion without the politics, suggests research

By staff writers
6 Feb 2009

The Bertelsmann Stiftung International Religion Monitor study says its research shows that Christian faith still has a strong personal influence in Europe - but not so much on people's political outlook.

On average, nearly three-quarters (74%) of people surveyed in Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Switzerland and the UK think of themselves as religious or very religious.

Italy and Poland came top of the six countries, with 89% and 87% respectively of the population seeing themselves as religious. The United Kingdom (63%) and France (54%) were the lowest. Russia, which was not included as part of Europe in this study, came lower still with 51%.

Overall, 57% of respondents said they attend religious services and practiced their faith “more or less regularly”, and 61% pray.

Traditional Roman Catholic countries tend to have more highly religious adherents than Protestant countries – in Poland 40% of people class themselves as very religious, compared with only 19% of the British population. Poles also attend church more regularly than other Europeans – 64% reported a high level of public religious practice compared with 17% in Germany.

Young people are as likely as the older generation to believe in God or some idea of the divine and the afterlife, with 41% of young people holding strong religious beliefs compared to 42% of the population as a whole.

The secular online news source EU Observer recently reported on the study – one of the first pieces of comment by EUO on religious affairs. The article quotes the survey saying: "the role which [religion] plays in tying together the countries of the European Union should not be underestimated".

However the EU Observer suggests that religious belief influences the political views of only 27% of respondents (and only 29% in Poland), and comments that "Europeans remain strongly religious but like to keep faith out of politics".

Sociologists such as Professor Grace Davie at the University of Exeter have long argued that religion and spirituality are mutating rather than disappearing in Europe, even though that continent retains its exceptionalism for having secularised more than any other continent.

She suggests the changing patterns of believing and belonging, which defy the simple interpretations of both secularist and 'religious revivalist' advocates, are due the emergence of "multiple modernities" in the world today - whereas the old secularisation thesis was that 'modernisation' was always accompanied by the demise of religion.

The data now suggests otherwise.

Labels: Bertelsmann Stiftung International Religion Monitor, Christianity, Europe

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Born-Again American: A Christian-Tinged Campaign From Norman Lear, a Religious-Right Foe

February 03, 2009 06:37 PM ET | Dan Gilgoff
By Dan Gilgoff,

The music video for Born Again American, TV producer and liberal activist Norman Lear's new campaign to promote service and volunteerism, might surprise you. The video, which features a new song that's also called "Born Again American," appropriates blatantly evangelical language: "I'm a Born Again American, conceived in Liberty/My Bible and the Bill of Rights, my creed's equality." How ironic, given that Lear has been battling the religious right—the evangelical right, really—for nearly three decades. Lear founded People for the American Way shortly after the Moral Majority had opened its doors.

Has Lear jumped on the bandwagon of progressives who've "gotten religion" in recent years?

Not exactly. I found a Washington Post article describing People for the American Way's 1980 founding, and it turns out that Lear has long used religion to battle the religious right:

Two organizations, one made up entirely of mainline religious leaders and the other with them predominating, have sprung up in recent weeks to fight the evangelists of the Christian right.

One group, People for the American Way, will be launched formally today by a coalition that includes television producer Norman Lear, former senator Harold Hughes (D-Iowa), the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh of Notre Dame, Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of the American Jewish Committee and Dr. William Howard and Dr. William P. Thompson, the current and past presidents of the National Council of Churches.

Their plans call for distributing five 60-second TV spots, already produced by Lear, dealing with the Christian right. "We are trying to communicate to the American people that the Christian community understands that people must make up their own minds" about political issues, explained Thompson, who is the chief executive officer of the United Presbyterian Church.

"The church has the right to express its views," Thompson continued, "but it does not have the right to tell people how to vote."

A helpful reminder that liberals have been fighting religious conservatives with religion—and not just arguments for church/state separation—since way before the religious left's post-2004 revival.

Labels: Christianity, Dan Gilgoff, Norman Lear, People for the American Way, religious right, service, volunteering

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Friday, January 30, 2009

Sufi rising

January 25, 2009

For years, the Islamic revival has seemed to be a story of ever-growing fundamentalism and political extremism, but around the world, Sufi orders are rapidly gaining strength -- in Turkey and Syria, Uzbekistan and Indonesia. Sufism is also growing quickly in Iran, as younger Muslims seek a liberal and liberating kind of spirituality utterly different from anything the ayatollahs can provide. In 1979, Iran had 100,000 Sufis; today, there may be 5 million.

Globally, the movement represents a close parallel to the explosive worldwide growth of charismatic and Pentecostal styles within Christianity. Both practice a passionate style of religion, and both have demography on their side. The Sufi revival is most obvious in the African and Asian lands that have some of the world's highest birth rates. Although the Sufi revival has its impact in many Muslim countries, the North African story is particularly important for Europe and the West because of the influence of migrants. As Morocco and Senegal spawn new forms of Sufi devotion, for example, these spread to African communities in Europe, and find expression in youth culture and hip hop, even in Sufi rap.

Always, these movements speak the language of peace, hope, and reconciliation, and condemn extremism. These are the Muslim voices that can compete with the calls to jihad and terror.

Labels: charismatics, Christianity, Iran, Muslims, passion, religion, Sufism

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Friday, January 23, 2009

Americans accept 'array of faiths,' abandon biblical teaching

Allie Martin 1/16/2009 6:30:00 AMBookmark and Share

A new survey finds Christianity is no longer the default faith of most Americans.

The survey was conducted by The Barna Group, which found that half of Americans believe Christianity is just one of many options for genuine faith. George Barna, the group's founder, believes the study confirms that more Americans are adopting a pluralistic mindset.

"Americans are increasingly very accepting of a diverse array of faiths," he notes. "They're less likely to think that Christianity is right or accurate in what it teaches."

According to Barna, the survey also finds that many Americans are adopting their own ideas about faith, apart from God's Holy Word.

George Barna"What we find is that people are deriving their biblical literacy and their views of spirituality from conversations that they have with friends, and they give that equal weight to things they might get in church or from other religious settings," he points out. "They'll get their faith views from their own personal reflections as well as from their personal experiences and observations."

The survey reveals that most Americans still call their faith an important source of personal and moral guidance.

Labels: Allie Martin, America, Barna Group, Bible, Christianity, faith

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Friday, December 12, 2008

Obama's faith policy and our nation's future

Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Cassie Olson

In the United States, 83.9 percent of adults affiliate themselves with a religion and 78.4 percent say they are Christians, according to the Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted in 2007. Believers and nonbelievers alike wonder how Obama's faith will affect policies of the United States.

According to his campaign, Obama hopes to mend the nation's religious divide by forging common ground between the polarities, while also diverging from some of President Bush's policy.

Despite rumors spread across the country, Obama says he deeply believes in the precepts of Jesus Christ.

"I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible. I pledge allegiance and lead the Pledge of Allegiance sometimes in the U.S. Senate, when I'm presiding," Obama said in response to e-mail allegations mentioned during the 2008 Democratic debate in Las Vegas.

Obama explained his perspective on faith and politics in an acclaimed "Call for Renewal" speech in June 2006. He acknowledged religion couldn't be ignored in a country of religious people. However, Obama said church and state should remain separate.

Because the religious and the secularists are both important in solving the nation's problems, Obama said nonbelievers must realize faith is part of the solution.

"The problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect 10-point plan," Obama said. "They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness -- in the imperfections of man. Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds."

He encouraged nonbelievers to stop forcing the religious to leave their beliefs out of public debate. He brought to mind the countless reformers -- Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. -- who used their religion to foster change.

At the same time, believers need to maintain an open discussion.

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion- specific, values," Obama said. "It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason."

Obama also wants believers to ensure their policy does not exclude any one American. He reminded believers they can recognize public policy without it dictating church practices, and he reminded Americans not every mention of God is a breach in the separation of church and state.

Obama's faith will provide a moral base for his decisions, but will not dictate his policy. While campaigning in Ohio during July 2008, Obama said he hopes to reform and expand Bush's faith-based programs. However, Obama supports keeping abortions legal and promotes embryonic stem cell research.

Although some might disagree with his policy, Obama hopes Americans can join forces to prevent the nearly 1 million abortions that have occurred in the United States each year from 1975 to 2003, as reported by the Center for Disease and Control. Obama also believes United States citizens can cross party lines to eliminate the poverty 37.3 million Americans were living in during 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Americans can be thankful Obama is neither forcing beliefs on anyone nor opposing or excluding either side from the debate or the solution. The years following 2008 are a new dawn, but Obama will only succeed in mending the country and bringing the right change if Americans are willing to lay down their pride, work past their apathetic resentment and take action -- together -- for the common good.

Labels: Barack Obama, Cassie Olson, Christianity, faith, politics, religion, United States

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The History of Religion

The History of Religion, from 3000 BC to 200 AD, in about 2 minutes. Taken from mapsofwar.com

Labels: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, maps, religion

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Friday, November 07, 2008

Catholics, Muslims Affirm Shared Mission

Say Religion a Source of Harmony, Not Conflict

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 6, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Catholics and Muslims agree that youth must be formed in their own religious traditions and correctly educated about other religions, to give witness to transcendent values in a secular society.
The recently established Catholic-Muslim Forum affirmed this in a joint declaration released today, the result of their first seminar, which began Tuesday. The forum is comprised of 29 members of each religion and was formed by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and representatives of the 138 Muslim leaders who sent an open letter to Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders in October 2007.

The theme of the three-day seminar was "Love of God, Love of Neighbor," with a specific focus on two areas: "Theological and Spiritual Foundations" and "Human Dignity and Mutual Respect."

The final statement of the forum reflected many points of similarity between the two creeds as well as resolutions for positive action to build solidarity and peace between the two.

Foundation of love

The forum recognized the specific focus of Christian love: "The source and example of love of God and neighbor is the love of Christ for his Father, for humanity and for each person. God is Love and God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. God's love is placed in the human heart through the Holy Spirit. It is God who first loves us thereby enabling us to love him in return."

They continued with a summary of how love for one's neighbor in word and deed follows necessarily from the Christian's love for God. This love imitates Christ's sacrificial love, and includes every human person, even enemies.

Turning to the Muslim perspective on love, the declaration affirmed: "Love is a timeless transcendent power which guides and transforms human mutual regard. This love, as indicated by the holy and beloved Prophet Muhammad, is prior to the human love for the one true God. […] God's loving compassion for humanity is even greater than that of a mother for her child; it therefore exists before and independently of the human response to the One who is 'The Loving,'"

In regard to love of neighbor, the statement added some Muslim beliefs similar to those of Christians: "Those that believe, and do good works, the Merciful shall engender love among them. […] Not one of you has faith until he loves for his neighbor what he loves for himself."

Given these common foundations of love for God and neighbor, participants in the seminar recognized the gift of human life and the need to protect it. They asserted the belief that human dignity is based on each person's creation "by a loving God out of love." Thus every person deserves recognition of "his or her identity and freedom by individuals, communities and governments, supported by civil legislation that assures equal rights and full citizenship."

The declaration acknowledged God's creation of human personas as male and female, and noted the commitment of the forum to ensure "that human dignity and respect are extended on an equal basis to both men and women."

Religious differences

Members of the forum wrote that love of neighbor includes respect for each person's choices regarding religion. They affirmed that religious minorities are to be respected and that sacred figures, symbols and places should not be ridiculed.

They acknowledged: "As Catholic and Muslim believers, we are aware of the summons and imperative to bear witness to the transcendent dimension of life, through a spirituality nourished by prayer, in a world which is becoming more and more secularized and materialistic. […]

"We are convinced that Catholics and Muslims have the duty to provide a sound education in human, civic, religious and moral values for their respective members and to promote accurate information about each other's religions."

A source of peace

Seminar participants recognized that plurality in God's creation is a richness and should not be a source of conflict. They professed the belief that "Catholics and Muslims are called to be instruments of love and harmony among believers, and for humanity as a whole, renouncing any oppression, aggressive violence and terrorism, especially that committed in the name of religion, and upholding the principle of justice for all."

They challenged individuals from any religion to come together to help the needy, and to work toward upstanding financial systems that will consider the needs of the poor and relieve individual or national suffering.

Forward looking

The joint declaration recorded the conviction that young people are the future of the religious communities as well as societies. It asserted the necessity of forming youth, in their own religions as well as in the understanding of other cultures and religions.

The statement closed with a plan to hold a second seminar in two years, in a Muslim-majority country. Benedict XVI received the members of the forum in an audience, and participants ended the seminar by expressing gratitude to God for the fruitful dialogue among them.

Labels: Catholic, Catholic-Muslim Forum, Christianity, Jesus, love, Muslims, peace, Vatican

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Monday, September 29, 2008

Faiths unite for peace

by Millie Willis

Most of the news we hear out of the Middle East usually describes the violence among Israelis, Palestinians and Muslims. We seldom hear about, and often are unaware of, the heroic efforts among those citizens who are saying "Enough!" and are creating numerous interfaith groups working together to bring peace to the Middle East.

The Jerusalem Peacemakers is one of those groups. It is a network of independent interfaith peacemakers. Their purpose is to inform others about their work; encourage peace and healing in the Holy Land; nurture forgiveness, justice and collaboration, so that all people in the Holy Land may build a new future.

The Peacemakers are increasing in numbers, and include Christians, Muslims, Jews and Palestinians, men, women and children of all ages throughout the Holy Land.

On Sept. 7, we were invited to hear two representatives from the Jerusalem Peacemakers at an Interfaith Forum, held at the Antrim Chapel at Roanoke College. They were brought here by Sam Rasoul, a candidate for Congress and a member of the local Valley Character Interfaith Committee.

Rasoul introduced the two guest speakers to a sparse audience and moderated the forum. Eliyahu McLean and Ghassan Manasra represented the Jerusalem Peacemakers. Their topic was "Reclaiming Religion as a Source for Peace: Tools for Peacemakers in Judaism and Islam."

We learned that McLean was born in California and 10 years ago moved to Israel. He lives in Jerusalem and his faith is Judaism. He is active in Israeli-Palestinian dialogue in Nablus and Eilat. Until 2003, he was director of the Israel Chapter of the Peacemaker Community, Mevakshei Shalom, which serves as an umbrella for many projects integrating spirituality and reconciliation efforts.

Manasra is a Sufi Muslim. He is the director of Anwar il-Salaam, a Muslim peace and dialogue center based in Nazareth under the guidance of his father, Sufi sheikh Abdul Salaam Manasra. His father serves as the head of the Qadiri Sufi order in the Holy Land. He is currently running a project that brings together Jewish and Muslim high school principals and educators for study and training in religious sources for peace.

This year, Ghassan Manasra was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

They told their stories of their struggles and successes of meeting together with rabbis, sheikhs and priests and the many citizens from these areas of unrest. The Jerusalem Peacemakers' efforts to bring peace include interfaith camps and meetings where they try to understand each other and build respect through interfaith dialogue. Some Jewish, Palestinian and Muslim women leaders are working with their counterparts to initiate various movements, i.e. The Women's Partnership for Peace in the Middle East, Women's Interfaith Encounter Association and Culture of Peace Educational Program for schoolchildren.

These efforts are reminiscent of the heroism in the biblical battle story of David and Goliath. They are all working against great odds and with no support from their own governments.

The forum was uplifting, hopeful and educational. It is reassuring to learn that individual of different faiths are working together for peace in their part of the world. My appreciation to Rasoul for his great effort in bringing these two Jerusalem Peacemakers to Roanoke.

Labels: Christianity, Holy Land, interfaith, Jerusalem Peacemakers, Judaism, Millie Willis, Muslims, Palestinians

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Documentary Examines Role of Christian Faith in History of Freedom

By Elena Garcia
Christian Post Reporter
Wed, Sep. 24 2008

If it weren’t for the Christian faith, the birth of freedom and liberty would not have been possible, according to a new documentary from the Action Institute.

In “The Birth of Freedom,” Action Institute takes a look at key freedom fighters and associated documents to trace the historical development of the principles of liberty and freedom that endow Americans with “unalienable” rights as “equal” men.

From the plight of slave abolitionist William Wilberforce and America’s founding father Thomas Jefferson to civil rights figure the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the documentary shows how the Christian faith was inextricably linked to their cries for freedom.

“Think of what a scandal it would be if we were to say the abolitionists should have kept their Christian faith out of the struggle against slavery. Rev. Martin Luther King should have kept his Christian faith out of the struggle for civil rights. People who fought against the terrible crimes committed in the name of eugenics should have kept their faith out of politics,” said Prof. Robert P. George of Princeton University in the documentary.

The film also suggests that the idea of human rights was created by theologians.

The documentary, which has been screened to select audiences earlier this year, was shown at an exclusive premiere to a crowd of Christian bloggers at the 2008 Godblogcon over the weekend.

In conjunction with “The Birth of Freedom,” Action Media has also been releasing a series of short clips that provide additional insight into key issues presented but not covered in the film.

On Monday, the organization released its fourth short video in the series which examines "Poverty in Medieval Europe." New videos are released every Monday.

The Mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.

Labels: Action Institute, Christianity, Elena Garcia, freedom, Godblogcon, liberty, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Jefferson, William Wilberforce

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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Faith, Golden Rule influence attitudes on torture, new poll shows

Thursday, Sep. 11, 2008
From staff reports

A new poll commissioned by Mercer University and Faith in Public Life shows the conflicted attitudes on torture among white evangelical Christians in the South.

Close to six in 10 white evangelicals in the South say that torture can often (20 percent) or sometimes (37 percent) be justified in order to gain important information, according to the survey, conducted by Public Religion Research. This compares to roughly half (48 percent) of the general public that believes torture can be justified, according to a Pew Research Center poll earlier this year.
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Despite high levels of religiosity, white evangelicals in the South are significantly more likely to rely on life experiences and common sense (44 percent) than Christian teachings or beliefs (28 percent) when thinking about the acceptability of torture. And only about one in 20 white evangelicals rely on the advice of government leaders when it comes to torture.

Among those influenced by Christian teachings, a majority (52 percent) of survey respondents oppose torture. In contrast, among those who rely most on life experiences and common sense, less than one-in-three (31 percent) oppose torture.

A majority (52 percent) agree with the Golden Rule argument against torture - that the U.S. government should not use methods against this country's enemies that we would not want used on American soldiers.

An appeal to the Golden Rule increases opposition to torture among every subgroup of white evangelicals. For example, only about one-third (34 percent) of white evangelicals who attend worship services more than once a week say torture is never or rarely justified, but a majority (50 percent) of this group was persuaded by the Golden Rule argument against torture. This represents a 16 point shift in opinion among the most frequent attending white evangelicals in the South.

A majority (53 percent) of white evangelicals in the South believe that the government uses torture as part of the campaign against terrorism, despite repeated claims made by government officials that the U.S. does not engage in torture. Only about one-third (32 percent) say that the U.S. does not use torture as a matter of policy.

This survey was based on telephone interviews conducted under the direction of Opinion Access Corp. among a sample of 600 white evangelical Christian adults, ages 18 years or older in the southeastern United States. The survey was fielded from Aug. 14-22.

Labels: Christianity, evangelicals, Golden Rule, religion, terrorism, torture

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Friday, August 15, 2008

A love that scares us

Christianity has always dealt in hard truths

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Michael Gerson, Calgary Herald
Published: Sunday, August 10, 2008

In a recent investigative profile, The Associated Press tells the depressingly familiar story of televangelist Kenneth Copeland.

His ministry's private jet and lakeside mansion. The complex web of ranching, oil and media interests that benefits his extended family. In this case, there is no taint of hypocrisy. Copeland practises what he preaches -- a doctrine that God wants his followers to prosper in very material ways.

This prosperity gospel combines two of the most powerful forces on Earth: the profit motive and the power of positive thinking. At its best, it inspires hard work, generosity and the avoidance of life-destroying vices. At its worst, it is religiously infantile.

"I believe God wants to give us nice things," says evangelist Joyce Meyer.

"I think God wants us to be prosperous," pastor Joel Osteen assures us. "I think He wants us to be happy."

Whatever ethical problems such leaders may or may not have, they face a large theological challenge.

A religious system that promises happiness and "nice things" is difficult to reconcile with the faith whose founder had "no place to lay his head," urged his followers not to store up "treasures on Earth," and called on them to deny themselves and take up a cross of suffering.

This has never made the best marketing message. What company would adopt the electric chair or the hangman's noose as its logo?

Christianity has always dealt in hard truths -- God is not a means to our own ends, suffering is unavoidable in lives bounded by mortality and often wrecked by failure.

Suffering for the sake of suffering is useless; it is merely masochism.

But when suffering cannot be escaped as the health-and-wealth preachers promise -- or even nobly endured as the stoics promise -- it may perhaps be transformed.

"If you and I can share our pain," said the late theologian Henri Nouwen, "suddenly we find grace and joy coming in. In your tears and anguish and struggle, you suddenly discover community, you suddenly discover friendship, you suddenly discover affection, you suddenly discover forgiveness, you suddenly discover healing.

"All these things come through vulnerability."

In this odd faith where the poor in spirit are blessed, the highest ideal is suffering for others -- though most of us do precious little of it. This model of spiritual leadership has nothing to do with conventional measures of success and influence. It is found in the medical missionary who buries his or her life in the forgotten relief of forgotten suffering. In the dying pope who speaks for the vulnerable by exposing his own shocking vulnerability.

One of the most vivid literary pictures of this leadership comes from a strange source -- a self-loathing, self-described "Catholic agnostic," prone to prostitutes, opium and suicide attempts.

In Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory," set in the 1930s, Mexico's authorities destroy churches and hunt down priests for execution. An unnamed whiskey priest -- disguised and constantly moving -- doggedly performs his sacramental duties while knowing he is a spiritual failure. He has a mistress, a child and a problem with alcohol. But stripped of dignity, respect and possessions, he discovers an identification with the poor around him.

Labels: Christianity, love, Michael Gerson, prosperity, suffering

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Faith leaders reach out to get men in the pews

Faith leaders reach out to get men in the pews
By Teri Greene

Women are the majority in 21 of 25 Christian denominations, according to the recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, and some local pastors say they see those statistics reflected in their own churches. And while it affects the congregation, it hits families especially hard.

Some area churches are doing everything they can to encourage the presence of men in the sanctuary and in the community as outreach volunteers.
A new approach

Nationwide, many churches are brainstorming new ways to bring in the men.

One simple difference

A basic difference in the way men and women see themselves, as people and as members of the faith community, could be the factor behind the under-represented male population in many churches, some pastors say.

Many pastors acknowledge this difference between the genders when it comes to religion.

Sixty-two percent of those who attend church regularly as adults say that as children they went to church with both parents, according to a new survey of 1,007 adults by Ellison Research, a market research firm in Phoenix. If only one parent went to church -- usually the mom -- the likelihood of the adult regularly attending dropped to 50 percent. If neither parent took them to church, 33 percent now attend.

Women can have a key role in turning the negative trend around - or at least finding ways to compensate for it -- said Katrina Todd, public relations director at Pilgrim Rest. As a woman whose husband often has to work Sundays, Todd sees how problems can easily arise.

"I think sometimes our roles get reversed, because the men are taking on more hours at work and the women pick up the slack and do what's needed," she said.
Finding 'home'

But sometimes, it's more complicated, Todd said.

"I have spoken with some female friends and sometimes it's an issue of, they can't come to a common ground of the denomination, so the mom just decides, 'I'm going to go on with this denomination,'" taking the children with her and leaving dad at home.

Hoomes said it may just be a matter of whether the man is receptive to the church his wife and family are attending.

"My experience has been that churches appeal to individuals based on their own preference and past experiences," said Hoomes, adding that men of all ages serve in leadership positions at First Baptist. "Our pastor, Dr. Jay Wolf, describes worship styles like restaurants, different choices to meet different needs."

Todd's advice for women facing this dilemma: "Just encourage your husband and decide you will go to church wherever you feel the spirit together," she said. "Say, 'Let's make this decision as a family. What's going to be the best church to fulfill our needs? What has the best ministries - for youth or marriage, or whatever we need? Let's go out and research together and find out what's going to work for the family.'"

The way the church sees men is an important factor, said Gilbert, who acknowledges that the number of men in his congregation has begun to grow.

"We're not focusing on how bad they are," Gilbert said of church members in men's ministries. "We're saying, 'What can we do to better equip you to deal with the pressures of being a father or husband?'"

He said increasingly popular culture is bashing men, and that needs to be reversed.

"Men are saying, 'At what point do I feel welcome?' Here, we have somebody helping men to improve," Gilbert said. "Women have led us, carrying the household, doing more than they were called to do. Men need to go further, to step back and take their rightful place, becoming leaders in their households."

Labels: Christianity, church, men, religion, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, women

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Saturday, August 02, 2008

The Catholic "destiny" in China

Many new Christians are a mix of old and new faiths while others are torn between themselves
by Francesco Sisci

BEIJING --

In China, it is now trendy to wear a cross, hanging from a small chain at the neck, fully exposed on the chest.[1] The crosses are made of wood, metal or, sometimes, silver, gold or precious stones. And it is not just about fashion: It may be jewelry, but it is also a religious statement.

Most of the time, when asked about the meaning of the cross, the bearer will answer proudly and clearly: Yes, I am a Christian. Yet, after that, everything becomes blurred. Most people don’t know the difference between being Christian (“jidujiao,” which in China refers to Protestants) and being Catholic (“tianzhujiao”, a totally different word). Nor are they familiar with the various branches of the Protestant faith. A Chinese government estimate puts the total number of “Christians” at 130 million—almost 10 percent of the population and at least five times the percentage of Christians (Protestants and Catholics) there was when the Communists took power in 1949. Even taking into account the population increase, the absolute numbers have grown immensely, up from the original 8 to 9 million.

However, if one takes a closer look at these numbers, little appears to have changed since 1949. The Catholics, even in the rosier estimates, are about 12 to 13 million, or 1 percent of China’s population, the same percentage as in 1949. The rest of the Christians are Protestant or something similar. I conducted a small survey and found that in Italy, where they are free to express themselves, many Chinese migrants are Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are mostly from the Wenzhou area in the Zhejiang province and converted while living in their villages. In one case, a wandering pastor stopped by a home and saved a sick relative through his prayers. In return, the family converted.

In the countryside, there are also many Mormons and Evangelicals. Most just follow whichever pastor they meet out of “yuanfen,”[2] or fate. Many of those pastors are self-taught, having read a translation of the Bible in Chinese. The translation may be not very accurate or done in a scholarly way. To this very weak Biblical background they add their own preaching, which is bound to draw more from the local Chinese lore (non-Christian) than from the Bible, simply because the Bible is not part of Chinese education or tradition. Many pastors mix Christianity with Taoism and Buddhism.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are considered to be pseudo-Christians by Catholics. Thus they might be not very different theologically from Hong Xiuquan’s Taipings, the religious sect that almost toppled the Qing dynasty in the middle of the 19th century.

The leader of the rebellion, Hong Xiuquan, claimed to be Jesus Christ’s younger brother and said he had a vision after reading a partial translation of the Bible in Chinese. He organized a movement and a hierarchical Church, in which he was the top leader and his siblings and friends were senior officials. He also edited his own version of the Bible. At its peak, the Taiping was a tightly knit organization with many millions of converts. Some modern Chinese Christians might have sprung out of that old distorted Christian sensibility, while others might be heirs of the highly literate Protestant foreign missionaries who have flocked to China since the 19th century. In contrast to the past, modern Protestants are not organized in a single vertical Church. As far as we know, they do not plan on bringing down the government: They are not rebellious and do not want to establish a new order.

The government, mindful of the history of Taiping, might have been inclined to put down these new Christians. However, the emergence of Falun Gong in 1999 changed the order of priorities.

On April 25 1999, about 10,000 Falun Gong (a Taoist-Buddhist sect) followers surrounded Zhongnanhai, China’s White House, in a show of force to demand greater political clout. China's top leaders had no warning from their security apparatus and were caught completely by surprise. They later found out the protest was organized or abetted by senior security officials. There were suspicions that it might have been part of an attempted putsch supported by the most conservative, xenophobic wing of the Communist party and aimed at stopping the process of reforms.

The Falun Gong were opposed to modern science and medicine. In a line with old Chinese traditions, they claimed that diseases do not exist, that they were just manifestations of sins, and thus without sins, there would be no sickness. The Falun Gong have a very structured organization, modeled after the Communist party with cells, a central committee, and a politburo. They claimed to have 100 million supporters in 1999.

“The fact that so many people believed in this mumbo-jumbo changed the debate in the Party. It proved that it was not that reforms were going too fast; the problem was that reforms were going too slowly.”[3]

Furthermore, it proved that there was a “spiritual market” that was out of the Party’s reach. The Party had forsaken all claims to total “spiritual” answers after Mao’s demise. It had long stopped preaching “dialectic materialism” as some kind of religion, as it did during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). This had created a huge spiritual void, and in the early 1980s, China was rife with all kinds of breathing exercises, such as Qigong, with their roots in ancient Chinese tradition. They all assured better health, but many went as far as promising miracles and immortality. The Falun Gong was one of them. People who had now lost all faith in eternal communism and who saw traditional Confucian values shattered by decades of Maoism turned to Qigong. And after the crackdown on Falun Gong many former Qigong practitioners turned their religious interest to Christianity “with Chinese characteristics”—with the blessings of the officials who preferred Christianity to Falun Gong.

In sum, many of these new Chinese Christians are new converts to "modernity," which in China is largely tantamount to “Westernization”—or the American way of life. They pray to Jesus as they eat at MacDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken. But just as they can't eat hamburgers every day (and can't digest cheese and can't stand its smell), so they can't take the "pure" overeducated Christianity and even the "purely" American Presbyterians or Evangelicals are hard to swallow. In the same way they add soy sauce or rice vinegar to their food, to Evangelical faith they may add belief in feng shui ("wind and water," traditional Chinese geomancy) and the Yijing (an ancient soothsayers’ manual).

However, as with food, there are real “gourmands” of faith. A whole legion
of Chinese goes to seminaries and devoutly studies Latin to become good priests, Catholic or Protestant. These people take the old Chinese beliefs with a grain of salt: They do not believe in the metaphysical power of feng shui, but accept some of its more physical and "realistic" aspects: Do not reside near to polluted river because the air will be dirty; build your house with back to a high mountain so that it will be protected from cold winds and warmer in winter.

It is important to consider religion in two separate parts. There is the kernel belief in divinity, and there is the cultural wrapping that enables the delivery and acceptance of that belief. These differences are not absolute, and they can be reconciled once the different cultures are fully understood and “translated.” But this translation work has been lagging behind presently.

This is not a theoretical issue—it is critical since it trickles down to present Chinese Catholics, for whom there is a split between the official and underground churches, with lots of people caught in between. This is a political issue, but not only a political issue.

The official Catholics fear of losing their standing, direct contact with the leadership, control of the physical assets of the Church, and power over the hierarchy. The underground Catholics fear of being completely swept under the rug and sacrificed for the official Church. Both know that a time of total freedom has ended.

So far, both groups are de facto independent both from the Chinese government and the Vatican. The official Catholics can have great leeway with the Chinese government claiming they have to be loyal to the religious precepts of the Holy See, and Beijing does little to interfere in the internal life of official Catholics, fearing it could face international opposition for oppressing religious followers. Meanwhile the official Catholics can also keep religious interference from the Holy See at bay claiming they have to follow the government.

The underground Catholics do not obey to the government, as they hardly recognized it; and they were also quite independent of Rome, citing the distance, the particular conditions, and the official persecution.

Over the years, things have grown so confused and messy that there are cases of dioceses with three bishops—one official, one underground, and one “conciliatory”—all fighting with each other.

It is as if parts of the same separated body are all fighting with each other, knowing they will be sewn together again but not knowing how they will to live together.

At the moment, there are two possible solutions. The first is to reach a minimal agreement and then build slowly on successive revisions. This would require sending a nuncio to Beijing to manage all the existing threads. The second solution would be to first reach a comprehensive agreement, then have normalization, and finally send a nuncio to Beijing.

Some middle-ranking officials on both sides, concerned with the actual implementation of the agreement, would prefer the latter. Top leaders might go for the former, as they are interested in benefiting from the broad political fallout of the agreement or starting to sort out practically the local complications of the life of the Chinese Church.

Despite the larger friction, there is growing trust between the two sides. China and the Holy See reached a common agreement for the man who became bishop of Beijing last year, after the demise of Fu Tianshan. Fu had been appointed by the government but not recognized by Rome. Conversely, in 2007, through intense consultations, Beijing and Rome jointly picked young Li Shan (born in 1965) for the prestigious and symbolic position of Bishop of Beijing, virtually the head of the Chinese Catholic Church.

Furthermore, for the first time since the departure of the last nuncio in 1951, the Chinese government agreed to let four Catholic priests celebrate a mass per week during the Olympics. The masses will be in five foreign languages (Italian, Spanish, German, French, and Korean) at three central churches. English-language masses are already celebrated by Chinese priests. The masses are intended for the foreign community that will flock to Beijing during the Olympics and Paralympics period, which lasts until September 20, and thus their political impact can be minimized. However, it is a major political event as the government will concede about 50 occasions (about the total number of masses) to foreign, uncontrollable priests who will preach the Catholic creed in “communist” Beijing. It is clear proof of a new trust between China and the Holy See.

Yet, in the end, both sides are clear that the agreement cannot be just a political barter over small clauses on a piece of paper. Present China is the continuity of a millennial tradition, while Vatican represents the inheritance of only 30 centuries of Western civilization. All the way to the present, in agreement with or opposition to it, the Christian tradition has been largely defined by Rome.

If these two traditions manage to find common cultural grounds and a deeper dialogue, beyond the petty economic or political bartering, relations between China and Western world could be in place.

In the end, what also matters will be finding shared values that go beyond the issue of national integrity, something that was forced onto China by Western powers during colonial times. Before adapting to “modern Western concepts” of a nation-state, China was something close to the American melting pot: You could speak Chinese, you behaved like a Chinese person, and therefore you were Chinese—despite the color of your hair, the color of your skin, or even your accent.

Meanwhile, in the West: “In their rebellion against Christianity, the nations of Europe have exhausted and demoralized themselves. After the catastrophes of the past century, they are neither Christian nor nationalist.”[5]

In China, influential thinkers such as Zhao Tingyang, Huang Ping, Li Xiaoning, Qiao Liang, and Wang Xiangsui are striving to elaborate new doctrines that would go beyond the notion of nation as the post-Westphalian nation-state imposed on China since the 19th century. In this sense, their effort appears parallel to a similar elaboration going on in the USA. However, this is a separate subject that goes beyond the scope of the present article.

This new cultural project should be the real basis for the renewal of international organizations such as the UN, the IMF, et cetera, which are now becoming outdated.

Labels: Catholicism, China, Christianity, church, Falun Gong, Francesco Sisci, Hong Xiuquan, religion

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Valley's religions seek 'common good'

By Jason Monaco, Robert B. Lennick and Sharon Joseph
July 25, 2008

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Every major religion in the world has this concept among its teachings. Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other faiths share this imperative. At its heart, this teaching is about finding the common good.
Is
Working together for the common good promotes ethical, moral, and spiritual values into all areas of our common lives -- economics, commerce, trade, and international relations -- as well as personal virtues, to advance understanding and action on major local and global issues by civil society, private enterprise, the public sector, governments, and national and international institutions, leading to the promotion of collaborative policy solutions to the challenges posed at the present times to all of the humanity.

In Islam, you can find volumes upon volumes of practices, laws and recommendations, the application of which perpetuate and enhance the common good of all, as is commanded by Allah (God) in verse 104 of chapter 3 of Holy Quran: ''Let there be among you a community who enjoin good and forbid evil; it is they that shall be successful.'' That is further emphasized by the Prophet Mohammad in a narration reported by Jabir bin Abdullah in Sahih Bukhari: ''Enjoining all that is good is charity.''

Among Christian teachers, perhaps it was the great St. Paul who best described the common good. In his letter to a young church in Corinth, he talked about working together as different parts of the body -- each part being important, each part having a job to do, each job essential to the body working as a finely tuned instrument. And, he reminds us that no one is left out: ''To each is given a gift of the spirit for the common good.''

In Judaism, we find a living ethic of social justice where the verse, ''Remember the heart of the stranger,'' is repeated no less than 36 times in the Torah. The common good begins with empathy for others and a recognition that unless each individual internalizes the challenges of others we become a collection of private experiences, rather than a caring and committed community.

We must step outside of our comfort zone. We must join hands with others and develop systems that ease the pain and suffering of those facing hardships. What purpose does religion serve if it does not awaken an individual's concern for all human life; for the ''common good?''

God is the author of creation. In this life, all human beings face difficulties and hardships. We must look at the difficulties of this life as an opportunity to become better human beings; to become closer to the Creator of the heavens and the earth. We must cultivate our hearts, and by serving others, we can strive toward this end.

Jason Abdullah Monaco of Allentown is outreach coordinator for the Muslim Association of the Lehigh Valley. The Rev. Sharon Solt Joseph is pastor of Church of the Manger UCC Church in Bethlehem. Robert B. Lennick is rabbi at Congregation Keneseth Israel in Allentown.

Labels: Christianity, God, Golden Rule, interfaith, Islam, Jason Monaco, Judaism, religion, Robert B. Lennick, Sharon Joseph

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Thursday, July 17, 2008

Recent Poll Shows Christians Believe Religious Freedom is Crucial to Foreign Policy Issue

More than half of Christians in America believe religious freedom should be a high priority in crafting U.S. foreign policy, according to a recent Wilson Research Strategies survey commissioned by Open Doors USA.

“The persecution of Christians in the world today is on the rise, with an estimated 100 million suffering some sort of repression and even death for their faith,” said Carl Moeller, president and chief executive officer of Open Doors USA, a Christian ministry that has served persecuted Christians around the world for more than 50 years. “Open Doors commissioned this study to try to understand what Christians in America feel about religious freedom. Clearly, it is a priority.”

Fifty-four percent of U.S. Christians polled consider religious freedom an important issue in making U.S. foreign policy, according to the survey. This is an especially high priority with those who attend church most frequently (60 percent), compared with those Christians who never attend (40 percent).

The study shows that 96 percent of respondents believe strongly that religious freedom is a basic human right, and that more than eight in 10 believe it is a very important basic right. Those who feel most strongly about the issue are women who frequently attend church. Ninety-one percent believe it is a very important issue.

Respondents did not believe that direct intervention should form our religious freedom foreign policy. Instead, they favored the U.S. using more indirect policies, such as economic sanctions (20 percent) and diplomatic measures to pressure persecuting regimes rather than having the U.S. directly intervene.

“The findings of this study demonstrate that senators McCain and Obama must address the issue of religious freedom in their foreign policy positions if they are intent on winning the vote of faithful Christians,” said Moeller.

Geographically, the weakest support for religious freedom as a basic human right is in New England, with only 76 percent of respondents ranking it as very important, compared with Mountain States, where 9 out of 10 say it is very important.

Among Christian groups, the strongest support came from Baptists, non denominational/independent churches, Lutherans and charismatics. The weakest group support came from Catholics, Presbyterians and Episcopalians.

Of special interest is the finding that 98 percent of frequent listeners to Christian radio believe strongly that religious freedom is a basic human right.

Labels: Americans, Christianity, foreign policy, Open Doors USA, religious freedom, Wilson Research Strategies

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

God, Up Close And Personal

by Steve Lipman

The idea that God is a “person with whom people can have a relationship” seems right out of Evangelical Christianity.

Yet a new study of religion in America finds that a full quarter of Jews believe in such a personal relationship.

Is that figure high or low, and is it good for the Jews?

It’s lower than the percentage of such believers in the country’s other major faith groups, according to a major survey of religious beliefs released this week. But it’s probably on the rise, and it’s good if Jews with such a personal belief become active in synagogues and other Jewish organizations, says a spokesman for a prominent outreach organization.

It may be bad, however, if personal piety comes at the expense of connections with the wider Jewish community, says a representative for another national Jewish organization.

The release of the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life holds few surprises about American Jewry, showing the American Jewish community on the liberal — nearly secular — end of the spectrum on such issues as the importance of religion in one’s life, frequency of attending religious services and divine authorship of Scripture. (Pew interviewed some 36,000 people nationwide during the spring and summer of 2007. The Jewish sample was 682.)

Twenty-five percent of Jews in the Pew study said they believe in a personal God; 50 percent said God is “an impersonal force.” The Protestant figure for a personal God was 72 percent; Catholic, 60; Muslim, 41.

People who develop a sense of personal spirituality, in any faith, often tend to disassociate from communal life ...

Rabbi Yitzchak Rosenbaum, associate director of the National Jewish Outreach Program, says he does not share those fears. “I don’t think the broader Jewish community will suffer if Jews develop a personal relationship with God. It brings them closer — they need a community.”

And, the rabbi says, the concept of a personal relationship with God has roots in the Torah. “It was a Jewish idea before it was a Christian idea. We believe that every Jew prays directly to God.”

Labels: Christianity, God, Jewish, Jews, personality, prayer, Steve Lipman

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Saturday, June 14, 2008

Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life

By Brandon Keim 06.13.08

Little green men might shock the secular public. But the Catholic Church would welcome them as brothers.

That's what Vatican chief astronomer and papal science adviser Gabriel Funes explained in a recent article in L'Osservatore Romano, the newsletter of the Vatican Observatory (translated here). His conclusion might surprise nonbelievers. After all, isn't this the same church that imprisoned Galileo for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun? Doesn't the Bible say that God created man -- not little green men -- in his image?

From within, theologians have debated the implications of alien contact for centuries. And if one already believes in angels, no great leap of faith is required to accept the possibility of other extraterrestrial intelligences.

Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open -- and not necessarily Bible-bearing -- arms.

"The main question is, 'Would religion survive this contact?'" said NASA chief historian Steven J. Dick, author of The Biological Universe. "Religion hasn't gone away after Copernican theory, after Darwin. They've found ways to adapt, and they'll find a way if this happens, too," Dick says.

The central conundrum posed to Christianity by alien contact would involve the Incarnation -- the arrival of Jesus Christ as God's representative on Earth, his crucifixion and the absolution of humanity's sins through his forgiveness.

Some propose that the Earthly incarnation of Jesus some 2,000 years ago redeemed all intelligent creatures, in all places and -- since a space-faring race is likely older than us -- in all times. Others have suggested that Jesus could take multiple forms.

"Just as Jesus is human like you and I, you would find an alien-specific Jesus," said Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary professor Ted Peters.

But Peters and others also say that aliens may not have fallen into sin, instead existing in a state of grace, neither having nor needing Jesus. In that case, missionaries would have no call to convert them.

All this, however, assumes that humanity not only encounters new forms of life but also understands them. Other intelligences may be incomprehensible to us, thus intensifying another doctrinal question: What does it mean to be made, as the Bible proclaims, in God's image?

Many astrotheologians argue that God's image refers to our spiritual nature, with our physical forms being irrelevant. Not everyone, however, agrees.

"If there are aliens, the Bible specifically does not say that they were created in his image," said Mark Conn, pastor of the Noble Hill Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri. "God created many other intelligent beings on this planet, and they were not created in His image."

Conn's church recently met to discuss the issues posed by extraterrestrial contact, ultimately deciding that "if they're there, they're there. It doesn't change a whole lot."

Unlike Peters, Conn suggested that missionary work may be required, something the aliens may not welcome -- especially if, as many postulate, they are technologically superior to humanity and do not have religions of their own.

"Maybe they'll say that they used to need religion but have outgrown it. Some people say that would be a great blow to religion, because if an advanced civilization doesn't need it, why do we?" said Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at SETI.

"I don't buy it, though. I think religion meets very human needs, and unless extraterrestrials can provide a replacement for it, I don't think religion is going to go away," he continued. "And if there are incredibly advanced civilizations with a belief in God, I don't think Richard Dawkins will start believing."

Labels: Brandon Keim, Christianity, extraterrestrials, God, religion

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Religion Necessary to Survive Our Century

Published: June 03, 2008

Religion Necessary to Survive Our Century

By Krzys Wasilewski

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair unveiled last Saturday that uniting the world's three largest religions will be his lifetime goal. Blair, who once said that God would be his judge on Iraq, launched a foundation that will work towards the peaceful coexistence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Although while premier Tony Blair urged British politicians not to perform American-style "chest beating," now he wants religion to play a leading role in the 21st century. At the opening conference of his new foundation, Blair admitted that "Religious faith will be of the same significance to the 21st Century as political ideology was to the 20th Century."

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation was launched on May 30, 2008, in New York City. The invited guests, among who was Former US President Bill Clinton, heard Blair saying that "the world [was] going tumultuous change" and, to address new issues, world leaders would have to discover a set of rules which could guide them in their efforts. According to the former British prime minister, religion is the answer.

Goals that Blair set up for his foundation may, in his own words, "sound impossibly idealistic," but after greater scrutiny are achievable. The foundation's website lists the three most important points: to promote respect and understanding between the major religions; to make the case for faith as a force for good; and to encourage inter-faith initiatives to tackle global poverty and conflict.

Faith is so important, says Blair, because the contemporary world brings distant communities closer than in the previous centuries. "Here is the crucial point. Globalization is pushing people together. Interdependence is reality. Peaceful co-existence is essential. If faith becomes a countervailing force, pulling people apart, it becomes destructive and dangerous," said the former British prime minister.

According to the data provided by Blair, Christians and Muslims know very little about each other. "Most Christians want better relations between Christianity and Islam but believe most Muslims don't," said Blair. The British leader underlined that in a recent survey; only 40 percent of Europeans said that religion was an important part of their lives. In the US, this number rose to 70 percent whereas in Muslim countries it exceeded 80 percent.

Blair hopes that his foundation will show how faith can help solve materialistic problems that plague the contemporary world. Religion, says the British statesman, can join people of different denominations in one common effort towards the better future.

Krzys Wasilewski is a NewsBlaze journalist, particularly interested in history and literature that expands his love of travel and historical curiosity.If you have any comments or suggestions, please write to: krzys.wasilewski@yahoo.com.

Labels: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Krzys Wasilewski, Tony Blair

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Book Review: The roots of violence in religion

Reviewed by Allan F. Wright

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Abraham's Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
By Bruce Chilton. Doubleday (New York, 2008). 260 pp. $24.95.

Do Judaism, Christianity and Islam share a common ancestor whose obedience to God taps into the root of today's violence in the name of religion? Bruce Chilton, professor of religion at Bard College, rector of an Episcopal church in Barrytown, N.Y., and former member of the Jesus Seminar, poses this very thought in his book, "Abraham's Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam."

The thesis of Chilton's work rests upon the idea that the violence we see in the three major monotheistic religions of today (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is spearheaded by the "Aqedah," or God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, in the Book of Genesis. Chilton bookends his work with references to the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001, and examines the common thread that links violence to religion. He pursues his argument that most violence in the name of religion can be traced back to this "Aqedah" with excerpts pulled from the Scripture and the Quran.

In the Genesis account according to the Hebrew Scriptures, Abraham obeys God's command to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah, but at the last moment an angel stops him, saying Abraham has proved his faith by his willingness to obey. God himself points to a more suitable sacrifice: a ram caught in a thicket, which signals to many the end of human sacrifice in the name of God.

Chilton maintains that the original meaning of the story is that human sacrifice is not God's will. He successfully shows how all three religions, in times of persecution, have twisted this meaning to glorify martyrdom.

The title of the book is somewhat misleading as the reader may expect a survey of the many acts of violence and war in the holy books of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. However, the author overextends the idea that almost all acts of violence in the name of religion stem from the "Aqedah" account in Genesis. Chilton omits the concept that the sinfulness of man is often a root cause or explanation for violence.

Chilton expends much effort in the early chapters aiming to prove his point about the "Aqedah." However, he overreaches in his exegesis, forcing many occasions of violence found in the Scriptures to this one event. Obedience to God is the focus of the call of Abraham's sacrifice of his son, not violence. Throughout the first 90 pages of the book Chilton references extrabiblical texts and legends, muddled in clarity, to the text we find in Genesis. Unfortunately, this can be confusing for the reader.

Throughout the book there are references made that are not in line with Catholic theology. One glaring example is when Chilton says that "Jesus did not originally refer to his own personal body and blood" in the meals he shared with his disciples but the meaning came later, "in the Hellenistic environment of St. John's Gospel." If Jesus did not communicate the teaching that his "flesh is real food," then one can naturally question which Scripture passages are authentic and which are made up by the community. Chilton's association with the Jesus Seminar assemblage is evident in such interpretations.

In St. Paul's writings to the Galatians, the "Aqedah" is the occasion where the Abrahamic covenant takes on its greatest theological significance. This event serves as the pinnacle when Abraham's faith and God's promise reach their fullest expression. God's promises to Abraham and, in turn, Abraham's faith, are the two strands from which St. Paul eloquently explains his theology and the promise that follows. The faith of Abraham brings to completion the divine promise to all generations --- not an act of violence. Chilton does not mention St. Paul's interpretation which should be included because of St. Paul's influence on Christianity.

From the Islamic viewpoint, Chilton points to multiple texts in the Quran and incidents throughout Islamic history that use the Abrahamic sacrifice or the "Feast of Sacrifice" as a touchstone that likens the "Aqedah" in Judaism and Christianity to the Muslim faith. Again, this premise is designed to link the "Aqedah" to violence in all three religions.

Overall, Chilton offers an interesting perspective on the origin of violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He does provide food for thought on the violence that exists today, all alleged to be done in the name of God.

Labels: Abraham, Aqedah, Bruce Chilton, Christianity, Islam, Jesus, Judaism, religion, violence

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Friday, May 23, 2008

Panelists debate: Jesus ... Who?

By Rachel Smeda

May 23, 2008

As part of its first Theology Weekend, Karis Community Church gave three panelists the chance to present and defend diverse viewpoints of who Jesus is. Answers to questions such as whether Jesus claimed to be the son of God define the boundaries between Christianity, Judaism, Islam and other major religions. The panelists’ conversation is not the only discourse on this subject happening in America. Summaries of a few other news stories on the debate about the identity of Jesus add a broader perspective to the ongoing debate.

Unitarian Universalism

The Rev. Bill Haney, a Unitarian Universalist pastor

Who was Jesus? A good man: “The gospels are the biography of Jesus, a man.”

Way to heaven? A mystery: “If God is good, why would God condemn anyone?”

“The UU tradition stems from the questioning side of the Christian experience. To question, to doubt, are essential to my exploration of faith.”

“Being a Christian is how one acts, not necessarily what one believes.”

“I’m more interested in the religion of Jesus than a religion about Jesus.”

“I worship God and not the Bible.”

“You could say that I am not a Christian because I don’t believe in vicarious atonement, that another’s death can make me right with God.”

Islam

Dr. Shakir Al-Ani, an Islamic speaker

Who was Jesus? A prophet: “Jesus was a human messenger from God to teach people where they went astray and to bring them back.”

Way to heaven? Through both faith and works: “Just believing in Jesus, peace be upon him, will not usher you into heaven.”

“Jesus did not come to be sacrificed because we are each responsible for our sins. Individual responsibility is the way to get to heaven.”

“Why would God sacrifice one person for another’s sins? An attribute of God is forgiver because he is all-powerful and has no limits, so why does he need a price to be paid for sin?”

“Jesus never claimed to be the son of God. It was said over him by others, including the writer of John, but never professed by himself.”

“Jesus was not with God in the beginning. God is independent of his creation and does not need a son.”

“Jesus was not crucified. God gave a look-alike to die on the cross and Jesus was raised to heaven.”

“Jesus came with a spiritual message to affirm the Torah and to correct the deficiencies in Jews’ lives.”

Christianity

Dr. Tom Schreiner, a Baptist pastor and New Testament theologian

Who was Jesus? Son of God: “Jesus did claim to be the son of God; in the Gospel of John, Jesus said, ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’”

Way to heaven? Trust in Jesus: “I think Jesus’ central message was that God’s kingdom was coming — in other words, the day of judgment and salvation. Therefore, all human beings must repent and believe in him in order to be spared on the day of judgment.”

“People need a savior because there is something dramatically wrong with human beings.”

“Universalism trivializes sin because it says that at the end of the day, all will be saved.”

“We’ve strayed from God and followed the creature rather than the creator. People have trusted themselves rather than God.”

“Jesus was crucified, according to the best historical evidence available, and rose from the dead.”

“One cannot claim to honor Jesus, I would argue, and reject what is said of him in the Scriptures.”

“Jesus came so that we would be entranced by God and fall in love with him.”

“God cannot just forgive because an essential part of his nature is justice and holiness. Sin must be paid for.”

Labels: Christianity, Islam, Jesus, Rachel Smeda, Unitarianism

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Friday, May 16, 2008

The quest for happiness is no laughing matter

Elizabeth Farrelly
May 14, 2008

Thirty thousand people die in a cyclone, messaged my friend, and you're off to a happiness conference? You can see his point, though there's no real connection. But the thronging happiness delegates in Sydney last week would probably answer thus: you help the world best by first being happy yourself. Like the bit in the flight blurb that says, "Mothers of small children should don their own oxygen mask first, before assisting the child."

But how selfish is happiness, actually? And is it, as most conference speakers insisted, not just a basic human right but almost a duty?

For the Austrian psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl, happiness was only ever a by-product. "Don't aim at success," he advised, "… for success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue … as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself … Happiness must happen … You have to let it happen by not caring about it." Frankl spoke from experience. A four-year Auschwitz survivor, he noted that, even there, the most enduring were those most able to help others.

But for last week's conference, happiness was no byproduct, no don't-look-now kind of accident. Happiness was it; not just a product but the product. Everything else, it was argued, from love to wealth to brilliant career, we desire for the happiness so promised. Happiness alone do we desire in and of itself.

There's a sophistry here, of course, since it means even melancholics are really seeking the happiness sadness brings. It also makes happiness, as product, the ultimate easy sell, the one thing we all reliably want.

But a conference? Can a conference deliver happiness? Or was the Reverend Bill Crews right when declaring from the stage: "Don't worry about happiness. You lot should throw away your notes and just go out and do it."

Crews - notwithstanding the happy-clappy, back-slappy feel to the, uh, congregation -was the conference's token Christian. Most speakers were either Buddhists (like Tenzin Palmo, an East-Ender who spent 12 years in a high-altitude Himalayan cave and still craved more) or high-profile circuit-psychologists such as Martin Seligman, Stephen Post, Richard Davidson and Daniel Gilbert. Some, like B. Alan Wallace, were both.

All fastidiously avoided mentioning God, morality or the afterlife carrot. There was no trace of a suggestion you should act thus because it's right, or written, or expected and no sense of authority - except, of course, science.

It's as though some marketing genius somewhere has decided that this well-off secular-humanist baby-boomer audience - the market, if you will, for happiness - having been cured of all pressing fears except the fear of death, will comfortably swallow Eastern religion and Western science but never, never Western religion.

Yet the wildly dominant take-home message, from all persuasions and professions, was, if you'll pardon the term, Christian; that to be happy is to be good, and to be good is to be compassionate, loving and altruistic.

The difference is in the packaging. Where once the message could be forced home, now it has to be packaged to appeal to self. So speaker after speaker detailed the personal benefits of happiness: better health, longevity, acuity, earning-power and career, each effect repeatedly demonstrated by science.

Plus all the old Thatcherite shibboleths about hard-wiring for selfishness and genetic destiny are once again up for query. The implication, it will not have escaped your notice, is that happiness is something we can choose.

The Pennsylvania academic Dr Martin "I'm a pessimist and a depressive" Seligman is revered as the father of positive psychology. He scientised morality further still, postulating three categories of happiness: the Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life and the Meaningful Life.

The Pleasant Life runs on emotional pleasure, what Seligman calls "happyology". The Engaged Life means entangling your finest self with the world, what he calls "being one with the music". And the Meaningful Life means dedicating these same strengths to some greater cause.

Each happiness-type, he says, is measurable and buildable, but while there are "pleasure shortcuts" to happyology, there are no shortcuts to the Engaged or Meaningful Life. Which is a shame, because these kinds of happiness are not only more reliable and redemptive, but also lend meaning to ordinary base-level pleasure.

Seligman's Engaged and Meaningful Lives closely parallel theology's traditional distinction between the immanent and transcendent view of god; the god of good works and the god of mystic communion. But drop even a hint, a whiff of old school theology at such a conference and the best-willed happiness-seeker will stop clapping, hold her nose and run.

The market demands wisdom, to salve its remaining fear, but such wisdom must be either control-tested, dot-pointed and peer-reviewed, or couched in lyrical cave and water metaphors. It must also demonstrably benefit the self.

So, full-circle: if happiness requires altruism but is motivated by self-benefit, is it, or isn't it, selfish? TS Eliot's Thomas Beckett describes this as "the greatest treason, to do the right deed for the wrong reason." But the happiness push has a market to consider. Fine, it answers. Forget it. For each year of proven happiness your health premium will halve. That'll make ya happy.

Labels: Christianity, Elizabeth Farrelly, God, happiness, happyology, selfishness

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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Group of evangelical Christians writes manifesto urging separation of religious beliefs and politics

By politicizing faith, Christians become 'useful idiots' for one party or another, the group warns

By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 10, 2008

A group of prominent U.S. evangelical Christians is urging other evangelicals to step back from partisan politics and avoid becoming "useful idiots" for any political party.

In an often strongly worded statement released this week, more than 70 pastors, scholars and business leaders said faith and politics have become too closely intertwined and that evangelicals err when they use their religious beliefs for political purposes.

Three years in the making, the manifesto was signed by many high-profile, mostly centrist evangelicals, including Leith Anderson, president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals; Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners magazine; and Frank Wright, president of National Religious Broadcasters.

Many of the most prominent conservative evangelicals did not sign. A spokesman for James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, said Dobson had concerns about the document and decided not to add his name.

One of the statement's drafters said one purpose was to reclaim the word "evangelical" from its political association.

"This is not primarily a political movement," said the Rev. John Huffman Jr., senior pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach and board chairman of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today. "Evangelicalism is a theological understanding that we are called to be followers of Jesus Christ, and that's not captive to a culture, society or nation."

Analyst Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said he expected the statement to have limited political impact.

"It's mainly a warning to people not to confuse their personal faith with political convictions," he said.

Labels: Christianity, evangelicals, faith, politics, Rebecca Trounson

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Monday, April 21, 2008

Book Review: Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope

April 22, 2008
reviewed by Todd Friesen

Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope
by Brian McLaren
Thomas Nelson

Brian McLaren may not eat locusts or wear clothing made of camel's hair. But in Everything Must Change, this modern-day prophet issues a piercing critique of a U.S. church which, he says, too often serves as a force of "domestication, resignation, pacification, and distraction" rather than "liberation and transformation." All the while, a perfect storm of global crises gathers ominously on the horizon. But like the prophets of old, McLaren balances his warnings of impending doom with a compelling invitation "to defect" from the world's "suicide system" and to join Jesus' nonviolent insurgency of peace, generosity and sustainable living.

McLaren taught college English for 18 years and pastored the nondenominational church he founded in Spencerville, Maryland, for 24. In the past decade he has become a leading voice in the Emergent church movement and a prolific and sometimes controversial author. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the "25 most influential evangelicals in America." Everything Must Change is a sequel to an earlier book, The Secret Message of Jesus (2006), in which he focused on the kingdom of God. In his new book, McLaren asks: "What would change if we applied the message of Jesus—the good news of the kingdom of God—to the world's greatest problems?"

This book's most significant contribution is its incisive look at the competing "framing stories" of our world and of Jesus Christ. McLaren argues that the world's crises are being driven by a powerfully destructive and covert narrative. This story tells us that we are godlike creatures who are free to live without moral or ecological limits and that we exist merely to consume products and experience maximum pleasure. The devastating consequences of this story are becoming increasingly evident in our families, communities and environment.

McLaren convincingly argues that Jesus exposed and confronted this suicidal story, which already existed in his own day, and offered a radically different one. His new framing story tells us that we have been created not "to shop" but to live in loving relationship with our Creator, one another and creation. This new narrative gathers us into faith communities that proclaim and embody God's liberating and nonviolent love. It leads us not to escape our troubled world but to engage its crises so God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. Evoking September 11, McLaren provocatively writes that the followers of Jesus are called to "fly airplanes of generosity into towers of need and plant improvised encouragement devices [IEDs] by roadsides and in neighborhoods everywhere."

In a book so focused on the dominant systems of our day, I found it surprising that McLaren mentions only once the New Testament's theme of principalities and powers (Colossians 1), and then only tangentially in his closing chapter. His analysis of the destructive potential of our world's structures would have been strengthened if he had integrated this crucial concept.

McLaren clearly recognizes that it is going to take more than a book to inspire American Christians to engage the urgent global crises of our day. It will require a profound transformation in our worship life, in what we sing about, and in the kinds of sins we confess each Sunday. With some fellow musicians, McLaren has recorded a CD called Songs for a Revolution of Hope to begin to fill this vacuum. He is also trying to connect with the younger, media-savvy generation by posting clips about his book's central ideas on YouTube and maintaining a Web site (www.deepshift.org) as a venue for further conversation.

As a pastor of a congregation in Chicago's wealthy suburbs, I found this book tremendously compelling, challenging and troubling. Everything Must Change left me asking two questions: What does defection look like when it is practiced by faithful Christian communities in the United States? And where in our nation are Jesus' followers actually making radical changes commensurate with the urgent crises we face and providing one another with the mutual support necessary to sustain this new way of living? McLaren's most recent work begs for its own sequel.

Todd Friesen is lead pastor of Lombard Mennonite Church in Lombard, Illinois.

Labels: Brian McLaren, Christianity, church, Emergent church, Jesus

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Monday, March 31, 2008

A God of War? Presidential Faith and U.S. Foreign Policy

By Lyn Boyd-Judson

The religious values held by George W. Bush have undoubtedly informed his foreign policy decisions. This simple fact should give every American voter pause.

For the past eight years, many like-minded Americans have rejoiced in the current president's conservative Christian worldview and its foreign policy consequences, rather than recognizing that this worldview is a profoundly disturbing element of his presidency. They take comfort in the belief that their president receives God's guidance in political matters, both domestic and foreign. Their logic is that if good and evil exist in our world, the tension between the two manifests in the political realm and plays out in our foreign policy.

In contrast, those Americans - both secularists and liberal Christians - who find the current president's claims of divine guidance profoundly disturbing argue that one of the key principles on which the U.S. was founded is freedom from religion in state institutions. They argue that the founding fathers were deists who advocated a natural religion based on human reason rather than divine revelation. They understand that one's religious beliefs or worldview can never truly be divorced from decision-making, but they also hold that these religious assumptions should constantly be re-evaluated by rational and factual criteria when applied to matters of state. So when it is reported that President Bush says he receives divine guidance on matters of U.S. foreign policy - for instance, that God told him to invade Iraq? - these Americans believe that all citizens, Christian or otherwise, should be profoundly disturbed, because an unjust war can never be a divine war.

This contrast between American Christian worldviews is starkly apparent in the recent media reports of controversial comments made by religious leaders connected to the current presidential candidates. Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has made inflammatory remarks about the U.S. government, suggesting that the U.S. is racist on the home front and that its foreign policy is unjust, aggressive and foments Islamic terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens. John McCain has close ties to pastors Rod Parsley and John Hagee. Parsley has claimed that Islam is a false religion that America should destroy, and John Hagee has called for bombing Iran to hasten the Christian apocalypse.

Several political pundits describe the current politico-cultural divide in the U.S. as a rift between God-fearing Christians and "secular" (read atheist) liberal intellectuals from (pick your coast). Of course, this distinction is inaccurate and misleading. The divide in American political culture over God is not so much about whether Americans believe in God as it is about how the 90 percent of Americans who believe in God? want to define his purpose in our political world. In this sense, the divide in American political culture over a presidential God is an argument between the politically left-leaning Christian who embraces a God of peace, inclusiveness, forgiveness and social justice, and the politically right-leaning Christian who embraces a God Almighty whose main attributes are judgment, the strength to vanquish enemies, and the righteous impulse to devalue - even destroy - all things not Christian. Again, which presidential God will shape the foreign policy decisions made in the Oval Office?

As Americans, regardless of our religious beliefs or political commitments, it is our duty as voters to reflect deeply on what we value in foreign policy initiatives, why we hold these values, and how we express them in the public sphere. We need reasonable voices speaking to reconcile the factions in the religio-political divide - a divide not over whether a candidate knows God, but over how Americans want to define the role of a candidate's God in a president's foreign policy. While religious values can certainly inform our moral impulses, the distinction between an exclusive or inclusive God is where war and peace often hang in the balance.

Labels: Americans, Barack Obama, Christianity, George Bush, John McCain, Lyn Boyd-Judson, politics, religion, war

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Religion at the register

To retailers such as Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby, spiritual principles go hand in hand with profits

By Dana Knight
Posted: March 31,2008

When customers walk into Chick-fil-A, they get a side with their chicken sandwich that's rare in the world of monstrous fast-food chains: Christianity.

No bones about it, this company's business philosophy is based largely on biblical principles -- including the decision to remain closed on Sundays, when the company could be making big bucks at its 1,356 stores.

Once scared to speak out about religion in business, more and more companies are coming out of the spiritual closet. No organization actually tracks the number of companies driven by a religious philosophy, but there are plenty of examples.

Nationally, Hobby Lobby closes its doors on Sundays, so its employees and customers can honor the Sabbath.

Intel sponsors employee-based religious networks, and Deloitte & Touche offers employee prayer groups. Other companies, such as Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and subsidiaries of Wal-Mart, hire chaplains to visit employees in hospitals, deal with their mental health issues and even deliver vows at their weddings.

Locally, the McDonald's on Olio Road in Fishers features a Bible on the wall and Scripture. And at Transformations Salon and Spa on Madison Avenue, Christian music plays and Scripture is written on the walls.

Most spirit-based businesses say they aren't trying to shove religion down customers' throats. It's simply a way of doing business.

Dan Cathy is the son of Chick-fil-A's founder, S. Truett Cathy, who started the business in 1946, when he opened an Atlanta diner know as The Dwarf Grill.

The elder Cathy and his son have stuck to the values the chain was founded on.

"Nearly every moment of every day, we have the opportunity to give something to someone else -- our time, our love, our resources," Truett Cathy wrote in his book "Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People." "I have always found more joy in giving, when I did not expect anything in return."

Still, Chick-fil-A has recorded 40 consecutive years of annual sales increases. And some might attribute that to the company's philosophy.

A study by McKinsey & Co. found that when companies engage in programs that use spiritual techniques for their employees, productivity improves and turnover is greatly reduced.

Chick-fil-A has some of the most committed employees in the industry, "given the strong principled, religious and value-driven corporate culture," said Richard Feinberg, a professor of retailing at Purdue University. "Committed employees do better. One would think that closing Sundays would hurt business, and in a sense it does, but it improves employee business relationships and leads to the commitment that the others do not have."

Customers are drawn to the restaurant not only for the food but also for the values.

Danville resident Jared Wade was eating at the Avon Chick-fil-A last week and walked up to Cathy to thank him personally for his business philosophy.

"Being a Christian, I really admire what you are doing," Wade told Cathy. "I have had to fight to get Sundays off, and what Chick-fil-A does is incredible."

And different. Even Family Christian Stores, the nation's largest Christian retail chain, which had been closed on Sundays, decided to open its doors seven days a week several years ago.

Chick-fil-A stands out for its integrity and values, said John Livengood, president and chief executive officer of the Restaurant & Hospitality Association of Indiana.

"Being closed on Sundays probably enhances that reputation as they forgo profits to stay true to their values," he said.

Labels: business, Chick-fil-A, Christianity, Dana Knight, Hobby Lobby, religion, retail, spirituality

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Friday, March 28, 2008

Karen Armstrong - Charter for Compassion

As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions -- Islam, Judaism, Christianity -- have been diverted from the moral purpose they share to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help her build a Charter for Compassion -- to help restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.

Labels: Christianity, compassion, God, Golden Rule, Islam, Judaism, Karen Armstrong, religion, video

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Saturday, March 22, 2008

Religion Today

Religion Today
By RACHEL ZOLL – 1 day ago

On Easter Sunday, Christians will proclaim the message at the heart of their faith — "He is risen" — and will affirm the hope that God will raise all the dead at the end of time.

But this belief is deeply misunderstood, say scholars from varied faith traditions who have been trying to clear up the confusion in several recent books.

"We are troubled by the gap between the views on these things of the general public and the findings of contemporary scholarship," said Kevin Madigan and Jon Levenson, authors of the upcoming book, "Resurrection, The Power of God for Christians and Jews."

The book traces the overlooked Jewish roots of the Christian belief in resurrection, and builds on that history to challenge the idea that resurrection simply means life after death. To the authors, being raised up has a physical element, not just a spiritual one.

Levenson last year wrote a related book, "Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life." Meanwhile, N.T. Wright, a prominent New Testament scholar and author of the 2003 book "The Resurrection of the Son of God," has just published, "Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church."

Debate about Christ's Resurrection has focused on whether Jesus rose bodily from the dead after the Romans crucified him on Good Friday, or whether Resurrection was something abstract.

The three scholars also have been challenging the idea, part of Greek philosophy and popular now, that resurrection for Jews and the followers of Jesus is simply the survival of an individual's soul in the hereafter. The scholars say resurrection occurs for the whole person — body and soul. For early Christians and some Jews, resurrection meant being given back one's body or possibly God creating a new similar body after death, Wright has said.

Madigan and Levenson, among other scholars, also emphasize that resurrection for humankind is a belief that Christians and Jews share. Christians generally find it difficult to imagine that a faith that doesn't believe in Christ's Resurrection can believe in resurrection at all.

Jews in the time of Jesus believed that resurrection was bodily and communal — in that it brought justice to the oppressed and renewed creation, wrote Madigan, who teaches Christian history at Harvard Divinity School, and Levenson, who teaches Jewish studies there. That Jewish belief was absorbed and reshaped by the earliest Christians to form part of their religion.

Most modern-day Jews don't know this. Except for the Orthodox branch of Judaism, Jewish groups deleted belief in resurrection from the traditional prayer book during revisions that began during the 19th century in response to rationalistic, Enlightenment thought.

Public understanding of resurrection has been influenced not only by modern rejection of the idea of miracles, but also by popular culture.

Alan F. Segal, a Barnard College professor and author of "Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion," notes that most Americans expect the afterlife will be a continuation of life on earth — "like a really good assisted-living facility."

He also said that belief in an existence beyond death persists among Americans no matter how little they observe their religion. In the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey, 82percent of respondents said they "absolutely" or "probably" believed in heaven. Nearly 71 percent said they "absolutely" or "probably" believed in hell.

But their ideas have been molded by Western individualism, and scholars say many important teachings from early Christianity have been skewed as a result. Indeed, even debating the specifics of resurrection may seem far removed from 21st century life.

Amy-Jill Levine, a New Testament scholar at Vanderbilt University's Divinity School, said interest in resurrection — along with reincarnation, ghosts and contacting the dead — has grown in recent years.

"The more chaotic our world, with war and disease, hurricanes and famine," she said, "the more many seek a divine response to the problem of evil."

Labels: afterlife, Alan F. Segal, Amy-Jill Levine, Christianity, Easter, Jon Levenson, Kevin Madigan, N.T. Wright, Rachel Zoll, resurrection

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Religion and Video Games

21 Mar, 2008

It’s Holy Week once again. It’s time to reflect upon the real reason for the holiday.

While we’re at it, I’d like to repost this piece which I did last year (around the same time) at my old blogger blog. It’s about Christian video gamesVideogame-Simulator-Job , its history and how it affects us today.

I invite you to take a look into religion’s foray into the virtual world and then judge for yourself. Is there really a need for religion and games to mix?

The first Christian video game was one made by Wisdom Tee called Bible Adventures This was launched in 1991 for Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The game was a simple side-scrolling game which was further divided into 3 mini-games; namely Noah’s Ark, Baby Moses and David and Goliath. All games involved side-scrolling elements and borrowed, of course, from platform games like Mario, etc.

Since then, many other games were developed with a “themed-element” or involved characters or concepts based on the Bible and other prominent Christian beliefs. Some notable titles for the newer platforms/game systems include The Bible Game which was released (and was the first) for both PS2 and the Xbox.

In the Game Boy Advance version players explore different maps searching for demons. When the player finds one, they must hit the demon with their bible. At this point the demon challenges you to bible trivia in exchange for a piece of key (which opens the end level destination, the church).

Of course, not all games designed with Christian flavor evoke the same amount of approval from the press or critics of the industry. Case in point is a news report from BBC about a game called Left Behind: Eternal Forces.

According to that report, critics call it a “religious warfare. The way to win is to convert or kill. You have both the Inquisition and the Crusades,”

The controversial game is is based on a wildly successful series of novels about the struggles on earth after true believers ascend to heaven. Players can command the army of good - the Tribulation Force - against the anti-Christ’s Global Community. Of course, the game’s developers claim that their purpose is to convert players to true believers by immersing them in an interactive environment with lessons from the Bible.

Whatever happens to that debate, it is clear that the Christian community is eyeing video games as a valid medium to “reach out” and acquire followers or simply teach them about the fundamentals of faiths.

Where this journey will lead is, of course, up to the game developers of this new genre and the levels of acceptance of gamers who will ultimately play these games.

Labels: Christianity, GM T, religion, video games

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Monday, March 17, 2008

Society diverges on idea of need to attend church

,
More Christians turn to non-traditional paths

SURVEY RESULTS

For decades, Christians -- four of every five American adults who identified themselves as Christians -- assumed they had one legitimate way to practice their faith: through involvement in a conventional church. A study from The Barna Group, which examines cultural trends and the Christian church, shows a majority now believe they have legitimate alternatives which are "a complete and biblically valid way for someone who does not participate in the services or activities of a conventional church to experience and express their faith in God."

* Engaging in faith activities at home, with one's family; acceptable by 89 percent.

* Being active in a house church; 75 percent.

* Watching a religious television program; 69 percent.

* Listening to a religious radio broadcast; 68 percent.

* Attending a special ministry event, such as a concert or community service activity; 68 percent.

* Participating in a marketplace ministry; 54 percent.

Less than 50 percent consider other alternatives to be biblically valid, including faith-oriented Web sites (45 percent) and participating in live events via the Internet (42 percent).

Used with permission of The Barna Group (www.barna.org), a marketing research company in Ventura, Calif., that studies cultural trends and the Christian church.

Can you be a legitimate Christian without going to church?

The question dates back to the earliest days of Christianity when post-resurrection adherents struggled to define doctrine in the decades after Christ's earthly departure. In letters to various first-century faith communities, the fledgling church's earliest theologian, Paul, wrote that individual Christians are members of the "body of Christ."

Times have changed -- dramatically -- at least according to a recent national survey of American adults.

A report from The Barna Group showed a majority of adults believe several alternatives to conventional church membership are legitimate ways to practice Christianity. The alternatives included sitting at home and watching a religious television program, which 69 percent said was "a complete and biblically valid way" to express faith in God, according to the Barna survey conducted in December.

Not surprisingly, the question of whether one can be a Christian without going to church drew strong opinions in a random survey of residents.

Some adamantly asserted the only way to be an authentic Christian is through a conventional church, where like-minded believers are educated and enabled to live following the divine example of Christ.

Others view God's grace as totally providential and not limited to dispensation through an earthly vessel.

Attitudes changing

Not too long ago, the Barna organization said most American adults -- four out of five identified themselves as Christians -- assumed the only legitimate way to practice their faith was through a conventional church. Barna is a marketing research company in Ventura, Calif., that studies cultural trends and the Christian church. But in recent decades, Barna said the pendulum has swung toward what some describe as non-traditional practices.

As a result, membership in organized Christian churches has declined in recent years, according to a 2008 yearbook prepared by the National Council of Churches. Among the 25 largest denominations, only Jehovah's Witnesses, with 1.07 million members, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with 5.78 million adherents, noted significant increases -- 2.25 percent and 1.56 percent, respectively.

Four other denominations gained members since the 2007 yearbook -- Southern Baptists, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Roman Catholic and Assemblies of God -- but the growth rates ranged only from 0.19 percent to 0.87 percent.

In a news release, yearbook editor Eileen W. Linder said 20- and 30-somethings might attend worship and other religious activities, but resist becoming official members of conventional churches.

Their reticence can lead to a religious "freedom" that is contrary to biblical teaching, Sorber said.

Many mainline Protestant and Catholic churches are feeling the pinch caused by "lone ranger" Christians.

A changing culture

The question can probably be debated endlessly and can arise in the most unlikely of settings. Several years ago, singer Bono of U2 told Rolling Stone magazine that even though he is a "believer," he finds it difficult to be around other believers. "They make me nervous. They make me twitch," he was quoted as telling an interviewer in 2005.

The only certainty is the changing face of religion, particularly Christianity, in America, which is a contributing factor to faith practices becoming less dependent on religious institutions.

Whether one accepts or rejects non-traditional practices or conventional churches, surveys show adults are an increasingly diverse and pluralistic lot who are willing to abandon their childhood faith for other options.

According to a recent national study, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found roughly 44 percent of American adults since their childhoods have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.

"People will be surprised by the amount of movement by Americans from one religious group to another -- or to no religion at all," Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum, said in a news release.

Labels: attendance, Barna Group, Christianity, church, community, faith, membership, spirituality

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Saturday, February 23, 2008

New film questions bias against Intelligent Design

STEPHEN ROESLER
Staff Writer

Former Pepperdine Professor Ben Stein’s controversial film, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” scheduled for release in early April, explores the complex topic of Intelligent Design (ID) and the role it plays in academia. Stein, who wrote and stars in the film, finds numerous examples of professors who are being denied tenure and publishing rights for subscribing to, or merely considering, the idea of Intelligent Design. Ironically, most Pepperdine biology professors disagree with Stein’s conclusion.

Intelligent Design, at its most basic form, suggests that an unseen force, namely a creator, developed humanity. In short, ID claims that life is far too complex to explain without including a creator.

Dr. Stephen Davis, a distinguished professor of Biology and this year’s winner of the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, maintains that the effort to include ID in the class was simply a legal maneuver to incorporate religion in the classroom. He therefore considered the idea flawed and claims “it’s unethical, it’s dishonest, it was flawed from the very beginning.”

The legal maneuvering, Davis said, was an attempt to advocate for religion in Pennsylvania schools. United States District Judge John E. Jones ruled ID unconstitutional in schools by explaining it violated the separation of church and state while attempting to proselytize.

While Davis and Honeycutt fervently oppose ID in the classroom, Professor of Law Ed Larson maintains that discussion of ID could potentially complement other topics and further the process of education.

“The idea of design in nature is a perfectly respectable concept that can very profitably be discussed in philosophy and different social sciences,” said Larson, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his novel, “Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion.”

Although Larson admits that ID does not exactly fit the definition of science, he holds that if discussion on the topic of ID intends for a pedagogical purpose, it maintains no legal problems.

“That doesn’t mean that there may not be supernatural explanations for physical phenomenon — it’s just not science,” Larson said. “As long as that distinction is made, I personally see no reason why you can’t discuss it as long as you don’t proselytize.”

While most consider ID disassociated with science, Dr. Jeffery Jasperse, an associate professor of sports medicine, argues that at a Christian school, students should understand the basis of ID and its connection to the Christian faith.

Jasperse, also a physiology and anatomy professor, spends roughly four hours per semester devoted to discussing ID while allowing students to direct conversation and inquiry on the touchy topic, he said. He understands that science tends to explain processes on microscopic levels, while ignoring the bigger picture. In his opinion, this should remain the core of the class.

Christopher Doran, professor of Religion, spends his class devoted to the big picture. His class, “Conversations at the Intersection of Theology and Science,” explores the interaction between science and theology, wherein he identifies its weakness, specifically in a theological setting. He considers the theological and scientific aspect flawed.

“ID is bad science and even prominent ID folks recognize if it was a scientific program it has significant shortcomings,” he said.

Doran also explains the inconsistencies between the claims of ID and the Christian God. Finding problems throughout, Doran still sees the importance of devoting much of his class to the trying subject because the fundamentals assume a higher power. Furthermore, some critics of evolution ask how a person of faith could denounce ID. More specifically, how could Davis or Honeycutt, in their Christian faith, deem ID flawed, inaccurate or not scientific?

“I believe in creation,” Davis said.

He said he also believes in a form of Intelligent Design, but does not want that belief associated with legal attempts to railroading religion into education.

Davis said the baggage associated with Intelligent Design is unfortunate.

“It confuses and it inserts wedges that are not justified,” he said. “It inserts a wedge that separates science from religion and right now we don’t need that, in fact, we need it less now than maybe ever before.”

Central to the theory of ID remains the idea of what scientists refer to as “irreducible complexity.” The idea assumes that the cell, comprised of many complex, working parts, cannot function if one of those parts is removed. In short, irreducible complexity demonstrates that biological systems did not evolve naturally.

Irreducible complexity, which has since been critiqued and unaccepted by many scientists, functions as the crux of creationism. The idea, in one sense, allows people to prove “God” or “faith” — it qualifies as a “God of the Gaps” theory.

“What if you really believe that the flagellum, being irreducible, is the foundation of your Christian faith, and what if someone reduces it?” Honeycutt asked. “Are you willing to test your faith on the flagellum being irreducible?”

Across the board, the topic of ID remains inherently connected to some kind of faith, saturating the subject with emotion and confusion for the general public. As Honeycutt understands, ID causes people to overstep their bounds. For example, he said he believes people of the Christian community attempt to make ID a “science” to prove their beliefs. “Christians are overstepping their area, they have no scientific basis,” he said.

But, Stein maintains a different point of view in his upcoming documentary.

“We’re not, by any means, certain that Intelligent Design is the answer,” Stein said. “We just want free speech.”

Labels: Ben Stein, Christianity, free speech, intelligent design, irreducible complexity, Stephan Roesler

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The power of prayer, in good times and bad

Friday, February 22, 2008

Christian Scientists rely on spiritual healing throughout their lives.

By BILL CUNNINGHAM
The Orange County Register

At Fullerton's First Church of Christ, Scientist, two speakers stood together at a wide podium. One read a passage from the Bible; the other read related words from Mary Baker Eddy's book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The Sunday morning congregation listened quietly in the plain sanctuary. No crosses, no statues, no elaborate ornaments. Words and thoughts were emphasized, rather than symbols and rituals.

The two books, the Bible and "Science and Health," are considered to be the spiritual leader of the church. There is no ordained clergy.

Mrs. Eddy, who wrote about suffering with ill health since childhood before studying the Bible and discovering a method of curing herself and others, founded Christian Science in 1879. It was designed "to commemorate the word and works of our Master (Jesus Christ), which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing," states a church manual.

An estimated 1,600 congregations now exist in America, with hundreds more worldwide. Beyond the use of the word "science" in the name, it has nothing to do with Scientology.

Spiritual healing is an important part of the Christian Science religion. When practitioners are sick or injured they pray first, rather than head to a medical doctor.

"Spiritual healing probably has as many different faces as there are individuals that are applying it," said Donald W. Ingwerson, spokesman for Christian Science in Southern California and a church member for over 50 years. "Basically it's the power of prayer that heals. And that prayer is based upon inspiration from the Bible and from 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.' "

But if a church member with a broken bone or a severe illness feels the need for medical treatment, there's no stigma attached. "All Christian Scientists are free to go to a doctor any time they feel the need for it," said Ingwerson. "However, generally speaking, a Christian Scientist would pray first and see where that leads their thought and their need. And if they felt after that prayer, they needed to see a doctor, they should feel free to go see a doctor. But many find that they don't need to go to a doctor after they pray."

Although Mrs. Eddy was founder of the church and the author of one of its most important texts, she is not looked upon a saint or a prophet. "But she certainly has the deep respect of the world for the religion she created," said Ingwerson. "Mrs. Eddy herself said 'look for me in my works' and that's where she wants to be of value to us."

Each church reaches out to the community in several ways. There are practitioners, considered full-time professional healers, who can be called by anyone seeking treatment through prayer. And there are Reading Rooms open to the public throughout the county. These rooms have Bibles and Christian Science literature available for reading, borrowing or purchasing.

On Wednesday evenings, one-hour Testimony Meetings are held, at which individuals tell of personal experiences involving healing. At a recent meeting, several spoke of ailments that were resolved without medical assistance. One woman told of many healings, "physical, emotional and relational" over the years.

Unlike some individuals who live in fear or hope of an afterlife, Christian Scientists "don't believe in a literal sense of heaven and hell," said Ingwerson. "We don't think it's a place. We think it's a state of thought and it's right here. You're living in your own hell or heaven right now. It's not a place you go to later."

Labels: Bill Cunningham, Christian Science, Christianity, health, Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, prayer, spiritual healing

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Monday, February 04, 2008

Christianity: whence and whither

BOOK REVIEW

WAYNE A. HOLST
February 2, 2008

THE CHRISTIAN WORLD

A Global History

By Martin Marty

Random House, 262 pages, $28

The Christian World: A Global History, by veteran, much-feted University of Chicago church historian Martin Marty, tackles a formidable challenge. The author sets out to present the vast Christian story, covering key themes from 2,000 years, in a rich, multilayered narrative.

This is not a typical church history in terms of perspective. Marty weaves strategic narratives from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania with the "classic Christian story" written from Europe and North America. The result is a different kind of "global history" and to accomplish this in 250 pages is a real achievement. He saves the reader much time and effort having to sift through many volumes in order to gain the same results.

Neither is this primarily a book about the development of Christian thought. It focuses more on Christian deeds. Marty begins with Jesus and shows how, from the beginning, his followers sought to reflect and extend his work. Jesus, and the Christian faith that resulted from him, were formed in a Jewish ethos. Because of the unique, messianic "Jesus is Lord" confessions of his first followers, Jewish-Christian tensions quickly developed. Those stresses wax and wane over time, but they have persisted.

Christianity was born in the biblical lands of the ancient Near East and soon spread widely through Asia. Because Christianity emerged at a crossroads of humanity, its followers quickly dispersed into a variety of African and European cultures, living and sharing their faith in a great variety of ways.

Variety was both a blessing and a curse. It eventually became necessary to define clearly Christian understandings amid a confusion of interpretations. Creeds such as the Nicene (325 AD) were formulated. To identify and organize believers, ecclesiastical forms (often following familiar Roman and Greek political patterns) were created. Within three centuries, the faith had evolved from a minority Jewish sect into a growing religion on three continents.

From the start, Africa had an important influence on what constituted Christian belief. Many early challenges to the developing "orthodox" faith (like Gnosticism) were first engaged here. Then, after the seventh century, African Christianity was forced to yield much of its pride of place to Islam, an upstart rival religion. Isolated pockets of Ethiopian and Coptic believers survived as vestiges of a once more powerful Christianity. Africa was without significant Christian influence for more 1,000 years, until the arrival of colonialism and the missionaries.

Rome became the first major Christian power centre in Europe, and a rise of papal influence coincided with the decline of the Roman Empire. Soon Christianity expanded beyond that empire. In spite of its strength in Western Europe, the Roman form of the faith had grudgingly to cope with the existence of other Christian expressions, such as Orthodoxy in the east and Celtic Christianity on its western fringes.

North American Christianity was born in diversity, with mainly European roots, and it also treated its native peoples badly. Blacks, who came to North America as slaves, adopted the faith as their own and reframed it into a powerful message of liberation.

In recent times, Africa has re-emerged as a new heartland of Christianity and an important place to study its global future. The standard denominations thrive there, but a haunting question continues to be asked: "Why is Christianity better than what we had?"

Modern Asian Christianity remains a minority voice among older, revitalized eastern religions. Asian Christianity is gradually finding a natural home in the East and some of it offers the wider Christian world tested models for interfaith dialogue and peaceful co-existence with other faiths.

U.S. evangelicalism notwithstanding, stagnations characterize two-thirds of North American Christianity.

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that old Christianities appear to be losing ground while Christian populations explode in new places. The faith has an intriguing habit of going into decline, then surging unexpectedly. China is a contemporary example of this.

Conversely, Christian ascendancy should not be assumed as if by right. Africa and Latin America provide examples of early growth followed by subsequent decline and later recovery.

Marty ends his historical survey with a brief reflection on the future and poses the query: "Now what?"

Many modern devotees seek a humbler, more peaceful and inclusive faith than in the past. They see this as reflecting the spirit of its founder.

Christian numbers have remained steady at about one-third of humanity for more than a century. "Irrepressible" is a good, descriptive term, Marty says as he looks for signs of hope.

Christianity, with all its frustrating contradictions and splendid diversity, has existed for two millennia. It is not going away. More than two billion people claim this faith today. Among them is evidence that the appealing spirit of Jesus lives on.

Wayne A. Holst teaches at the University of Calgary and at St. David's United Church in that city.

Labels: book review, Christianity, history, Martin Marty, Wayne A. Holst

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Religious converts

Changing religions or denominations is growing phenomenon today in United States

By C. Samantha McKevie
Saturday, February 02, 2008

Please click on External link at the bottom to read the whole article, including personal stories of faith-journeys from one religion to another, and one denomination to another.

Kelley Culver grew up in Houston as a Southern Baptist; Fatima Khiyaty was reared Catholic just outside of Cleveland; and Sonja Ozturk was brought up in a Lutheran family in Green Bay, Wis.

Mr. Culver made a pit stop as a Methodist before converting to Catholicism six years ago.

Mrs. Khiyaty and Mrs. Ozturk left Christianity altogether and are now Muslims.

They are not alone.

Although some people live their lives content with being part of one denomination or faith, others change denominations or switch to a different religion altogether.

Changing from one denomination to another within Christianity is not that unusual, said the Rev. Don Saliers, a Methodist minister and an adjunct professor of theology and worship at Emory University.

"Because of the ecumenical context in American Christianity and a lot more social mobility, shifting from one denomination to another is very different from 50 years ago, though in radical conversion experiences, there can still be great personal trauma," he said. "But shifting denominations is quite common. There is much more 'church shopping' when a family now moves to a new city.

Steve Tipton, a professor of sociology and religion at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, said there is "a lot more denominational switching going on now than a few years ago and indeed a generation ago."

"The rates increase with education and age together, and in particular with intermarriage," he said. "If the Christian woman or man marries a Muslim, one of them is likelier to convert.

When switching major religions -- such as Christianity to Muslim or Judaism to Christianity -- a lot more is involved, the Rev. Saliers said.

"The conversion from one religion to another requires a much deeper change of relationships -- family ties, cultural setting and context -- than does most inter-Christian conversions or changes," he said.

LOOK AT THE CHANGES

Barry Kosmin is co-author of Religion in a Free Market, a book that presents the results of the American Religious Identification Survey. The survey tracked adult Americans by their religious traditions and ethnicity from 1990-2001.

In its chapter on religious switching, the book states that "about 16 percent of the nation's population reported that at some point in their lives they had changed their religious preference or identification."

WHO'S MOVING WHERE

Catholics, Methodists, Protestants in general and Jews were among the groups that had significantly higher percentages of people switching out of their faiths.

General Christians, Pentecostals, non-denominationals, evangelicals, Muslims and Buddhists had higher percentages of people switching into their faiths.

The biggest trend he found, though, is a switch to no religion at all, which was the choice of many of the people who left Catholicism, Methodism and Islam, he said.

"The other big trend is mainline, the old people, becoming born-again and joining evangelicals, non-denominational or Christian churches.

In two thirds of marriages where one person switched to the other's religion, it was the woman who switched to make the accommodations, he said.

The switch to Islam occurs mainly among black men and among women who marry Muslims, he said.

Labels: Barry Kosmin, C. Samantha McKevie, Catholic, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, religion

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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Half-full or half-empty?

Study finds students grow more “spiritual” as they progress through college, but are much less likely to go to church

Colleges are not the “bastions of secularism” many believe them to be, reported the Jan. 5 Los Angeles Times. The newspaper reached that conclusion based on a study carried out by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, which says it found that interest in spiritual and ethical issues increases as students go through college.

The study, the results of which were announced in a Dec. 18 news release from the institute, was based on a survey of 14,527 college students on 136 U.S. campuses. Interviews with students commenced when they were freshmen in Fall 2004 and resumed when they were juniors in Spring 2007.

According to the study, college juniors are more likely than freshmen “to be engaged in a spiritual quest, are more caring, and show higher levels of equanimity and an ecumenical worldview.” In 2007, 55.4% of juniors (as opposed to 41.2% of freshmen in 2004) said they considered “developing a meaningful philosophy of life ‘very important’ or ‘essential.’” And, while 48.7% of freshmen in 2004 said “attaining inner harmony” was “very important” or “essential,” 62.6% of juniors expressed that sentiment in 2007.

“Spiritual” life goals that students said were very important or essential were “integrating spirituality into my life” (41.8% in 2004, to 50.4% in 2007), “seeking beauty in my life” (53.7% to 66.2%) and “becoming a more loving person” (67.4% to 82.8%).

Other “spiritual values” that saw an increase in acceptance from freshman to junior years were “helping others in difficulty” and “reducing pain and suffering in the world.” A larger percentage of juniors than freshmen indicated an attitude of “being thankful for all that has happened to me.”

Yet, while “spiritual values” were supposedly up in colleges and, indeed, "student interest in spirituality and religion is at a level not seen since perhaps the 1950s," according to religion scholar Rebecca Chopp, “college students’ attendance at religious services,” says the study’s news release, “indicates a steep decline: the rate of frequent attendance drops from 43.7 percent in high school to 25.4 percent in college, and the rate of non-attendance nearly doubles, from 20.2 percent to 37.5 percent.”

The study also found that, during their college years, “students become more liberal in their political ideology and attitudes toward socio-cultural issues.”

Other studies have found a decline in religious observance and commitment to the Christian faith among young people. According to a study released in September by the Barna Group, a Christian research organization in Ventura, over the past 10 years, the number of non-Christian youth who feel “favorably toward Christianity’s role in society” has plummeted from a majority to only 16%.

Labels: Barna Group, Christianity, church, college, Higher Education Research Institute, spirituality

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Saturday, January 19, 2008

Chemical vs Spiritual

Michael Craven
Author, Speaker, Founding Director of the Center for Christ & Culture

Please click on the link to "external source" for complete article

As I shared last month, a joint study conducted by the World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School reveals that the U.S. has the highest rate of depression among a survey group of 14 countries.

However, this may have more to do with how we define and diagnose “depression.” As reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer last month, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the official diagnostic manual used by mental-health professionals, defines depression as “two continuous weeks of such symptoms as despondency, diminished pleasure in life, and difficulties in sleeping and eating.” As the authors, Horwitz and Wakefield point out; “In the manual, it doesn’t matter why a person is despondent. If you’ve lost your job, or your romantic partner dumped you, or you’ve been given a diagnosis of cancer, you’re still deemed ‘clinically depressed’ if you’re sad for two weeks or more.”

This might account for the recent 300 percent increase in Americans diagnosed with depression. Real depression can be a serious mental illness, however, being “sad” in the wake of real disappointment or loss is a normal part of life. Nonetheless, the increasing response to these events is restoration through chemistry. According to a November 2005 report in Fortune Magazine:

Nearly 150 million U.S. prescriptions were dispensed in 2004 for SSRIs and similar antidepressants called SNRIs, [psychotropic drugs used in the treatment of depression, anxiety disorders, and some personality disorders] according to IMS Health, a Fairfield, Conn., drug data and consulting company – more than for any other drug except codeine. Perhaps one out of 20 adult Americans are on them now, making brands like Zoloft, GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil, Forest Laboratories' Celexa, and Solvay Pharmaceuticals' Luvox household names.… In fact, we're popping so many SSRIs that their breakdown products in urine, gushing into waterways, have accumulated in fish tissues, raising concerns that aquatic animals may be getting toxic doses, according to recent research at Baylor University.

However, the “poisoning of fish” may not be the worst side-effect of over-diagnosis of depression and prescription of these powerful psychotropic drugs. We’ve all seen the plethora of pharmaceutical ads in which a benign voice recites a laundry list of bizarre side effects. However, two that you will rarely hear are “homicidal” and “suicidal ideation,” meaning these drugs may produce thoughts of murder and suicide!

The fact is, these potential side effects are common to this class of anti-depressant drugs and a survey of the nation’s most notorious mass murders and school shootings reveals an all too frequent connection.

This is the tragic consequence of remedies formed from a false worldview. If man is merely a biological organism, as the materialistic humanist worldview believes, and not the unity of body and soul as the Bible teaches then the logical response to disappointment, heartbreak and the like is chemical manipulation. If however, mankind is a unique being combining spirit and body then perhaps the solutions require a more holistic response that considers both body and soul.

The continuing loss of Christian influence in shaping the consensus worldview will only produce more misguided responses to real human problems that are likely to produce similarly devastating results. Christians must undertake the hard work of knowing and offering the biblical interpretation of reality that can accurately shape the culture’s understanding of the human condition and thus provide real solutions.

Labels: Center for Christ and Culture, chemicals, Christianity, depression, drugs, holistic, Michael Craven, poison

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Thursday, January 17, 2008

U.S. religious freedom is being eroded, advocates say

Page one of three: Please click on "external link" to view entire article

Misconceptions and ignorance are weakening the Constitution's 'first freedom.'
By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the January 16, 2008 edition

Reporter Jane Lampman talks about the First Freedom Awards.They are heroes in a battle most Americans think has already been won. On Wednesday evening, they are to be honored for their contributions to strengthening religious freedom at home and abroad.

Although the US is home to the greatest experiment in religious freedom ever, and the great majority of Americans support that principle, surprising gaps in knowledge and understanding remain when it comes to practicing that freedom. And support for it seems to rise and fall.

Only a slim majority (56 percent) of Americans said in a 2007 survey that freedom of worship should extend to people of all religious groups, no matter what their beliefs (down 16 points, from 72 percent in 2000).

"A great many Americans don't define religious liberty as a universal right for everyone," says Charles Haynes, one of the honorees. He is senior scholar at Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center, which conducted the survey.

At the same time, others see a weakening in federal courts in recent years of the First Amendment provisions relating to religion, a development that could endanger the rights of minority faiths.

Freedom weaker, now

"It's a disquieting fact that the First Amendment clauses are now very weak provisions, not giving the robust protection ... that historically and for much of the 20th century they did provide," says John Witte, professor of law and religion at Emory University in Atlanta and another of the honorees.

In an era when the US is promoting democracy and freedom of conscience around the world, such knowledgeable people say, it's crucial to get the experiment right here at home.

One organization seeking to boost understanding and respect for this fundamental freedom is the Council for America's First Freedom, based in Richmond, Va. The council sponsors a variety of public education programs, including a nationwide high-school essay competition.

And each year on Jan. 16 – the date in 1786 when Virginia passed the nation's first law guaranteeing religious liberty – the council hands out First Freedom Awards to individuals whose actions have made a significant difference. The three 2008 recipients have advanced religious freedom domestically and internationally:

• For two decades, Dr. Haynes of the First Amendment Center has helped local school districts and communities across the US find common ground to resolve conflicts over religion and values. He recently helped the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe draft guidelines for the study of religions in European classrooms.

• Mr. Witte, director of Emory University's Center for the Study of Law and Religion, has led major global projects related to religion and human rights among scholars from the major faiths; the projects have broken new ground on key issues.

Labels: Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Christianity, faith, first amendment, First Amendment Center, First Freedom Awards, Jane Lampman, religion, religious freedom, Unites States

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Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Survey: Non-attendees find faith outside church

By Cathy Lynn Grossman

A new survey of U.S. adults who don't go to church, even on holidays, finds 72% say "God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists." But just as many (72%) also say the church is "full of hypocrites."

Indeed, 44% agree with the statement "Christians get on my nerves."

LifeWay Research, the research arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, based in Nashville, conducted the survey of 1,402 "unchurched" adults last spring and summer. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

The survey defines "unchurched" as people who had not attended a religious service in a church, synagogue or mosque at any time in the past six months.

More than one in five (22%) of Americans say they never go to church, the highest ever recorded by the General Social Survey, conducted every two years by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. In 2004, the percentage was 17%.

Many of the unchurched are shaky on Christian basics, says LifeWay Research director Ed Stetzer.

Just 52% agree on the essential Christian belief that "Jesus died and came back to life."

And 61% say the God of the Bible is "no different from the gods or spiritual beings depicted by world religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.," although Buddhist philosophy has no god and Hindus worship many.

Belief in 'a generic god'

Most of the unchurched (86%) say they believe they can have a "good relationship with God without belonging to a church." And 79% say "Christianity today is more about organized religion than loving God and loving people."

But despite respondents' critical views of organized religion, Stetzer is optimistic. He cites the finding that 78% would "be willing to listen" to someone tell "what he or she believed about Christianity."

They already know believers — 89% of the unchurched have at least one close friend who is Christian, Stetzer noted.

And 71% agreed that "believing in Jesus makes a positive difference in a person's life."

The direct approach

Still, most of Christian belief has seeped into popular culture outside church walls and denominational tethers, says Philip Goff, a professor and director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

New forms of community, such as Internet Bible study and prayer circles, also mean some people don't believe they need a church, Goff says.

"Is there a workshop for churches in being less annoying, less hypocritical?" asks Arthur Farnsley, administrator for the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and a fellow at Goff's center.

"So much of American religion today is therapeutic in approach, focused on things you want to fix in your life," he says.

"The one-to-one approach is more attractive. People don't go to institutions to fix their problems.

"Most people have already heard the basic Christian message. The question for evangelism now is: Do you have a take that is authentic and engaging in a way that works for the unchurched?"

Labels: Cathy Lynn Grossman, Christianity, church, faith, General Social Survey, God, LifeWay Research, Southern Baptist Convention

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Sunday, January 06, 2008

Theologian who heralded the death of God ponders his own

PORTLAND, Ore. — It was a quiet Sunday afternoon in 1938 when something went terribly wrong near young Bill Hamilton's house. His teenage friends had been building pipe bombs. One, an Episcopalian, was dead. Another, a Catholic, lay on the grass fatally injured. And the third, the son of an atheist, emerged without a scratch.

How, Hamilton wondered, could a just God allow this? Why do the innocent suffer? Does God intervene in human lives?

The questions haunted Hamilton at his friends' funerals, at school, in the Navy, at seminary and in his years as a theology professor in upstate New York. By 1966, he had an answer, and it landed him in Time and Playboy magazines: God was dead.

Now, some 40 years later, a new atheism is surging. Best-sellers bash religion, Christianity in particular. Published excerpts from Mother Teresa's private journal reveal her doubts. The Golden Compass, drawn from a trilogy of novels in which a key character wants to kill God, is a blockbuster movie.

Hamilton grew up a "bland, very liberal" Baptist, in a middle-class Chicago suburb. "As soon as I was able," he says, "I left it." He graduated from Oberlin College and joined the Navy in World War II. "I may have been the only guy on my ship with a copy of The Nature and Destiny of Man in my duffel," he says. Its author, Reinhold Niebuhr, was the leading U.S. theologian of the day.

After the war, Hamilton went to Union Theological Seminary in New York City because Niebuhr invited him. It didn't matter that Hamilton wasn't sure he was a Christian. Niebuhr thought Union, a bastion of liberal Protestantism, would be a good place to figure that out. The two became lifelong friends.

Hamilton graduated in 1949, got married and earned his doctorate in theology from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The family returned to the U.S., where Hamilton taught theology at Colgate University in upstate New York.

Hamilton spent those years reflecting on his fractured faith. The image of God as an all-knowing, all-powerful solver of problems couldn't be reconciled with human suffering, especially in the wake of the Holocaust.

Hamilton wrote out his two choices: "God is not behind such radical evil, therefore he cannot be what we have traditionally meant by God" or "God is behind everything, including the death camps — and therefore he is a killer."

Hamilton didn't see an active God anymore. But the theologian was not an atheist. And he didn't want to let go of Jesus, as the example of how humans should treat one another.

"The death of God is a metaphor," he says. "We needed to redefine Christianity as a possibility without the presence of God."

He stopped going to church, but because he wanted his children to know the Bible and understand how Jesus lived, he taught them Sunday school at home. "All of us appreciate the teachings of Jesus Christ, what an extraordinary figure he was," says his son, Ross.

Hamilton redefined Christianity without God, other theologians speculated: God died long ago, perhaps at the birth of Jesus; or science and technology killed the deity. Hamilton, Thomas J.J. Altizer at Emory University and Paul Van Buren at Temple published a few articles in theological journals. Newspapers picked up the story in 1965. On April 8, 1966, Time's cover declared that God was dead, and christened the movement "radical theology."

By the time Hamilton's essay appeared in Playboy four months later, alongside topless photos of Jane Fonda, he was frustrated with the public perception of his work. Some didn't understand his argument or care about its subtleties. The response was hostile. "Institutions were upset, trustees perplexed, colleagues bewildered," he says.

Critics dismissed the death of God movement as a blip, a passing fad. But Hamilton helped pave the way for other radical theologians: feminists, who dropped patriarchal descriptions of God; and liberationists, who saw God in poverty and suffering.

Hamilton left Colgate to teach religion at New College in Sarasota, Fla., where an avant-garde and freewheeling atmosphere attracted bright students. But after a few years, he and his wife decided it wasn't where they wanted to raise their five children.

They moved to Oregon in 1970, where Hamilton taught at Portland State University for 14 years. His classes covered topics from literary criticism to death and dying, even a little religion.

Hamilton still rises every day at 6 a.m. to write. He writes by hand, and progress is slow. He hopes, however, to get his novel off to a publisher soon. He still reads avidly — Shakespeare, politics, some theology and the new atheists. It's their attitude that annoys him most.

"These are blanket indictments of religion in general, or Christianity in particular," he says. "There is a self-righteousness, a glibness in their writing. They are too sure of themselves. They've backed themselves into a fundamentalist mode."

He remains a Christian who doesn't go to church. And faced with his own mortality, he doesn't think much about God anymore, except when asked.

"The death of God enabled me to understand the world. Looking back, I wouldn't have gone any other direction. I faced all my worries and questions about death long ago."

Nancy Haught writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore

Labels: atheism, Bill Hamilton, Christianity, God, Jesus, Nancy Haught

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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

A force for good

For a growing movement of believers, an activist faith means more than proselytizing about Jesus and stoking the fires of our culture wars. Welcome to the new (and yes, liberal) world of evangelical Christianity.

By Tom Krattenmaker

A passerby might not have known: Was this going to be a church service or a concert by an alternative rock band? The set-up on the stage suggested the latter — a drum kit, guitars on stands, several microphones, and large screens flashing iconic Portland scenes — and so did the look of the young, urban-hip crowd filling up the auditorium.

Then the band hit the stage with a loud, infectious groove, the front man singing passionately about God, and it was clear that the Sunday gathering of Portland's Imago Dei Community was both alt-rock concert and church service, or neither, exactly. So it goes in the new world of alternative evangelical Christianity, better known as the emerging church.

Like the postmodern philosophy it embraces, the emerging church values complexity, ambiguity and decentralized authority. Emergents are quite certain about some things, nevertheless, especially Jesus and his clear instruction about the way Christians are to live out their faith — not primarily as respectable, middle-class pillars of status quo society, but as servants to the poor and to people in the margins. In the words of Gideon Tsang, a 33-year-old Texas emergent who moved himself and his family to a smaller home in a poorer part of town, "The path of Christ is not in upward mobility; it's in downward."

Nothing to resent

According to best estimates, several hundred emerging church congregations, or "communities," have sprung up around the country. Although some are quite large, with memberships well into the thousands, emergents are still bit players on the national religious stage. But the emerging church is making its presence felt, with new groups forming rapidly and major secular and religious media outlets chronicling its influence and potential to dramatically change religion in this country.

Like mainstream evangelicals, emergents believe in spreading the Gospel and in the necessity of believers having a personal relationship with Jesus. The difference lies in how faith is applied — the way it's acted out "in the culture," as emergents typically put it. In the eyes of the emerging church, Christianity lived out in the respectable confines of megachurches and suburbia is fading into irrelevance as a new generation comes of age with a passion for healing society and a reluctance to shout moralistic dogma.

Emergents tend to be more tolerant than establishment evangelicals on issues such as abortion and homosexuality. Do emergents believe in heaven and hell? Yes, McKinley explains, but according to emergent theology, the point of being Christian is not solely to achieve heaven in the next life, but to bring some heaven to this life by doing the work of Jesus.

Serve the community

The "downward mobility" cited by the Texas emergent applies as well to the church-growth strategy, or lack thereof, of emerging communities. Unlike the megachurches of mainstream evangelicalism, emerging groups do not emphasize attracting new members (although it seems to happen anyway) or constructing church buildings. Some emerging groups meet in rented auditoriums, some in people's homes, some in pubs. There is less emphasis, too, on programming for members. In their view, the church exists not primarily to serve members but to serve the community.

Typical of the movement's critics, Falwell accused the emerging church of trying to "modernize and recreate the church so as not to offend sinners." That's probably code for "liberal," a shoe that would certainly fit.

Writer Scot McKnight, a supporter of the movement, says emergents are seen as "a latte-drinking, backpack-lugging, Birkenstock-wearing group of 21st-century, left-wing, hippie wannabes. Put directly, they are Democrats."

As is so often the case with religious movements in this country, the emerging church is both old and new: Old, in that Christianity in America has seemingly always been in a state of re-invention in response to the ever-changing culture; and new, in that we see in the emerging church a group of Jesus followers who reject the social conservatism modeled by Falwell and many other leading evangelicals this past quarter-century.

Is the emerging church compromising biblical truth for the sake of being hip? That debate won't be resolved here. Whatever the case, there is something hopeful about the appearance of a youthful, idealistic form of faith focused more on healing broken neighborhoods than accumulating members and political power.

For those hoping religion can more consistently serve as a force for kindness, unity and society's renewal — and not so much as an argument-starter — the verdict seems simple: Let the emerging church, and its larger ideals, continue to emerge.

Labels: Christianity, emergents, Gospel, Jesus, Tom Krattenmaker

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Monday, November 05, 2007

Youths increasingly shunning Christianity, poll finds

By Tom Jacobs, Correspondent
Saturday, November 3, 2007

Young Americans are increasingly turning away from Christianity and expressing negative views of the faith, according to a startling new survey by Ventura-based Barna Group.

Only 60 percent of 16- to 29-year-olds describe themselves as Christians, according to Barna Group President David Kinnaman. He believes that figure represents "a momentous shift," noting that 77 percent of Americans over age 60 consider themselves Christians.

What's more, young people — Christians and non-Christians alike — feel increasingly disillusioned with the church, according to the results of Kinnaman's three-year research project involving 305 churchgoers and 440 outsiders.

Among young non-Christians, nine out of the top 12 perceptions of Christianity were negative. Large majorities called the church judgmental (87 percent), hypocritical (85 percent) and too involved with politics (75 percent).

Seventy-six percent said Christianity is based on "good values and principles," but many expressed the view that the church has turned away from the teachings of Jesus. Only 16 percent said they have a "good impression" of Christianity.

Even more strikingly, half of young churchgoers agreed with those negative perceptions.

"One of the defense mechanisms Christians use is believing this (unfavorable attitude toward the church) is the result of a negative, or at least skeptical, media," Kinnaman said. "There is certainly some truth to that.

Kinnaman and his collaborator on the study, Atlanta-based Gabe Lyons, are both committed Christians, and their book is aimed largely at an audience of church leaders. It is likely to make many of its readers distinctly uncomfortable.

"One of the defining characteristics of youth development in America is going through a Christian church," Kinnaman said. "More than four out of five teenagers will spend at least six months in a Christian church. They tried it, but it was a bad experience. It left a flat taste."

"Judgmentalism is a sticky substance that puts distance between our hearts and other human beings," Kinnaman said. "It says that we are somehow better. It marginalizes the other person. That doesn't mean we don't recognize and affirm people's fundamental brokenness, but we also recognize and affirm their fundamental goodness."

Chris Hall, pastor of the recently founded Catalyst Ventura ministry, was not surprised by Kinnaman's findings. "Unfortunately, there is a loud minority within the Christian church that has said some really stupid things," he said. "We need to stop looking at ourselves as people who have arrived at the answers."

One key issue that is alienating young Americans from most Christian denominations is homosexuality. According to the survey, 91 percent of young non-Christians and 80 percent of young Christians describe the church as "anti-homosexual."

Numerous surveys have shown a growing majority of young Americans have a relaxed, tolerant attitude toward homosexuality. A 2001 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 60 percent of Americans ages 17 to 29 support same-sex marriage.

The issue is a tricky one for those who believe the Bible condemns homosexuality (an interpretation not universally shared among Christians, and currently the subject of heated debate among Episcopalians). In Hall's view, part of the answer is to stop the loud and vociferous condemnation of what he sees as simply one sexual transgression among many.

Overall, Kinnaman was impressed with the thoughtful and nuanced nature of the responses he received.

"Faith is much more complex than we like to admit sometimes," he said "Some self-described atheists or agnostics will meditate or do yoga as a spiritual exercise. Among Christians, you will also find people who meditate, as well as some who believe in reincarnation.

"So it's very much a smorgasbord of picking and choosing. It's very hard to put your finger on a person and say, Now I've got you figured out.' Labels create distance between us."

Labels: Barna Group, Christianity, church, faith, homosexuality, Kaiser Family Foundation, Tom Jacobs, youth

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Friday, October 19, 2007

Unprecedented Muslim call for peace with Christians

By Peter Graff
Thu Oct 11

LONDON (Reuters) - More than 130 Muslim scholars from around the globe called on Thursday for peace and understanding between Islam and Christianity, saying "the very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake."

In an unprecedented letter to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders, 138 Muslim scholars said finding common ground between the world's biggest faiths was not simply a matter for polite dialogue between religious leaders.

Relations between Muslims and Christians have been strained as al Qaeda has struck around the world and as the United States and other Western countries intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Such a joint letter is unprecedented in Islam, which has no central authority that speaks on behalf of all worshippers.

The list of signatories includes senior figures throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. They represent Sunni, Shi'ite and Sufi schools of Islam.

Among them were the grand muftis of Egypt, Palestine, Oman, Jordan, Syria, Bosnia and Russia and many imams and scholars. War-torn Iraq was represented by both Shi'ites and Sunnis.

Mustafa Cagrici, the mufti who prayed with Benedict in Istanbul's Blue Mosque last year, was also on the list, as was the popular Egyptian television preacher Amr Khaled.

"MAINSTREAM VOICES DROWNED OUT"

The letter was addressed to the Pope, leaders of Orthodox Christian churches, Anglican leader Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the heads of the world alliances of the Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist and Reformed churches.

A Vatican official in Rome said the Roman Catholic Church would not comment until it had time to read the letter.

Aref Ali Nayed, one of the signatories and a senior adviser to the Cambridge Interfaith Program at Cambridge University in Britain, said the signatories represented the "99.9 percent of Muslims" who follow mainstream schools and oppose extremism.

The overture to Christians could be followed by similar letters addressed to Jews or secularists, he added.

Pope Benedict sparked Muslim protests last year with a speech hinting Islam was violent and irrational. It prompted 38 Muslim scholars to write a letter challenging his view of Islam and accepting his call for serious Christian-Muslim dialogue.

Benedict repeatedly expressed regret for the reaction to the speech, but stopped short of a clear apology sought by Muslims.

The new letter argues in theological terms, giving quotes from the Koran and the Bible that show both Christianity and Islam considered love of God as their greatest commandment and love of neighbor as the second greatest.

"The basis for this peace and understanding already exists," it said. "It is part of the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the one God and love of the neighbor."

Labels: Bible, Christianity, God, Islam, Koran, Muslims, Peter Graff, Pope Benedict, Vatican

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History of Religion Video

How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!

Labels: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, religion, video, war

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Study shows Americans want theocracy, not democracy

Rebecca Mahfouz
Issue date: 10/16/07

Page one of 2 - click link to "external source" for whole article.

The First Amendment Center released the dismal results of its yearly "State of the First Amendment" survey last month, revealing that Americans' ignorance of their Constitution surpasses even their notorious ignorance of geography.

An astonishing 65 percent of those surveyed believe the founders intended America as a Christian nation, while 55 percent believe that the Constitution explicitly establishes America as a Christian nation. Fifty-eight percent think that teachers should be allowed to lead prayers in public school and a terrifying 50 percent believe the Bible should be taught as a factual text in public schools.

A small bright spot appeared among the disheartening results, as 97 percent said that the right to practice one's own religion was "essential." That tiny candle of hope was extinguished by the results of the next question, wherein just 56 percent agreed that the right to worship applies to all religious groups, meaning that a good number of the 97 percent who purport to believe in freedom of religion really mean freedom to practice their religion and no other.

As though any further proof were needed that we have failed miserably in the area of education, those surveyed seemed never to have been required to take a high school civics course. When they were asked to name the five freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution, just 3 percent were able to name the right to petition, 16 percent the freedoms of press and assembly, 19 percent freedom of religion and 64 percent freedom of speech.

One can cling to the belief that this survey is a fluke, that Americans can't possibly be so ill-informed of their essential liberties, especially given the increasing curtailment of those liberties. The results of the survey, however, have been fairly consistent over the past 10 years, exposing us for the hypocrites we are.

Labels: America, Christianity, First Amendment Center, Rebecca Mahfouz, religion, US Constitution

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Monday, October 15, 2007

So what does the Constitution say about religion?

(It may not be what you think.)

By Oliver "Buzz" Thomas

Ask most Americans what the Constitution says about God, and their answers may surprise you.

"One nation under God?"

Nope, that's the Pledge of Allegiance.

"Oh, yeah, right, right. How about, 'Endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights'?"

Sorry, but that's the Declaration of Independence.

"Hmmmm."

Mostly what you'll get is a lot of blank stares. Trust me. I've tried it in nearly 50 states. Fully 55% of the country, according to a recent survey by the First Amendment Center, believes that the U.S. Constitution establishes us as a "Christian nation." Worse still, while nearly all Americans say freedom of religion is important, only 56% think it should apply to all religious groups. The truth is that the Constitution says nothing about God. Not one word. And, you can bet that some of the local clergy back in the 1780s howled about it. Newspapers, pamphlets and sermons decried the drafters' failure to acknowledge God.

One, and only one, reference

Even more interesting is what the Constitution has to say about religion. Although many of the nation's loudest religionists continue to assert that America is a Christian nation in some legal or constitutional sense, the language of the original Constitution itself suggests otherwise. The only reference to religion is tucked away in Article VI and reads: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

So, why would the framers of our Constitution do such a thing, and moreover, why two years later would they adopt a constitutional amendment declaring that the new federal government could "make no law respecting an establishment of religion?" Was it because they were militant atheists? Hardly. James Madison, the primary architect of our Constitution, studied under the tutelage of Presbyterian-preacher-turned-Princeton-president John Witherspoon and even considered a career in the ministry before opting for politics.

More likely, the framers were concerned about the corrupting influence the institutions of church and state have on each other when either becomes too cozy. These guys knew their history. They had witnessed the blood shed by governments in the name of religion. Europe was nearly destroyed by it. They also knew their politics. The Baptists, Presbyterians and other Evangelicals were fed up with religion that was "established" by the state (as was the Anglican Church in many Southern colonies and the Congregational Church in New England) and were determined to achieve full-throttle religious freedom for all — believers and non-believers alike. It was prominent Virginia Baptist John Leland who declared, "The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever!" Pastor Leland went on to assert that "the fondness of magistrates to foster Christianity has done it more harm than all the persecutions ever did." Leland and his Baptist colleagues played a key role in helping persuade Madison to support a federal Bill of Rights guaranteeing liberty of conscience for all.

What 'separation' really means

America has institutionalized this great theological concept through the political mechanism of the First Amendment. The "no establishment" clause separates the institutions of church and state by prohibiting any government action that has the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion. Government is to remain neutral. No citizen should be advantaged or disadvantaged because of his religious faith.

The separation of church and state does not mean the separation of God and government or of religion and politics. The First Amendment limits only the power of government — not the power of the people or of the church. Religious organizations are free to speak out on the issues of the day. They can preach, pray, proselytize, promote and, yes, even endorse candidates if they are foolish enough to do so. (They will, however, have to forfeit their tax exemption if they use church funds, since we don't allow a tax deduction for monies given to partisan causes — just charitable ones.) Again, it is government — not religious organizations — that is restricted by our Constitution.

Oliver "Buzz" Thomas is a minister, lawyer and author of 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs the Job).

Labels: Christianity, God, Oliver "Buzz" Thomas, separation of church and state, US Constitution

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Friday, October 12, 2007

Christians Urged to Meet Atheists in the Public Square

By Lillian Kwon
Christian Post Reporter
Thu, Oct. 11 2007

Christians shouldn't always turn the other cheek and ignore the attacks of secular thought, says one prominent conservative writer. They need to step out and meet the atheist critique.

"We don't want the public square to be dominated by the atheists," said New York Times bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza.

D'Souza believes Christians have left the public square unoccupied, limiting their expression of religiosity to church on Sunday, their families, and the Christian subculture.

As a consequence, atheists have entered the public square – what Christians thought would have been "neutral space," as D'Souza put it. And they want to drive the Christians out, remove Christian symbolism from coins, the pledge and public buildings.

D'Souza is due to release What's So Great About Christianity next week. It's his first book, among many, dealing with Christianity in America. He originally set out to approach the topic in a modest and more secular way, he said, but found himself in the midst of a number of atheist books hitting stores and greatly widening the attack on religion and, more specifically, Christianity.

The atheistic arguments – that Christianity goes against reason and science and is based on blind faith – are resonating with people, D'Souza noticed, and hitting bestseller lists.

Part of the reason society is seeing an emboldened atheism is that a lot of these outspoken atheists were hoping religion would disappear as society became more modern and developed, according to D'Souza.

Living in a culture that is to a considerable degree secular, D'Souza would like to see in churches across the country apologetics come to center stage not to displace what the churches have been doing but to supplement it in a very important way, he said.

"[Christians] are going to meet arguments that cannot be settled simply by 'the Bible says this, the Bible says that' because the other person will promptly reply that they don't accept the authority of the Bible," D'Souza noted.

He suggests Christians become "bilingual" in which they are educated in both the biblical language and a secular language the world can recognize – a language anchored in history and reason and experience.

In his upcoming book release, due out Oct. 16, D'Souza dispels common myths about faith, many of which are argued by atheists.

Myth #1: Atheism is growing and more people are choosing it over church

Pews might be empty in some urban parts of America, but the world is witnessing a huge explosion of Christianity, says D'Souza who notes Christianity as the fastest-growing religion in the world and that the number of unbelievers is actually shrinking. In America, about half of the population goes to church and an overwhelming majority believes in God. But there are also "powerful currents of secularism" in this country that counter that, the author acknowledged.

Myth #2: Religion has caused history's wars, murders, and violence

The number of people killed in religious wars such as the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition is infinitesimal compared to those killed during modern atheist regimes, the author notes. "We have to keep a sense of proportion," he says.

Myth #3: There is no such thing as a human soul

Atheists use science to argue that there is no soul, as there is no physical evidence of one. "If the atheist universe were true, there would be no free will in it," says D'Souza. The world of science, of atoms and molecules, is one in which there is no free choice because the actions of the atoms and molecules determine the outcome, he argues. Atheists believe the only things that exist are the material things that can be seen under the microscope and smelled and touched to which there is empirical evidence, he adds.

"There are dimensions of reality that cannot be captured in purely material terms. When has science ever located a thought or a feeling or a choice?"

Myth #4: Where is God when bad things happen?

D'Souza turns this question around and asks where is atheism when bad things happen? At the tragic event of the Virginia Tech shooting in April, there were nonstop memorial services and everyone began to speak a very religious language of healing and spirituality, he noted. "Atheism has absolutely nothing to offer us at moments of life that matter the most – birth, marriage, death, suffering."

What's So Great About Christianity is a defense of Christianity, D'Souza explained, "but it's a defense that meets the critics of Christianity by taking them seriously."

Labels: atheism, Christianity, Lillian Kwon, public square

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Friday, September 21, 2007

The ascension of GodTube: What took this long?

Posted Sep 20th 2007 11:10AM
by Barry Summerlin

Web watcher comScore Inc. has reported that last month, the new site GodTube.com saw traffic climb 973% -- growth unprecedented in the web's history.

Owned and operated by Big Jump Media, Inc., GodTube is exactly what you might guess -- a Christian alternative to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s YouTube. In six weeks, it has accumulated more than 20,000 user-submitted clips and streamed more than 800,000 hours of video.

It's fascinating that here we are nearly two decades into the internet, and only now does a dominant faith-oriented web destination start to take shape.

But the opportunity has surely always been there. Since the heyday of Usenet, determined faithful have been debating and witnessing, huddling together on message boards or tugging back and forth on Wikipedia entries.

Just to give you an idea of how often web-going Americans reach to religion, consider these figures from Google. Shown here are the relative volumes of searches for "God," "Jesus," "church" and "Britney Spears," the latter our control for this experiment, chosen since she's the most veteran resident of Lycos' weekly list of 50 most searched people, places and things:

But for occasional spikes, Miss Britney typically places lower than the first three terms, giving some perspective on how in demand she really is (or isn't). Good on GodTube's backers -- who include Norm Miller, chairman of privately-held Interstate Batteries -- for answering that demand for faith with YouTube's viral recipe.

How long can GodTube maintain this growth? That's a question for its users. As is the case with YouTube and other startup smashes like eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and News Corp (NYSE: NWS)'s MySpace, GodTube is just a meeting place, tasking its unpaid community with the bother of generating content, not to mention policing its appropriateness for the site, which is likely to be an enduring issue of contention.

Labels: Barry Summerlin, Christianity, Godtube.com, religion, video

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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Theologian Küng: Christianity Gets on Many People's Nerves

For Catholic theologian Hans Küng, religion has again become a power factor. While Islam and Buddhism are getting more popular, Christianity isn't. The controversial theologian spoke to DW-WORLD.DE about the reasons.

Born in 1928, Catholic theologian and church critic Hans Küng made his mark as a promoter of dialogue between religions and as president of the Global Ethic Foundation. In 1979, the Vatican withdrew his license to teach after the Swiss native questioned the infallibility of the pope. In the fall of 2005, Pope Benedict XVI invited Küng to a private meeting.

DW-WORLD.DE: Professor Küng, people -- and not only in Germany -- are again enormously interested in religious issues. Can we speak of a return of religions?

Hans Küng: "Return of religions" -- that is an ambivalent term. Religion never disappeared. Just like music, religion is something that stays, even if it is suppressed for some time. It is true, that since the new awakening of Islam, since the creation of the Islamic republic of Iran in 1979, Europeans have realized that they don't rule the world by themselves. For a long time, secular Europe had not realized that it was an exception, and that elsewhere, religions is a power.

"No peace among the nations, without peace between the religions! No peace between the religions without dialog between the religions!" Those are two central sentences of your World Ethic principle. In a time of globalization, there are many undreamed-of possibilities for communication on the Internet. The access to knowledge is easier than ever before. Can this development improve the dialog of religions?

In principle, I would say yes, even though this brings many problems. It's a positive thing that today we can know a lot about other religions. A different question, of course, is whether we do want to be in the know. There are people who don't -- they already know everything, without studying the Islam.

Who doesn't want to know?

For one, the fundamental Christians who take everything the Bible says literally and say they don't need any other religions. Then there are the very secular people, dogmatists of laicism. They get worked up simply when the word religion is mentioned, and they think that we should not talk about it in schools. They have issues with the fact that religion, again, is a powerful factor in world history.

According to a survey, not Christianity but Buddhism is the most likeable religion for Germans. How do you explain that?

Buddhism, in the West, is perceived as being free from dogmas, as a religion without many rules. It is a religion that's turned to the inside and that emphasizes meditation. It is a religion, which has no anthropomorphic, concrete picture of the last reality.

The other is that Christianity -- with its concentration of power -- gets on many people's nerves. When we have a pope, who claims that -- as theological Lord of the world -- only those who are with him are true Christians and that only his Roman-Catholic Church is the true church, it gets on many people's nerves. Even though they don't protest publicly, they will turn away and say they don't want to have anything to do with that.

Labels: Buddhism, Christianity, Germany, Global Ethic Foundation, Hans Küng, Islam, religion

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Madeleine L’Engle, Writer of Children’s Classics, Is Dead at 88

By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: September 8, 2007

Madeleine L’Engle, an author whose childhood fables, religious meditations and fanciful science fiction transcended both genre and generation, most memorably in her children’s classic “A Wrinkle in Time,” died on Thursday in Litchfield, Conn. She was 88.,

“A Wrinkle in Time” was rejected by 26 publishers before editors at Farrar, Straus & Giroux read it and enthusiastically accepted it. It proved to be her masterpiece, winning the John Newbery Medal as the best children’s book of 1963 and selling, so far, eight million copies. It is now in its 69th printing.

In the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Marygail G. Parker notes “a peculiar splendor” in Ms. L’Engle’s oeuvre, and some of that splendor is owed to sheer literary range. Her works included poetry, plays, autobiography and books on prayer, and almost all were deeply, quixotically personal.

But it was in her vivid children’s characters that readers most clearly glimpsed her passionate search for answers to the questions that mattered most. She sometimes spoke of her writing as if she were taking dictation from her subconscious.

“Of course I’m Meg,” Ms. L’Engle said about the beloved protagonist of “A Wrinkle in Time.”

The St. James Guide to Children’s Writers called Ms. L’Engle “one of the truly important writers of juvenile fiction in recent decades.” Such accolades did not come from pulling punches. “Wrinkle” has been one of the most banned books in the United States, accused by religious conservatives of offering an inaccurate portrayal of God and nurturing in the young an unholy belief in myth and fantasy.

Ms. L’Engle, who often wrote about her Christian faith, was taken aback by the attacks. “It seems people are willing to damn the book without reading it,” Ms. L’Engle said in an interview with The New York Times in 2001. “Nonsense about witchcraft and fantasy. First I felt horror, then anger, and finally I said, ‘Ah, the hell with it.’ It’s great publicity, really.”

The book begins, “It was a dark and stormy night,” repeating the line of a 19th-century novelist, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. “Wrinkle” then takes off. Meg Murry, with help from her psychic baby brother, uses time travel and extrasensory perception to rescue her father, a gifted scientist, from a planet controlled by the Dark Thing. She does so through the power of love.

The book uses concepts that Ms. L’Engle said she had plucked from Einstein’s theory of relativity and Planck’s quantum theory, almost flaunting her frequent assertion that children’s literature is literature too difficult for adults to understand.

“Wrinkle” is part of Ms. L’Engle’s Time series of children’s books, which includes “A Wind in the Door,” “A Swiftly Tilting Planet,” “Many Waters” and “An Acceptable Time.” The series combines elements of science fiction with insights into love and moral purpose.

Ms. L’Engle’s other famous series of books concerned another family. The first installment, “Meet the Austins,” which appeared in 1960, depicted an affectionate family whose members displayed enough warts to make them interesting. (Perhaps not enough for The Times Literary Supplement in London, though; it called the Austins “too good to be real.”)

By the fourth of the five Austin books, “A Ring of Endless Light,” any hint of Pollyanna was gone. It told of a 16-year-old girl’s first experience with death. Telepathic communication with dolphins eventually helps the girl, Vicky, acquire a new understanding of things.

“The cosmic battle between light and darkness, good and evil, love and indifference, personified in the mythic fantasies of the ‘Wrinkle in Time’ series, here is waged compellingly in its rightful place: within ourselves,” Carol Van Strum wrote in The Washington Post in 1980.

“Why does anybody tell a story?” she once asked, even though she knew the answer.

“It does indeed have something to do with faith,” she said, “faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

Labels: author, children, Christianity, faith, Madeleine L'Engle, religion, science

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Sunday, September 09, 2007

High-tech focus on higher power

September 8, 2007
Associated Press

Godtube.com is just what it sounds like: Youtube, but only for Christian content

ANDERSON, Ind. -- On any Sunday morning, members of Faith Church in Anderson expect to sing several hymns and listen as Walt Weaver preaches. They also expect to watch some TV without leaving their pews.

Weaver has been sprinkling his services with multiple video clips for more than a year.

More churches are turning to new technology in the hope that it will engage their congregations and stop the national decline in church attendance.

Godtube.com, a new Christian video-sharing site, makes it possible for people to bypass the bricks and mortar and experience their faith in a completely digital format.

The site hosts more than 20,000 clips. They range from amateur home videos to professionally produced television segments, and they include sermons, music videos, comedy bits and infomercials.

Like Youtube.com, Godtube allows anyone to share a video. But videos on Godtube must pertain to Christianity.

Many religious sites have copied nonreligious models. My Church.org is similar to the social networking site MySpace.

More than any other religious Web site, Godtube seems to be billing itself as an alternative to the physical church. A release from the company cited statistics on declining church attendance and a Pew Internet Study that found 82 million Americans use the Internet for a faith-based reason, which is more than the number of Americans who use it for banking or dating.

Weaver said his congregation bucks that national trend and hasn't seen its membership decline. And although he likes Godtube for the videos it provides, he said the site also makes him nervous for the impact it could have on future attendance.

"We like to think of ourselves as the Switzerland of Christianity," said Christopher Wyatt, Godtube's founder and CEO.

He officially launched the site on Aug. 8, but test versions have existed online since January. Within 60 days of going live, the site became the most popular Christian site on the Internet, Wyatt said.

Its growth has continued at a breakneck pace. In July, Godtube users watched about 300,000 hours of video. This month, Wyatt said, he expects them to watch close to 2 million hours.

A former TV producer with CBS, Wyatt now attends seminary school in Dallas. The idea for the site came to him after he learned of statistics describing future downward trends in church attendance.

He calls the trend of Christians going online and using new technology, such as file-sharing and streaming video, to experience their religion the "Jesus 2.0 movement."
But the movement is somewhat restricted due to Godtube's ban on anything it deems objectionable.

Labels: Christianity, Christopher Wyatt, church, Godtube.com, religion, social networking, video

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Monday, August 20, 2007

Amanpour's `God's Warriors' airs on CNN

By David Bauder, AP Television Writer
Mon Aug 20, 8:47 AM ET

NEW YORK - Christiane Amanpour's work on the documentary series "God's Warriors" took her directly to intersections of extreme religious and secular thinking.

She watched, fascinated, as demonstrators in San Francisco accused teenagers in the fundamentalist Christian group BattleCry of intolerance in a clash of two cultures that will probably never understand each other.

Understanding is what Amanpour is trying to promote in "God's Warriors," which takes up six prime-time hours on CNN this week. The series on religious fundamentalism among Christians, Muslims and Jews airs in three parts, 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday through Thursday.

"I'm not interested in drumming up false fears, or falsely allaying fears," CNN's chief international correspondent told The Associated Press by phone from France, where she added last-minute touches to the series. "I just want people to know what's going on."

Amanpour traveled extensively over eight months to work on the series. The trips to Amanpour's native Iran are most fascinating. She explored the ancient roots of the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, and talked with one of the country's most accomplished female politicians about how Muslim women are treated.

Another segment tried to explain why so many devout Muslims are willing to give their lives to a cause.

"To the West, martyrdom has a really bad connotation because of suicide bombers who call themselves martyrs," she said. "Really, martyrdom is actually something that historically was quite noble, because it was about standing up and rejecting tyranny, rejecting injustice and rejecting oppression and, if necessary, dying for that."

Finishing the project didn't leave her with a sense of fear over the implications of stronger fundamentalist movements.

"I did come away with a sense that we — or those people who don't want to see religion in politics and culture — if we don't look into it and see what is going on, we're in danger of missing it and not be able to react to it properly," she said.

Amanpour was one of the last reporters to talk to the Rev. Jerry Falwell. She interviewed him a week before he died about the legacy of the Moral Majority, the organization that thrust evangelical Christians onto the political stage.

The segment on Christians explores BattleCry in some depth, digging at the roots of an organization that fights against some of the cruder elements of popular culture and urges teenagers to be chaste. In noting how girls at some BattleCry events are encouraged to wear long dresses, Amanpour asks the group's leader how it is different from the Taliban.

In a nonjudgmental way, she visits a family that is home-schooling its children and explores the influence of Evangelicals on the courts.

"There is so much nuance, so much information, so much to talk about, by no means were we able to talk about it all," she said, "and by no means do I claim this is the definitive project. It is one of the fullest, one of the most ambitious and one of the most complete."

Amanpour, 49, is no longer CNN's most visible reporter, as she was when skipping from one war zone to another. She received a lot of attention for her documentary "In the Footsteps of bin Laden" last year, and said she's enjoying the opportunity to put day-to-day news in greater perspective.

She's frequently criticized American television networks, including her own, for not spending enough time on international news.

Amanpour was recently named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. She's leaving her home base of London to move to New York with her husband, former U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin.

"This is really a personal move for my husband,who has lived eight years out of his own country and wants to come back," she said.

Labels: "God's Warriors", BattleCry, Christiane Amanpour, Christianity, David Bauder, fundamentalism, Jewish, Muslims, politics, religion

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Sunday, August 19, 2007

Why has pentecostalism grown so big, so fast?

by Joseph Serwadda

With 500 million followers, Pentecostalism has grown to be the second largest Christian denomination, after Roman Catholicism. With a distinctive worship style, a literal biblical interpretation and energetic preaching, this sect of the Christian faith has attracted large numbers searching for meaningful spiritual purpose.

The term “Pentecostal” alludes to the day when first-century Christians were given the Holy Spirit, marking the beginning of the Church. Multi-million dollar church complexes are sprouting up around the world. Why and how has this faith grown so big, so fast?

From the day of Pentecost, history has recorded empirical evidence that for over 1,500 years, the church has eluded obliteration and braved persecution including Nero and other Roman emperors’ madness that competed for worship as gods.

In the late 1870s, Charles Parham preached revival in the face of a Protestant world that had lost its zeal. Parham encouraged disciples to seek God through prayer, fasting and studying the Bible, awaiting His blessings of the Spirit. Many who accepted the message were thrown out of the traditional churches, which forced the movement to start its own churches.

Pentecostalism’s influence around the world is phenomenal. It is estimated (Encyclopaedia Britannica) that over 100 million Americans are Pentecostals. According to the World Christian Database, 147 million Africans are either Pentecostals or Charismatics (Reuters). The Charismatics are believers in Protestant and Catholic churches (Bazuukufu) who believe that the Pentecostal worship style should be incorporated into their churches.

A 2006 survey conducted by the PEW Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that 70 percent of Protestants in Kenya are Pentecostal or Charismatic. The same survey also found that 60 percent of Nigeria is Pentecostal and one-third of South Africans are.
The Red Pepper recently reported that Uganda has seven million Pentecostals leaving 23 million to be shared by the rest. This faith is also making gains in predominantly Protestant Europe and multi-religious Asia.

The survey revealed that 75 percent of Protestants in Latin America are Pentecostals. The churches have adopted music-driven, concert-style services to reinvigorate their worship, and confront flagging enthusiasm among its membership. This is not an isolated case. The Catholic priest, Fr. Musaala, has introduced a new sound in the papal domain raising eyebrows for his music and dance style.

Pentecostalism’s popularity is attributed to its leaders, missionaries who travel the world conducting mass healing campaigns. From the late fifties, T.L. Osborn was a household name. Reinhard Bonnkhe became famous for tent crusades. When T.D. Jakes visited Nairobi, the service attracted 250,000. In Uganda, Benny Hinn’s recent visit saw 40,000 flocking the Mandela Stadium crusade. Several local events, such as the Passover Festival at every close of year, pull crowds in their thousands.

Pentecostalism is the ultimate “people’s faith” providing something for everyone, all encouraged to “come as they are.” Pentecostal messages speak to the needs of the disenfranchised and the poor. Many come to these services seeking hope, and view this denomination as a return to the roots of early and original Christianity.

Allan Anderson, Professor of Global Pentecostal Studies at England’s Birmingham University, put it this way: “The success of Pentecostalism is the focus on people’s problems. In countries where people are living on the breadline, Pentecostalism gives hope” (Reuters). Healing occupied two-thirds of Jesus earthly ministry. With healings, speaking in tongues, energetic services, and a focus on prophecy, many see the fruits of Pentecostal teaching and rightly conclude, “God must be here.”

Luis Lugo, Director of the Pew Forum, said he initially questioned some of the survey results, but came to realise the numbers were valid. “I don’t think it's too far-fetched to imagine that Christianity is close to "being pentecostalised. These folks are as engaged as they come, not only talking the talk, but walking the walk," Lugo said.

Labels: Africans, Americans, Christianity, Holy Spirit, Joseph Serwadda, Pentecostalism, Pew Forum

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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Exclusive global CNN documentary 'God's Warriors' examines religion, power and politics

Protestors who kill for their religious beliefs. "Patriot Pastors" who seek to change American culture through the ballot box. Zealots who target prime ministers and presidents with assassination for "subverting God's will." Parents who reject science education in conflict with their religious principles. Suicide martyrs who are revered as iconic heroes. These are "God's Warriors" of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. They see contemporary society as corrupt and view themselves as the front line of defense in a battle for cultural supremacy and political power. They are changing the world.

CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour journeyed to eight countries over eight months to report for God's Warriors, an exclusive global CNN documentary about the global phenomenon of religious fervor upon politics, culture and public life . During six hours broadcast over three consecutive nights, CNN will reveal how "God's Warriors" want to bring religion back from the periphery to the center of public life – and how far they are willing to go to transform modern society.

God's Warriors includes thought-provoking interviews with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter; the late Rev. Jerry Falwell in his last television interview; Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim women's rights advocate; Yehuda Etzion, a founder of the Israeli settlement movement; and Israeli President Shimon Peres.

A companion website to God's Warriors offers users show excerpts from the documentary, an audio podcast and an exclusive video diary that goes behind-the-scenes. This online content will be available at http://edition.cnn.com/godswarriorsopk . The podcast will also be available for download from iTunes.

Labels: "God's Warriors", Christiane Amanpour, Christianity, culture, Islam, Judaism, politics, religion

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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

New book by controversial theologian-priest gets much right, despite flaws

By Father Francis V. Tiso and Neil Sloan
7/27/2007
Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com)

In Islam: Past, Present, and Future, Father Hans Kung completes his trilogy on three world religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A Swiss theologian and Catholic priest, Father Kung is known for his controversial approach to Christian theology and for his commitment to interreligious dialogue as the basis for world peace. ("No peace among the nations without peace among the religions; no peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions.")

Because of his third principle ("No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the foundations of the religions"), Father Kung takes a vigorously historical approach to Islam based on models or paradigms that summarize the world of beliefs, values, techniques and practices that are shared by believers.

In 662 pages of text, the author is able to cover far more ground than any other single recent publication in English on Islam. Other Catholic authors such as John Esposito, John Renard and Elias Mallon have written relatively slender introductions to Islam for the general reader. Father Kung takes up some of the topics that these authors do not address and he is self-confident enough to raise the difficult issues that often shape the kinds of questions that Americans and Europeans wish to ask about Islam.

He does this with extreme candor, with all rancor removed -- not an easy achievement. Father Kung clearly wishes to prepare the modern (or postmodern?) Christian for fruitful dialogue with Islam. This requires a survey of historical facts, reform movements, theological perspectives and political tendencies.

Father Kung never fails to assert his own interpretations of Christian theology and history in an effort to reorient the reader to these views, some of which he believes will make fruitful dialogue with Islam possible. In fact, it is clear that Islam is a source for some of the author's own convictions about Christianity, some of which Catholic readers will find troublesome.

Father Kung seems to believe that the authentic message of Jesus was best preserved by what he calls Jewish Christianity. He then proceeds to claim that, in some way, Islam arose in Arabia among the last remnants of Jewish Christianity.

This is the theological backbone of this book, and it leads him to deny key doctrines of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christianity. The Trinity, for example, goes by the board several times, most notably on page 509, and in the following pages there is the demolition of Chalcedonian Christology, all on the basis of Father Kung's distaste for Hellenistic thought.

The lack of evidence for the beliefs and even the existence of Jewish Christianity before the late second century makes it difficult to prove continuity with the mission of Jesus. Moreover, the claim that some form of Jewish Christianity is proto-Islamic is based more on conjecture than on accessible historical data.

Ultimately, the author's attempt to use Islam as evidence for an early Christianity opposed to Orthodox and Catholic belief is unpersuasive.

However, both Christians and Muslims have much to learn from his analysis of Islamic history. He has the facts right about Arabic Christianity before Islam, about possible sources of the contents of the Quran, about Mohammed as a prophet and leader, about Muslim religiosity, about Islamic law and its ongoing evolution, about the conflict between reason and revelation, about mysticism and mass movements, about the encounter with modernity and colonialism, and prospects for the future.

Without concealing the aggressive, deeply troubling political mores of Islamic empires down through the ages, Father Kung manages to give a balanced assessment of their contributions to the sciences, philosophy, architecture and spirituality. He discusses the issue of jihad with candor and in this, as in most other matters Islamic, he resists the temptation to find ideal types that manage to "explain" everything, or worse, to "predict" everything.

There is a savvy open-endedness to his assessments of modernity and postmodernity in Islam and in the world in dialogue with Muslims of our times. So, in spite of some extremely problematic interpretations of Christianity, this may be the best single volume introduction to Islam currently available in English.

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Father Tiso is associate director and Sloan is program assistant in the U.S. Catholic bishops' Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

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Islam: Past, Present, and Future, by Hans Kung. Translated by John Bowden. Oneworld Publications (Oxford, England, 2007). 767 pp. $39.95.

Labels: Christianity, Francis V. Tiso, Hans Kung, Islam, Jesus, Jewish Christianity, Muslims

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Saturday, July 28, 2007

A Creator God

7/26/2007
The Catholic Register
(www.catholicregister.org)

Occasionally, the image of Canadians — as portrayed in popular media — runs headlong into the wall of Canadian reality. It happened in early July when a new opinion poll revealed that a majority of Canadians believe that God had a hand in making human beings who they are.

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The Canadian Press Decima Research poll, released July 3, showed that only 29 percent of those surveyed believed that God had no part in the creation or development of human beings. This statistic runs against the grain of common perception. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking Canadians were a race of atheists or agnostics if all they knew of the country came from the daily news.

Despite this ingrained perception, the polls consistently say otherwise. For instance, who knew 26 percent of Canadians are essentially creationists when it comes to evolution? Yet there are almost as many creationists as there are hardcore religious skeptics. Come on over Stockwell Day. It appears the former leader of the Alliance party, and current public-safety minister, has lots of company.

In fact, a plurality of Canadians – 34 percent – actually agree with the statement that “human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process.” Few Catholic theologians, including Pope Benedict XVI, would have any problem with this position from a doctrinal point of view. The Catholic Church has understood for some time that nothing in church teaching stood in the way of accepting evolution as the best available scientific theory for describing the biological roots of humanity, as long as this belief did not preclude the foundational role of God in the process.

There were also some interesting regional revelations in the survey. Belief in creationism was at its lowest in Quebec at 21 percent (not surprisingly), but second was Alberta (22 percent) and British Columbia (22 percent), both of which have reputations as diehard conservative neighborhoods, overrun with fundamentalist Christians. Also in once overwhelmingly Catholic Quebec, the greatest percentage of those surveyed (40 percent) felt God had no role in creating humans.

Another challenge to conventional wisdom can be found in the political preferences of those surveyed. More Conservatives (31 percent) than Liberals (29 percent) were likely to say God had no part in human development. What does this say about the influence of the religious right, except that it has been exaggerated? Or about the “godless” Liberals?

While it is always prudent to be careful how much to read into opinion polls, it could be reasonably concluded from this survey that Canadians are yet to jettison a belief in a creator as the source of life. While institutional religion may suffer from declining attendance and other related ills, Canadians, by and large, still remain believers. Whether those beliefs are more than skin deep is a question for another poll.

Labels: Canada, Christianity, creation, God

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Russia: Reading, Writing...And Religion?

In four regions, instruction in Orthodox Christianity will be mandatory

July 27, 2007

Russia is deep in the summer doldrums. But it's only a month until children return to school, and in some cases, to a new subject: "The Foundations of Orthodox Culture."

"I want to know about God," says Lyuda, a 6-year-old girl living in Kirov Oblast. "It's interesting for me."

"If someone has an interest, it should be allowed as an elective course," says 17-year-old Lera, another Kirov resident. "Otherwise, I don't think it's an important subject. It's more unnecessary work."

In Belgorod, Kaluga, Bryansk, and Smolensk oblasts, high-school instruction in Russian Orthodoxy has become mandatory. In more than 10 other regions, it will be offered as an optional course.

Religious Resurrection

It's a development that highlights the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has come out from under 70 years of Soviet-era repression and ignominy to reclaim its former glory as the country's dominant religion

It also addresses the desire of many Russians to restore a lost sense of national identity and pride. Some -- but not all -- of Kirov's adult residents say the basics of Orthodox culture is a welcome addition to school curricula.

Academic Outcry

In other sectors of Russian society, however, the classes have set off distress signals.

This week, senior members of the Russian Academy of Sciences signed an open letter to President Vladimir Putin expressing concern that the separation between church and state was dissolving under the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The letter, which was published in a handful of national newspapers, lamented the "growing role of clerics in Russian society" and "the church's penetration into all facets of social life."

The signatories included two Nobel laureates, physicists Vitaly Ginzburg and Zhores Alferov.

Ginzburg told RFE/RL that offering classes on Orthodox culture skews the learning process for young students, and insults followers of Russia's other religions, including as many as 20 million Muslims.

"When someone is 15 or 16, then she or he can be taught the history of religion. But why do they need it in elementary school?" Ginzburg asks.

"Russia is a multiethnic, multifaith country, is it not? But they're not taking steps to introduce the basics of Muslim morality; they care only about Orthodoxy. Ten to 20 percent of the pupils in schools may be Tatar. Should they study Orthodox culture too?"

Information, Not Indoctrination?

A number of schools have responded to such concerns by opting to offer an alternative course that examines "world religions," and not only Orthodoxy.

Defendants of the Orthodoxy classes also hasten to add that it is the religion's history and culture that is being offered to students -- not doctrine.

And many schools -- like those in Tver Oblast, which will initiate Orthodox culture classes this autumn -- are making the optional coursework be either the first or the last class of the day, in order to minimize inconvenience for those parents who opt to keep their children out of the course.

"Some people don't really have a proper understanding of what this subject will be about," says Lyudmila Gorbacheva, the deputy director of the oblast's Institute of Advanced Teacher Training, which has helped teachers prepare to instruct the Foundations of Orthodox Culture class and recommended study materials and textbooks.

Church And State...

But critics worry that even architecture and literature will open the door to creeping clericalization in Russia's schools.

They point to recent assertions by Patriarch Aleksy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who said it was unacceptable to teach schoolchildren Darwin's theory of evolution.

This week's letter from the academicians also tacitly frowned on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s open religious devotion and strong support for the church as further blurring the division between church and state.

They also criticized the growing role of the church in the armed forces, and the growing trend in Orthodox christening of new ships, submarines, and buildings.

"The church wants to have state functions and, generally, to influence the development of society. Priests are in the armed forces now. When a new ship is launched, there's a priest christening it. When there's a new building, there's a priest christening it too.

...Theology And Science

Ginzburg and his fellow signatories also hotly dismissed a proposal that theology be recognized as a science. "One could wonder why on earth theology -- a set of religious dogmas -- should be regarded as a science," the letter read.

It's an argument that Deacon Andrei Kurayev, a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy and a well-known Orthodox theologian, rejects.

"All the universities of Western Europe have theological faculties," Kurayev says. "Theology isn't the study of dreams and apparitions. It's the study of texts. The methodology of theological research is the same as the methodology for any other kind of humanitarian study.

Members of a radical Orthodox movement quickly appealed to the Moscow Prosecutor's Office to open a criminal case against Ginzburg for making remarks that offend Orthodox sensibilities.

Other Orthodox believers, however, find some common cause with the Ginzburg group. "Of course, clericalization is very bad," says Yakov Krotov, an Orthodox priest and a commentator on religion for RFE/RL. "But I believe there is a broader context in which I strongly oppose this letter. The problem is not whether a nuclear submarine should be christened or not... The problem is that there shouldn't be a nuclear submarine at all."

"Our country is wildly militarized," Krotov adds. "The Academy of Sciences, our physics and chemists, 90 percent of all scientists, work for war, and they are only competing for state money so that [scientists], not the church, get that money. That is the root of the problem."

Young Consumers

Beneath the heated rhetoric of the country's academic and religious elite, there is a purely practical question: How will children as young as 6 years old take to lessons about Russian Orthodox history and culture?

Not well, says Krotov, who says the church should openly acknowledge the doctrinal nature of the class and call it "God's Law," the name given to pre-1917 Russian Orthodox religious school courses.

While Krotov sees the advantage of including religion as part of world culture and civilization classes, he says there's a limit to how much school children, especially young ones, can understand or appreciate.

"In elementary school, this should be meted out in minute doses," Krotov says. "Otherwise it will provoke a nauseated reaction and have the opposite effect."

Vladimir, a history graduate student living in Kirov, takes an even more extreme view.

"Children will skip this class, or they'll barely pass it, without understanding much of anything," he says. "If there's another mandatory course, especially such an ideological one, I think it will create a generation of revolutionaries like Stalin, who also studied 'God's Law.'"

(RFE/RL Russian Service correspondents Mikhail Salenkov and Lyubov Chizhov in Moscow, Yevgeny Novikov in Tver, and Yekaterina Luzhnikova in Kirov Oblast contributed to this report.)

Labels: Christianity, church, education, Lyubov Chizhov, Mikhail Salenkov, orthodoxy, religion, Russia, theology, Yekaterina Luzhnikova, Yevgeny Novikov

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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Our civil religion defines us

By Lloyd Omdahl,
Published Saturday, July 14, 2007

The issue of separation of church and state reared its divisive head in Fargo when the City Commission voted to move a monument proclaiming the Ten Commandments off of city property. Defenders immediately circulated petitions to initiate an ordinance that would prohibit removal of any monument that had been on city property over 40 years.

The 40-year provision will not save the monument. Court rulings have been fairly clear on the issue, requiring the inclusion of artifacts and sacred objects of other religions to demonstrate the neutrality of government toward all religions. In other words, the Ten Commandments must be secularized.

Centuries of experience with oppression arising out of an unholy integration of government and religion provide plenty of arguments for defending separation of church and state. Nevertheless, we have seen a growing affinity for integrating religion and government.

It isn’t that the merging of religion and government is something new in America. Over the past four centuries, Christian denominations have left their mark on the public square in a wide variety of ways. As a consequence, the idea of a Christian nation (perhaps an oxymoron) has grown into a civil religion.

In his recent book, Who Are We?, Prof. Samuel Huntington, a highly respected Harvard political science professor, discusses civil religion and explains that “civil religion enables Americans to bring together their secular politics and their religious society, to marry God and country, so as to give religious sanction to their patriotism…”

He saw four manifestations of civil religion in the United States.

1 The belief that the American system of governments rests on a religious base. This view is common coin among religious leaders looking for a rationale to justify a greater integration of church and state.

2 The belief that Americans are God’s chosen people. Emanating from the Old Testament, this myth has been used to justify several wars and genocide in the name of “Manifest Destiny.” (Example: Within 15 years of establishing their Godly “city on the hill” at Plymouth, the Christian colonists slaughtered the neighboring Pequot tribe for its land and praised God for delivering the Indians into their hands.)

3 Religious allusions and symbols in rituals and ceremonies are commonplace. On the political scene today, we see numerous references to God, faith and prayer, invoked to meet political and religious expectations.

4 Public ceremonies take on a religious flavor. The best examples of this characteristic are the presidential inaugurations featuring prominent religious figures invited to bless these secular events.

According to Huntington, America’s civil religion is a nondenominational, national religion that is not expressly a Christian religion, even though it is Christian in its origin. Then he offers his most compelling observation. Two words do not appear in civil religion statements and ceremonies, he says. Those two words are “Jesus Christ.”

“While the American Creed is Protestantism without God, the American civil religion is Christianity without Christ,” he concludes.

The addition of religious symbols and rituals to the public square, such as monuments of the Ten Commandments, gives strength and legitimacy to a national civil religion that becomes a substitute for personal faith. In the final analysis, all of the meaningless religious rhetoric and trappings in the public square are alien to the teachings of the New Testament.

Omdahl is former N.D. lieutenant governor and retired University of North Dakota political science teacher.

Labels: Christianity, civil religion, Jesus, Lloyd Omdahl, Samuel Huntington, separation of church and state, Unites States

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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Founders and religion: Is this what they had in mind?

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

The strength of any nation is found in its heritage. America is fast becoming a nation without a heritage.

According to Donald Lutz in "The Origins of American Constitutionalism," during the two decades of our nation's founding, there was one book quoted by our founders more than any other. This book states a very important principle: "Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set."

The book is the Bible, and the quote is Proverbs 22:28.

America has been working overtime this last half century to expunge from the public sphere as many of the ancient landmarks it can get its hands on, i.e., our country's Christian heritage.

See if you can answer the following questions.

1. Shortly after signing the Declaration of Independence, which committee member proposed that the official seal of our brand-new nation should be a depiction of the children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night?

2. Which president, acting as chairman of the school board, authored the first plan of education adopted by the city of Washington, D.C., which used the Bible and Isaac Watts' "Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs" as the primary books for teaching reading?

3. Which of our Founding Fathers, who also became a president, said, "Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus"?

Answers: If you answered Thomas Jefferson to any of the above questions, you are correct in every instance. I asked questions about Jefferson because he is often considered the least religious of all our Founding Fathers.

The debate as to whether Jefferson was a Christian, deist, or atheist misses the point that Jefferson, in his own writings and official acts as president, supported the teachings of the Bible.

Why are these facts about Jefferson and similar facts about other Founding Fathers no longer taught in public schools? Is it because we are kowtowing to Big Brother? In the public school district where I teach second grade, my students often tattle on one another by saying, "So-and-so said the s' word"— the "s" word being "stupid."

Sadly, as a teacher, I feel I should always be looking over my shoulder for tattlers before I say the "g" word in class. The "g" word is God.

It wasn't always this way in America. It wasn't until 1962 that our Supreme Court decided voluntary student participation in reciting a school-board-sponsored prayer was "unconstitutional." A little arithmetic tells us that for nearly the first 200 years of our nation's history, neither most people nor the Supreme Court saw conflict between our nation's Christian heritage and our Constitution.

Remember, the same man who penned the phrase "wall of separation between Church and State" in a personal letter to reassure a group of Baptists that its religious liberties would not be trampled upon by the Congress, is the same man who, while president, installed the Bible and a book of Psalms and hymns to teach reading in a public school system.

Could it be that Jefferson never intended his phrase to be used as a substitute for the First Amendment, which does not contain the words "wall," "church," "separation" or "state"? In speaking of the Supreme Court, Jefferson wrote to William Jarvis in 1820, "The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots."

Our country's roots are seeped in the Christian religion. To erase this fact from our nation's heritage is to erase the very character of our nation itself. And a nation without a heritage, without a genuine history, is a faceless nation, a weak nation, a nation that places itself in grave danger of losing the very freedoms and liberties our Founding Fathers fought for.

It is further a nation that can only lose in confrontations with other nations and peoples who cling tenaciously to their own heritage, whatever it may be.

— Christina Wilson lives in Westlake Village.

Labels: Americans, Christianity, Christina Wilson, God, heritage, public school, Thomas Jefferson

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Friday, June 29, 2007

At CUNY, Religious Studies, or Religion?

The City University of New York Board of Trustees approved the creation of a religious studies major at Medgar Evers College on Monday, over the objections of CUNY faculty leaders who said the new program would blur the separation of church and state by focusing not on the study of religion but on the practice of certain religions. Medgar Evers, a predominantly black college in Brooklyn, is now set to enroll its first class of students in the interdisciplinary program, which culminates in a B.A. in religious studies, this fall. The program aims to help students “explore how religion functions in and shapes the modern world and how it empowers, enlightens, limits, complicates, inspires and conflicts modern society,” the program proposal says. “Degree candidates will study and analyze the most important standard texts and investigate contemporary and historical religious practices from a global perspective, with emphasis on religions of the African Diaspora.”

The religious studies program has considerable support on the Medgar Evers campus and was approved by the college’s faculty in May 2006. Charlotte Phoenix, the college’s interim provost, said that the institution’s history of activism means that “if in fact there was faculty opposition [to the program] on this campus, everyone would have heard about it.”

At Monday’s meeting, Frederick P. Schaffer, senior vice chancellor for legal affairs and general counsel at the CUNY system, said he “saw nothing” to back up the concerns of some members of the University Faculty Senate who feared that the program might violate the Constitutional separation of church and state. The concerns, he asserted, were based not on the proposal but on the religious backgrounds of the program’s faculty and of the college’s president. Edison O. Jackson, the president of Medgar Evers, is an ordained minister who serves on the ministerial staff of an African Methodist Episcopal church in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Faculty leaders, however, cited a range of perceived problems with the degree program as conceived by Medgar Evers. At a June 4 meeting of the trustees’ Committee on Academic Policy, Programs and Research, Lenore Beaky, vice chair of the systemwide University Faculty Senate and the senate’s representative on the board committee, read a statement from the senate’s executive committee that called the Medgar Evers proposal “seriously deficient in several important respects.”

One concern, Beaky said, was that “the proposal appears to promote the practice of religion to teach religion rather than to teach about religion.” The program, she added, “would be unconstitutional [because] as a public university we cannot violate the separation of church and state by favoring either religion or any particular variety of religion.”

The program, Beaky said, was “geared to … community experiences more suited to the practice of African-American protestant religions,” rather than the academic study of religion. She pointed to the religious affiliations of the college faculty who would teach in the program, as well the Christian affiliations of all of the scholars and others from whom Medgar Evers sought endorsements in its proposal.

Of the nine faculty members whose C.V.s are included with the proposal and who are to teach in the religious studies program, five focus their work on Christianity or African-American churches. Three others are scholars of philosophy and the fourth studies Islam in the black community.

Beaky also complained that students would also be required to do internships “requiring them to work closely with professionals, practitioners, and/or graduate professors in their field of choice in order to obtain hands-on experiences in the professional practices related to religious studies,” at least some at community and faith-based organizations. The proposal, Beaky added, confirmed that the program is “geared more toward the personal development of students — development as agents of change — rather than of their critical understanding of religions,” as would be expected of a liberal arts major in religion.

Manfred Philipp, chair of the University Faculty Senate and a chemistry professor at Lehman College in the Bronx, also criticized the program’s “sectarian” focus. At a public hearing on June 17, Philipp asked why there were no specific course offerings on Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and other Christian branches, while there were several courses on the religions of African-Americans and Caribbeans.

Phoenix, the college’s provost, responded by calling the groups Philipp listed as “sects” and suggesting that students could take independent study classes to learn about those groups. In an interview, she also proposed that students could do internships with those groups or research about them to fulfill the major’s requirements, adding that “the courses in the proposal are just the ones we’ll have at the beginning, but as the major grows, we’ll add more classes and more specific classes.”

Philipp also contends that the program offers several courses on “a specific brand of Christianity” — the Protestantism found in black churches — including a required upper-level course called “African Traditional Religions.” Students concentrating in philosophy and religion would also be required to take “Black Philosophical Thought” and students in the religion and social justice concentration would be required to take “Caribbean Religions and Social Justice Movements” and “The Role of the Church in the Black Community.” Other than a class on Buddhism and Hinduism required of the philosophy concentrators, all of the other required classes are surveys, such as “Peace Education,” “Religious Ethics” and “Philosophy of Religion.”

But Phoenix defended the religious studies major as “a way to explore how religion functions in and shapes the modern world.” It was not intended to be “an exhaustive look at every religion in the world — there’s no way we could cover them all,” she said, but rather a course of study focused on the “social science perspective” on modern religion.

“Our program is in no way trying to prepare students for seminary or sectarian studies, because that’s not what most of our students want,” Phoenix added, explaining that a survey of students interested in the religious studies major found that students were more likely to want to go to law school or to pursue non-profit or social service jobs than to go on to study divinity or become clergy members.

Jeremy Leaming, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said “the fact that some faculty say it may not be a very well-rounded program at the moment doesn’t amount to a violation of the separation of church and state.” Unless there is evidence that the program’s faculty are “trying to proselytize or inculcate Christianity or another religion,” he said, there are no grounds for objection to the religious studies program.

“Public universities,” Leaming added, “must ensure that religious study courses are just that, academic courses on religion, and not classes that should be taught at a bible seminary or a bible college.” He declined to comment further without more information on the program at Medgar Evers.

Labels: Christianity, CUNY, Medgar Evers College, religion, religious study, separation of church and state

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Monday, June 11, 2007

In US, faith is never far from politics

By Ed StoddardCHARLOTTE, N.C., (Reuters) -

Three former presidents honour mega-preacher Billy Graham at the dedication of his library. Days later the three top Democratic contenders for the White House openly talk about faith in a televised forum. Church and state may be separate entities in the United States. But faith and politics have become inseparable.

"This is basically a very religious nation, people have very intense feelings here about religion," said Carroll Doherty, associate director at the Pew Research Center. "It is unlikely that a nonreligious person would be elected president," he said. This distinguishes the United States from most of the developed world.

Although figures are disputed, polls say that more than 40 percent of Americans attend religious services at least once a week, more than double the rates in western Europe, where the sacred and the secular seldom collide in the political sphere. "The strict separation of church and state in the U.S. actually fosters a broader role for religion in public life," said Matthew Wilson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

"It means religious institutions have long felt very free to publicly criticize the government and public norms," he said, pointing to the historic role of churches in the anti-slavery and civil rights movements. The growth of the "Religious Right" -- a social conservative movement aligned with the Republican Party -- over the past three decades has also brought faith forcefully into the political realm.

It is part of a broader backlash to a perceived "permissiveness" in popular culture that has helped politicize U.S. religion. How that translates into politics was highlighted in a survey by the Pew Research Center earlier this year, which found that being an atheist was a bigger negative for candidates running for president than smoking, being gay or being Muslim.

A revealing 63 percent of those surveyed said they would be "less likely" to support a presidential candidate who did not believe in God.Never holding elected office before ranked second on the negative scales among the several traits that people were questioned about. Being gay, Muslim or a past drug user were next in line.

The most positive qualities were previous military service and being a Christian, with 48 percent and 39 percent of respondents respectively saying such traits would make them more likely to support a presidential candidate.

The religious left and right

The same survey found a "wide partisan" gap with 61 percent of Republicans saying they would more likely support a Christian candidate compared with 32 percent of Democrats. But the Democratic number -- a third -- is hardly small.

This helps explain why the leading Democrats for their party's 2008 presidential nomination did their best on Monday to come across as pious on a televised forum about faith. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and former senator John Edwards were all trying to woo the "Religious Left" - faith-based organizations that see moral or Biblical imperatives to help the poor and care for the environment.

"Faith -- I mean, not only my faith, but prayer's played a huge role in my life. It does every single day; it's what gives me strength to keep going," Edwards said. Clinton said her faith had pulled her through the fallout surrounding her husband's infidelity while he was president. Obama evoked Biblical passages to care for the needy.This was an invasion of territory normally held by the Republican Party.

Some on the Religious Left see this as a mistake. "I think the Christian left is the counter-balance to the Religious Right but we're making the same mistakes," said Jan G. Linn, a pastor and author of the book "Big Christianity: What's Right With The Religious Left.""The Democrats are going to use us just as the Republicans have used the Religious Right," he told Reuters by telephone from his Minnesota base.

Mistake or not, Democrats clearly see a Christian base which they hope to energize -- just as the Republicans have appealed to their evangelical base through strident opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Faith has never been far below the surface of political power in America -- a fact driven home last week when ex-presidents George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton all appeared on a podium with the aging Billy Graham.

At a dedication to a library honouring America's most famous evangelist, the former presidents all spoke warmly about Graham's impact on their spiritual lives. Graham offered spiritual guidance to many American presidents but his distinctly apolitical approach also evokes another era, when faith and politics did not publicly mix to the extent they do today.

Labels: Billy Graham, Christianity, Democrat, faith, politics, religion, religious left, religious right, Republican

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Thursday, May 31, 2007

The State of Schools in American Perception: From Dissatisfaction to Religious Necessity

Daniel Downs
May 26, 2007

When it comes to education, over 82% of Americans still send their kids to public school. So why are Americans not happy with public education? As will be shown, secularism, an offshoot of American socialism and humanism, is the problem.

According to the most recent Gallup Polls, 52% say they are very dissatisfied with America’s education, and only 37% are only somewhat satisfied. The educational reform No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is not the reason for the negativity about public schooling. If most Americans really understood NCLB, they would probably feel something is finally being done about our educational problems. The dissatisfaction is not about school safety either. For only about a third voiced any concern about school security. More emphasis on academics does not appear to be a major problem. Only between 30% and 40% of Americans believe there is not enough emphasis on the 3Rs, History, Science, Health, Arts, and Foreign Languages. Although a significant number of people think better teachers are needed.

So why then are so many Americans dissatisfied with American schools? The answer may surprise you, but the real problem with America’s public schools is the lack of religion. Sixty percent (60%) said they believed America has too little religion in its public schools. The survey does not give us any clear idea of what Americans mean by it. However, over 92% think prayer should be allowed and over 76% would support a constitutional amendment allowing voluntary prayer in state-run schools. It gets even better. Most Americans think creationism and intelligent design should be taught along with evolution in science class. Fifty-four percent (54%) were for creationism, 22% were opposed, and 23% were unsure. Concerning intelligent design, 43% favored it, 21% were opposed, and 35% were uncertain. The relative large number of people who were uncertain indicates insufficient knowledge about the issue.

It is encouraging to see that most Americans hold to at least some of the core views and values held by our predecessors at our nation’s founding. Early Americans debated not about whether religion should be taught but rather who should be responsible for teaching it to America’s school children. The issue was not a conflict of church versus state. It was one between federal and state governments, which also extended to state versus local jurisdiction. The outcome of the debate was defined by Congress in the Northwest Ordinance. This legislation regulated the creation of territories, states and local communities. The Ordinance specified land to be set aside for community schools in which religion would be taught among other subjects. Notice, the same Congress that established our nation and constitutional form of governments also authorized public schools--not Sunday Schools--to teach religion. Why? Because a free self-governing people require the moral understanding and discipline only religion adequately provides.

What kind of religion did early Americans propose? Most believed biblical religion was the best of all possible religions. When early Americans spoke of religions they usually meant Christian denominations such as Congregationalist, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Catholics, and the like. However, they often included in their discussions discussed the religions of Buddhists, Mohammedans or Muslims and Jews. Complementing a pluralist view, many early American leaders held to a type of religious universalism. They believed all world religions taught the same basic morality. The only real difference was the extent each religion comprehended the moral laws of human nature. Most, if not all, early Americans thought Christianity had obtained the fullest understanding both by revelation and by reason of the divinely created moral law in human nature and human society. (For more on early American views concerning education and religion read Thoughts upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic written in 1786 by Benjamin Rush.)

Why do modern Americans think more religion is needed in public education and what kind of religion do they propose? Again, a clear answer is not found in the Gallup Polls. It is reasonable to assume most Americans still agree with the founders and their views. For example, nearly 70% say America is a Christian nation, according to a Pew survey. Most Americans (59%) see religion is losing its influence in society. They regard it as a bad trend. Only 34% of Americans think the public influence of religion is increasing, and the majority (62%) says it is a good thing.

The importance of religion’s public influence goes back to the historical necessity of moral discipline. It is a prerequisite to living in a free self-governing society. While 71% of Americans want more religion in the public square, 51% want more religious influence in political or law-making affairs. When we consider the fact that early America was dominated by Puritan ideals and that Puritans were called evangelicals, it should be less difficult to understand why 60% of evangelicals still believe the Bible should be the most important influence in shaping laws. The same is generally true for most Protestants but oddly enough not for Catholics and certainly not for liberal Protestants. Put in perspective, the majority of Americans (63%) say the ‘will of the people’ (law of consensus) should be the most important influence in law, while only 32% say it should be biblical precepts and biblical law.

Now, we have a paradox. Americans say they want more religious freedom. They want more religious influence in schools and in society including government, but Americans also say they do not want social law to be shaped by that influence. If by religious influence Americans mean its affects on people in schools and government some of whom make legal decisions, they still hold to the founding ideals. However, early American law reflected biblical precedents. Why? Because they applied the moral ideals and laws derived from the Bible to laws governing human behavior in society. It is likely, therefore, that what most Americans mean when they say they want more religion in society, government, and education is more of religion’s moral influence in all aspect of life. (For more on biblical precedents of American law read Biblical Law in America by John W. Welch.)

If so, the hope for America’s future is much brighter than imagined, one in which life, liberty, equity, equality, prosperity, and happiness may remain supreme. The one obstruction to fully realizing this hope is like minded leaders. If Americans will only insist on having moral leaders of this kind, leaders who genuinely support religion and morality will arise to the demand, but Americans will also have vote them into office at local, state, and national levels of government. When America do, restoring religion to public education will then be possible.

Labels: Christianity, education, intelligent design, morality, Northwest Ordinance, prayer, public school, religion, religious freedom

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Friday, May 11, 2007

Study: Mothers Spiritually Active; Fathers Lag Behind

Mothers are among the most spiritually active segments of the America population, a new study found. They also outpace fathers in spiritual activity and commitment for the most part.

Audrey Barrick Correspondent
Monday, May. 7, 2007 Posted: 2:48:PM PST

Mothers are among the most spiritually active segments of the America population, a new study found. They also outpace fathers in spiritual activity and commitment for the most part.

The Barna research group revealed that three-quarters of women who are raising children said faith is very important in their life while only two-thirds of fathers agreed. The majority of mothers also said they have been greatly transformed by their faith compared to less than half of fathers.

Additionally, mothers were more likely than fathers to be born-again Christians, to say they are absolutely committed to Christianity, and to embrace a personal responsibility to share their faith in Jesus Christ with others.

In a typical week, mothers are more likely than are fathers to attend church, pray, read the Bible, participate in a small group, attend Sunday school, and volunteer some of their time to help a non-profit organization, the study showed. Fathers were only equally active with mothers when it came to volunteering to help at a church.

The Barna study further measured differences between younger and older mothers. Moms from the Buster generation (ages 23-41) show less passion for spirituality and less commitment to Christianity than moms from the Boomer generation (ages 42-60). Young moms are less likely to volunteer to help at a church, to read the Bible or to attend worship services at a church and they are less inclined to describe their faith as very important in their life compared to Boomer moms

Buster moms are in the crux of that challenge, being much more spiritually minded than young dads, but still wrestling with the Christian faith in ways Boomers did not. If moms are the spiritual backbone of families today – and they often are – it is imperative to find new approaches that help moms connect faith and family, especially for young mothers.

"Most Buster moms are currently married, but three out of ten are not and one-sixth have never been married, which is double the proportion found among Boomer moms. On a further note, the study found that among even younger moms – ages 18-22 – four out of five are not married. That shows how millions of young moms do not have the support of a husband when parenting, the study noted."Still, moms of every generation deserve an enormous amount of credit for empowering the spiritual pursuits of their family and, in turn, energizing faith in America," Kinnaman stated.

"Compared to men, women are more likely to communicate about faith, prioritize activities that develop their faith and that of their children, and they are more vulnerable about their needs and emotions."There is still room for growth among moms,” noted the report director, however.

“Church leaders and parents still need to focus on outcomes and the depth of their parenting efforts. Yet our nation would not be the same without the significant spiritual influence of mothers. Imagine the impact on our society if fathers were to simply match the intensity of their parenting peers."

An earlier study by the research group showed that parenting based on one's faith in God produced the most desired outcomes for Christian children exemplifying Christian morals and attitudes.

The latest Barna study is based on ten nationwide surveys on 10,035 adults, age 18 and older, conducted from January 2005 through January 2007.

Labels: Audrey Barrick, Barna Group, Bible, children, Christianity, faith, fathers, mothers

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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Frequently asked questions about the date of Easter

Le 3 avril 2007, par Aloys Evina,

Q. Why isn’t Easter on the same date every year – like Christmas, for instance ?

A. The short answer is that in the 4th century it was decided that Easter would fall after the first full moon following the vernal or spring equinox. (The equinox is a day in the year on which daytime and night-time are of equal length. This happens twice a year, once in spring and once in autumn.)

A more detailed answer would be this :

We know from the New Testament that Jesus’ death and resurrection happened around the time of the Jewish feast of Passover. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke’s Gospels, the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples was a Passover meal, while John’s Gospel says that Jesus died on the feast of Passover itself. In those days, the Jews celebrated Passover on the “14th day of the first month” in accordance with the Bible’s commands (see Lev. 23:5, Num. 28:16, Josh. 5:11). The months of the Jewish calendar each began at new moon, so the 14th day would be the day of the full moon. The first month, Nisan, was the month that began from the spring new moon. In other words, the Passover was celebrated on the first full moon following the vernal equinox and was therefore a movable feast.

Early sources tell us that this very soon led to Christians in different parts of the world celebrating Easter on different dates. As early as the end of the 2nd century, some churches were celebrating Easter on the day of Passover itself, whether it was a Sunday or not, while others would celebrate it on the Sunday that followed it. By the end of the 4th century there were four different methods of calculating the date of Easter. In the year 325, the Council of Nicaea attempted to bring in a unified solution that would retain the link with the date of Passover as celebrated in Jesus’ time. Eventually, therefore, Easter’s date was established as movable.

Q. So how is the date of Easter calculated ?

A. The Council of Nicaea established that the date of Easter would be the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox.

Q. Why, then, despite the universal rule laid down at Nicaea, do different parts of the Church still celebrate Christ’s resurrection on different dates ?

A. The first thing to remember is that, even after the Council of Nicaea, differences in the date of Easter remained, since the Council had said nothing about the methods to be used to calculate the timing of the full moon or the vernal equinox.

But the real problem behind the situation we have today arose in the 16th Century, when the Julian calendar, which had been established in 46 BC, was superseded by the Gregorian calendar. It took some time for the new calendar to be adopted by all countries (it did not happen in Greece until the start of the 20th Century !). However, the Orthodox churches still use the Julian calendar to this day to calculate the vernal equinox and the full moon that follows it. This is why they calculate a different date.

Q. Why did the Gregorian calendar reform happen at all ? Was it necessary ?

A. The calendar reform established by Pope Gregory XIII was necessary because the Julian calendar used in those days had begun to lag behind astronomical reality – which is to say that by the time 21 March came around on the calendar, the actual, astronomical vernal equinox had already happened.

The fundamental problem behind this is that the astronomical year – that is, the time the earth takes to make its journey round the sun – is not exactly 365 days : it’s actually 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. However, as the year has to be divided into equal portions for practical purposes, leap years have to be introduced to resolve the problem.

Q. What’s the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars ?

A. The difference between the two calendars lies precisely in how they resolve this problem. The Julian calendar’s solution was to add a leap day every four years, with the end result that the Julian calendar year was an average of 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the earth’s actual journey around the sun. This meant that the astronomical facts and the calendar calculations would eventually be out by one day in every 128 years. The real equinox, for instance, would then happen one day earlier than the date given on the calendar. The Gregorian calendar attempted to correct this by shortening the average calendar year. It introduced the additional rule that, in contrast to the Julian calendar’s leap-year rule, there would be no leap day in years whose number could be divided directly by 100 but not by 400. Thanks to this reduced number of leap years, the Gregorian calendar comes closer to astronomical reality – although it, too, is not “exact” – but the difference between the facts of astronomy and the calendar date is now only 26 seconds a year. It takes 3,600 years to develop a lag of one day. At present, the Julian calendar is running 13 days “slow” of the Gregorian ; by the year 2100, the difference will be 14 days. This means that the vernal equinox, which is established as 21 March and on which the date of Easter depends, falls in the Julian calendar on a day which under the Gregorian calendar is 3 April.

Q. So are the two dates always two weeks apart ?

A. No. The gap between the two Easters is different every year. It can be as much as five weeks. Besides the fact that the dates of the vernal equinox lie 13 days apart, we also have to consider when the full moon falls. So, if the full moon falls within the 13 days between the Gregorian and Julian equinoxes, Orthodox Easter will be later.

There’s another complication here, which is that, alongside the equinox, the sun and moon have a part to play as well. Under the Julian calendar, the full moon is calculated using the so-called Metonic cycle (a 19-year cycle under which the phases of the moon fall on the same date every 19 years). However, this calculation is not astronomically accurate either, so it, too, leads to the dates shifting out of place. When this is added to the discrepancy between the Julian and Gregorian equinoxes, it can lead to a difference of up to five weeks between the Orthodox and Western dates for Easter.

The Nicaea ruling contains one other provision that is extremely important for the Orthodox churches. It states that Easter should not be celebrated “with” (Greek “meta”) the Jews. Today’s theologians are no longer entirely certain what was meant by this, but Orthodox Easter still cannot fall on the same day as Passover. If it does, it is postponed by a week.

Q. This year, both Easters are on the same date. When does this happen ?

A. The two dates coincide when the full moon following the equinox comes so late that it counts as the first full moon after 21 March in the Julian calendar as well as the Gregorian. This is not a regular occurrence, but it has happened more frequently in recent years – in 2001, 2004 and 2007. In the near future, it will also take place in 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2017, but, after that, not again until 2034.

Q. In that case, though, why do some Orthodox churches celebrate Western Christmas ?

A. All churches celebrate Christmas as a fixed feast and all (apart from the Armenian church) hold it on 25 December. However, since the Russian Orthodox Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Georgian Orthodox Church follow the Julian calendar, they celebrate Christmas on what, under the Gregorian calendar, is 7 January. The Greek Orthodox Church, the Bulgarian Church, the Antioch and Alexandria Patriarchates and the Romanian Orthodox Church follow the Gregorian calendar (except with respect to the calculation of Easter), and celebrate Christmas at the same time as the Western churches. Only the Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates Christmas on its original date of 6 January and the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord on the same day.

Q. Are there any efforts to bring the two Easters together ?

A. Efforts have been and are still being made to achieve this. For various reasons, there were particular efforts to tackle the question at the beginning of the 20th Century. In 1902, Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople began a discussion aimed at achieving greater unity among Christians.

The decision of the Greek Parliament to introduce the Gregorian calendar in 1923 sparked conflict between Church and State. It was not least for this reason that a pan-Orthodox congress was called in May 1923, which revised the Julian calendar to lend it greater astronomical accuracy. This calendar, known as the Meletian Calendar, is only two seconds longer than the calendar year, which means it takes 45,000 years to develop a lag of one day. Calculations are based on observations from Jerusalem rather than Greenwich. The calendar is thus the most accurate yet. However, its introduction led to divisions within the Orthodox Churches – particularly the Greek and Romanian Orthodox Churches. Since then, the issue has time and again been on the agenda of pan-Orthodox conferences.

At the same time, discussion was getting under way in secular life. The business world was seeking a simpler and more sensible method of calculating the date of Easter. In 1928, the British Parliament passed the Easter Act, calling for Easter to be held on a fixed Sunday – the Sunday following the second Saturday in April. However, the Act stipulated that this should only be introduced with the unanimous agreement of the Christian churches.

As early as 1923, the League of Nations addressed the question and forwarded the matter to the Advisory and Technical Committee for Communications and Transit, which, for its part, wanted to introduce a brand-new calendar across the globe, dividing the year into months of equal length. This would have had the effect of requiring one or two days to be included outside of the normal seven-day rhythm of the week, in order to make up for the time lacking. With regard to the date of Easter, the British solution was proposed. The Committee asked the churches’ opinion, and found that the majority of Protestant churches, as represented by the Ecumenical Council for Practical Christianity, favoured a fixed date for Easter. The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople replied that, although the Orthodox Church would favour a calendar that retained the continuity of the week, it would be open to a fixed date for Easter, as long at it remained a Sunday and all Christian churches were in agreement. The Roman Catholic Church’s first response was that the issue could only be resolved by an ecumenical council. Some years later, however, it changed its answer to a definitive “no”.

The efforts were taken over by the League of Nations’ successor organization, the United Nations, but finally foundered in 1955, after the USA rejected the idea of a new calendar, fearing public opposition on religious grounds.

Nothing changed until the Second Vatican Council, whose Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy stated that the Roman Catholic Church would assent to a common date for Easter – movable or fixed – if all the churches could agree on a solution. The World Council of Churches (WCC) then took up the issue again, surveying its member churches in 1965 and 1967. It found that all the churches would be willing to celebrate Easter on the same day. However, while most Western churches preferred a fixed date, the Orthodox churches wanted a common movable date based on the Nicaea rule. In 1975, the matter was placed on the agenda of the WCC General Assembly in Nairobi, following a request to the WCC from the Roman Catholic Church for the churches to undertake something together on the issue at the General Assembly. Another survey was made of Council’s member churches, which echoed the results of the first survey. It became abundantly clear at the General Assembly that a decision could only be reached by the churches themselves, not by the WCC. It was decided that, at that stage, specific proposals would not be helpful, but that work into the issue ought to continue.

Then, at their first pre-conciliar conference in 1976, the Orthodox churches moved to hold a congress as soon as possible. This took place in 1977 in Chambesy. The congress dealt primarily with the pastoral problem that abandoning the Nicaea rule would lead to divisions. This conclusion was repeated at the second pre-conciliar Orthodox conference in 1982 and the revision of the calendar postponed until such time as would, God willing, be more suitable.

The issue was not brought up again at the WCC until 1997. Two of its departments – “Worship and Spirituality” and “Faith and Order” – organized a consultation session on behalf of the executive committee in Aleppo, Syria. This resulted in a concrete proposal keep the Nicaea rule but calculate the equinox and full moon using the accurate astronomical data available today, rather than those used many years ago.

Q. Why has this solution still not been put into practice ?

A. The Orthodox church is still grappling with the arguments first brought up at the so-called pre-conciliar conferences in 1977 and 1982.

The problem is that, while the use of the astronomical calculations will mean hardly any change for those churches that use the Gregorian calendar, the Orthodox churches have had painful experiences in the past with schisms resulting from calendar reforms, and are therefore very cautious about them. However, a proposal for the Western churches to move their Easter to coincide with the Orthodox date garnered just as little support.

Labels: Aloys Evina, Christianity, Council of Nicaea, Easter, Gregorian calendar, Jesus, Julian calendar, leap year, Passover

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Saturday, March 31, 2007

Finding simplicity and beauty

by Interfaith Works or The Olympian.

It has been reported that when Albert Einstein was asked about the secret that holds the universe together, he replied, "When we discover it, the answer will be simple and beautiful."

We are bombarded by the complexities of life everywhere we turn; we are exposed to more information in a few years than our ancestors 100 years ago ever had to contend with. It seems like we are drowning in knowledge and thirsting for wisdom. The Rev. Richard Rohr noted that we can put a man on the moon, but fathers don't know how to talk to their sons.

The great commandments are simple - love God and each other with the same passion - yet it seems that such simplicity asks too much of us, so we build nuance upon commentary, and in so doing, free ourselves from the obligation to love.

We are entering a holy season for many and it invites us into a period of reflecting upon the wisdom of our faith. In April alone, we will be celebrating Passover, Holy Week, Easter, the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Buddha's birthday.

Faith traditions offer simple guidance that shimmers across the spiritual landscape, but there is something within us that resists such wisdom. Perhaps it's because we don't like the challenge that such simple words offer to our sense of sophistication.

To celebrate this season of rebirth and renewal, I would like to offer a few words from the major faith traditions, hoping to entice each of us to return to our roots and know the joy that wisdom brings.

In Buddhism: "Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is it healed." The Dhammapada, Chapter 1, verse 5

In Christianity: "Love your enemies and pray for those who hurt you." Matthew 5:44

In Judaism: "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

In Islam: "Those who act kindly in this world will have kindness." Qur'an 39.10

Can you imagine what human history would look like if people of faith had taken these simple injunctions seriously? My prayer is that for these days of April, each of us, regardless of our tradition, would return to the sources of our faith and see what simple words would nourish our souls if we would but let them. Then, from that wellspring, may we come together to create a world that is simply beautiful.

The Rev. Canon David C. James is rector for St. John's Episcopal Church in Olympia.

Labels: Buddhism, Christianity, Islamic, Judaism, simplicity

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Monday, March 19, 2007

Americans use talents, creativity to reshape religion

March 18, 2007
BY DAVID CRUMM
FREE PRESS RELIGION WRITER

Macomb Township mom Laurie Hempel went from doing zero to 20 hours of church work a week over the last year -- all because she finally found a church where she could "give my 2 cents and shape something new."

And though engineer Nicole Howard of Lathrup Village was laid off by Ford Motor Co. last month, she said she's not worried, because her Detroit church is the real center of her life. That's where Howard said she does her most important work -- spearheading a group of women who train themselves in skills ranging from weight loss to financial planning.

Hempel and Howard are among millions of Americans who are driving a head-over-heels transformation. The rising power of self-expression is becoming a central part of faith. Congregations across the country are changing from places where people go only for religious inspiration and instruction to places where people seek concrete ways to express their creativity, insights and talents.

Some scholars call the transformation the end of a 500-year cycle of reformation, a continuation of the individualistic streak in Christianity touched off by religious reformer Martin Luther. Others say what's unfolding is part of the trend toward what is called crowdsourcing -- allowing ordinary people to shape the future of congregations.

Whatever it is called, the trend is powerful. As the American passion for religious self-expression rises, the centuries-old power of religious leaders is fading, and many traditional labels are falling away.

Change is showing up in many ways:

• It's usurping the power of the preacher. "It makes you nervous as a pastor these days when you step into the pulpit knowing that everybody sitting in front of you is just two clicks in the Internet away from being smarter than you are on any subject you choose to talk about," said the Rev. Ken Wilson, pastor of the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor.

• It's making familiar religious denominations obsolete. Howard's church, one of Detroit's most famous Baptist congregations, is dropping "Baptist" from its name at the huge new Second Ebenezer Church rising along I-75. Second Ebenezer is going nondenominational because Howard, the Rev. Edgar Vann and other members have decided that religious consumers now care more about the quality of programs than even the most time-honored religious names.

• It's causing mainline churches to look for new methods of shoring up membership and sending even nontraditional churches such as Kensington Community Church in Troy back to the drawing board.

Last year, Kensington clergy were shocked when they called for volunteers to open a new branch. They got a great turnout but were stunned to learn that 400 of the 500 who volunteered had been inactive until then. Even with their established marketing savvy, the Kensington leadership team hadn't fully tapped the power of the crowd in the pews.

"It was humbling to discover that," said the Rev. Steve Andrews, the senior pastor. "We like to think we know our people and that they're already active in our church, but these 400 had been sitting there with us -- and they weren't on our radar screen until that moment."

Triumph of faith and expression

Americans' historic passion for faith remains as strong as ever, University of Michigan sociologist Wayne Baker found in studying American values.

What's fueling the transformation in American congregations, Baker has found, is a strengthening over the last 20 years of another powerful American value: freedom of self-expression.

"I agree with those who say this looks like a continuation of centuries of reformation in religion," Baker said. "It's been going on around the world, but this desire for self-expression in religion has become most extreme in the U.S."

Flipping a pyramid in Detroit

In Detroit, Vann and members of Second Ebenezer figured out what was happening without global data. They simply listened to one another.

Still, the decision to drop their Baptist label was a dramatic step.

In the late 1990s, Vann was the public face of the city's Baptist churches as president of the Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity. He spoke for a denomination whose urban roots are in the great migration of African Americans from the South to jobs in the North a century ago.

"But now, we realize that people are moving away from following the old brands in making religious choices, so when the bronze letters finally go up on our building, we'll drop the word 'Baptist,' " Vann said.

The $25-million church is expected to open later this year.

"It's becoming clear to us that the traditional denominations were shaped like pyramids, with the critical mass at the bottom, mainly being asked to support a very small cone of people at the top," he said.

"In the 21st Century, that pyramid is inverted, and the hope of the local church -- really, the hope of the world, I think -- depends on our focusing not on that little cone, but on listening to the needs and the voices of that mass of people we often overlooked."

Firing up a crowd in Troy

In Troy, pastors at Kensington Community Church thought they pretty much understood America's religious transformation.

Two decades ago, they surfed along on a leading wave of casually dressed young preachers who gave up hymns for rock music and made worship so entertaining that even the most skeptical baby boomers would bend a knee.

They brought thousands of religiously inactive families back to church. About 10,000 people now show up for weekend services -- and that's after Kensington has dispatched thousands of members over the years to start a dozen other congregations.
But most of those start-ups were relatively small. Kensington had never had a volunteer mobilization quite like the one last summer that went to start Kensington East in Clinton Township.

The day after the Sunday that church leaders asked volunteers to sign up for the launch, they found themselves looking over a puzzling list of names.

Andrews and his colleagues soon realized they were watching a crowdsourcing event unfold in their midst. These 400 men and women weren't willing to register with the church office until they saw an opportunity they liked.

Marty Cracchiolo, a software developer from Macomb Township, was among the 400. "I used to be a Chreaster," he said. "You know? Just Christmas and Easter.

"Then, I started attending Kensington in Troy, but I was on the fence there, waiting for a good opportunity."

Finally, Cracchiolo heard that the new church in Clinton Township needed volunteers to work with electronic gear. "I enjoy that and, now that I've gotten involved at the new church, I've found that the people are awesome."

A restless group of believers

Tony Campolo, one of the most popular evangelical speakers on college campuses these days, has been telling evangelical leaders about this powerful shift for years and urging them to develop a new set of ministerial skills.

The problem in many traditional denominations, Campolo said, is that "church leaders are wasting time yelling at each other over old issues ... and they're not watching what's happening right in front of us."

At the Vineyard Church in Ann Arbor, Wilson said one of his most important ministerial talents these days is stepping out of the way and unleashing his congregation.

"We all know how churches have worked for years: We welcome people, put them into classes, teach them all these beliefs we want them to swallow and tell them that they're expected to serve in our programs. Then we sit back and hope they do what we told them to do," Wilson said.

"But that just doesn't work anymore. We've got to realize that people see themselves as pilgrims. They're not clay waiting for us to turn them into Christians."

Here's how it works now, he said: "When people come up to me and say, 'Oh, wouldn't it be great if our church did this or that?' I stop them right there and I say, 'Great idea! You're the church. Go start it."

Contact DAVID CRUMM at 313-223-4526 or dcrumm@freepress.com.

Labels: Christianity, church, congregations, crowdsourcing, David Crumm, religion, service