Is Christianity Dying?

Russell Moore – 2015 12 May

Christianity is dying. At least, that’s what major newspapers are telling us today, culling research from a new Pew Center study on what almost all sociologists are observing these days—the number of Americans who identify as Christians has reached an all-time low, and is falling. I think this is perhaps bad news for America, but it is good news for the church.

The lead editor of the report tells The New York Times that secularization—mainly in terms of those who identify as “nones” or with no specific religious affiliation—isn’t isolated to the progressive Northeast and Pacific Northwest. He notes, “The change is taking place all over, including the Bible Belt.”

This is precisely what several of us have been saying for years. Bible Belt near-Christianity is teetering. I say let it fall. For much of the twentieth century, especially in the South and parts of the Midwest, one had to at least claim to be a Christian to be “normal.” During the Cold War, that meant distinguishing oneself from atheistic Communism. At other times, it has meant seeing churchgoing as a way to be seen as a good parent, a good neighbor, and a regular person. It took courage to be an atheist, because explicit unbelief meant social marginalization. Rising rates of secularization, along with individualism, means that those days are over—and good riddance to them.

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Iraqi Nun Testify Before Congress, Calling on U.S. to Help Rebuild the Lives of Christian Refugees Displaced by ISIS

By Suzette Gutierrez  May 16, 2015

After getting caught in a controversy when she was denied a U.S. visa in April, Sister Diana Momeka was finally able to enter the country when the U.S. State Department reversed its earlier decision and granted her a visa to travel to Washington, D.C. She appeared before the House Committee of Foreign Affairs and testified about the cruelties of ISIS on fellow Iraqi Christians.

Her testimony rang with a simple message: that the U.S. government help displaced Christian Iraqis who have been victims of ISIS go back to their homeland.

Addressing the House Committee of Foreign Affairs, she said, “I call on all Americans to raise your voices on our behalf so that diplomacy and not genocide, social well-being and not weapons, and the desire for justice, not selfish interests determine the future for Iraq and all of her children.” Her testimony appears on the website of Christian News Wire.

Sister Diana said the faith of the homless Iraqi Christians are ‘increasing more and more’ despite living in devastating conditions – families taking shelter in containers, parents without jobs and children without an education.

“It’s making us stronger,” she said. “We were displaced, yet we feel that the hand of God is still with us. … In the midst of this darkness, this suffering, we see that God is holding us,” she explained, adding that it is a “gift of the Holy Spirit” to be able to stay and have faith through hardship.

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“Put God First!” Actor Denzel Washington’s Speech to College Grads

Aimee Herd : May 11, 2015 : FOX News Insider

“I’ve been protected, I’ve been directed and I’ve been corrected. I’ve kept God in my life and it’s kept me humble. I didn’t always stick with Him, but He always stuck with me…”

(New Orleans)—Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington delivered an inspiring speech to the graduating class of Dillard University in New Orleans, over the weekend. (Photo: Instagram/via Fox News Insider)

Promising to “keep it short,” Denzel began his 3-point message with the words, “Put God first. Put God first in everything you do… Everything that I have is by the grace of God.”

The actor told the grads of a conversation with his mother shortly after his career began to take off. He came to her touting all the things “he” had accomplished… She told him, “Boy, stop it right there.”

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At Closing of Empowered21 Global Congress, Samuel Rodriguez Urges Christians to Stand Up for Their Faith; Warns ‘There’s No Such Thing as Comfortable Christianity’

May 25, 2015 –The Christian Post – Leonardo Blair

Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, tells Spirit-filled Christians at the Empowered21 Global Congress to stand up for their faith at the Jerusalem Pais Arena in Israel on Sunday May 24, 2015.

In a high-energy parting shot to a gathering of several thousand Spirit-filled believers at the closing session of the Empowered21 Global Congress in Jerusalem, Israel on Sunday, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Samuel Rodriguez warned that “there is no such thing as comfortable Christianity” and urged the group to use the power God gave them to declare Him to the world.

“When you are filled with God’s Spirit everything changes. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you are able to do what you were not able to do before. The Spirit came down and Peter did what? He raised his voice…Listen carefully, religion makes us complacent while revival makes us courageous. Today’s complacency is tomorrow’s captivity,” he warned.

Preaching from Acts 2:14 highlighting the reaction of the Apostle Peter after the initial descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, Rodriguez urged the believers to “be filled, stand up, and raise your voice.”

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Ed Stetzer Refutes Pew Report on Decline of Christianity; Says Christianity Isn’t Declining, ‘Fake Christians’ are Finally Showing Their True Colors

by Ed Stetzer – May 14, 2015

Fakers who don’t go to church are just giving up the pretense.

A new Pew Research Center survey found the Christian share of the American population declined almost 8 percentage points from 2007 to 2014. Drawing from this point, many continued their breathless claims that the Christian sky is falling.

Rather than predict the impending doom of the church in America, this latest study affirms what many researchers have said before. Christianity isn’t collapsing; it’s being clarified. Churches aren’t emptying; rather, those who were Christian in name only are now categorically identifying their lack of Christian conviction and engagement.

Gallup recently found that weekly religious attendance as a percentage of the U.S. population is about where it was in the 1940s — hardly a statistical collapse.

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Pakistan: Muslim mob attacks church and Christian colony after Christian accused of blasphemy

May 25, 2015  Christian homes and a church have been attacked by an angry Muslim mob after blasphemy allegations were made against a Christian man. According to reports, on May…

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US State Department Says No to Iraqi Christians

By Faith J. H. McDonnell – 2015-05-17

Writing in April in USA Today about the murder of 12 Christian migrants thrown into the sea by Muslims for praying to Jesus instead of Allah, columnist Kirsten Powers stated that President Barack Obama “just can’t seem to find any passion for the mass persecution of Middle Eastern Christians or the eradication of Christianity from its birthplace.”

The president’s response appears to be United States policy. Evidence suggests that within the administration not only is there no passion for persecuted Christians under threat of genocide from the Islamic State, there is no room for them, period. In fact, despite ISIS’ targeting of Iraqi Christians specifically because they are Christians, and, as such, stand in the way of a pure, Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East (and beyond), the U.S. State Department has made it clear that “there is no way that Christians will be supported because of their religious affiliation.”

An Anglican bishop revealed that this policy position presented to him in his most recent interaction with State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). The Rt. Rev. Julian M. Dobbs, bishop of the Diocese of CANA East (Convocation of Anglicans in North America) is an advocate for persecuted people worldwide. On this occasion, Dobbs was appealing on behalf of a group of Assyrian Christians desperately in need of rescue from northern Iraq.

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Obama, the Jews, the Muslims, and Us

by Michael Ledeen – May 24, 2015

I don’t believe that any other American president has spent so much time talking to and about Jews as Obama.  It all began in the very first months of his presidency—in August, 2009–when he called 1000 rabbis, lobbying for support for Obamacare.  It was a full month before the High Holy Days, when Jews pray for a year of life and good health, and the president remarked that “we are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”

That was a considerable misstatement, for in these matters, Jews are supplicants, not partners.  Two months earlier, Obama had similarly distorted the nature of Zionism. In his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, he maintained that Israel’s right to exist derived from the oppression of Jews for many centuries. But Zionist leaders always insisted that modern Israel’s legitimacy rests on millennia of history: it is the restoration of a Jewish state that was promised by the Almighty to Abraham, entrusted to Moses, conquered by Joshua, and ruled by David, Solomon, and their successors.

So the president isn’t very well informed about Judaism or Zionism, yet he is forever lecturing Jews and Israelis about what is really best for them, as if he had some special insight.  It is no accident that Obama is the only American president to write an introduction to the official military Jewish prayer book, prepared by US chaplains.  All previous presidents had left such matters up to the rabbinate.

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American Jews: The Last Leftist Jews in the World

The Jewish Press ^ | May 20th, 2015 | Daniel

Clip on a nametag, pick up a paper cup of lukewarm water and you can sit down in the audience at a thousand liberal Jewish establishment panels where the likes of Peter Beinart or Jeffrey Goldberg will sanctimoniously lecture their bored audience on the growing gap between American Jews and Israel.

Yawn through the usual references to “settlements”, “democratic character” and “one state solution.” Wake up just in time for the sales pitch for J Street and tough love BDS for the Jewish State.

And then go out and get some fresh air.

The gap isn’t between Israeli and American Jews; it’s between American Jews and the rest of the world.

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Jeb Bush Says Homosexual Marriage is Not a Constitutional Right

May 17, 2015 – Bloomberg, David Knowles

Jeb Bush knows the way he would rule on same-sex marriage if he were a Supreme Court justice.

Interviewed Sunday by the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody, Bush was asked whether he believed that gay marriage was a right protected by the U.S. constitution.

“I don’t, but I’m not a lawyer, and clearly this has been accelerated at a warp pace,” he said.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule sometime next month on whether gay marriage should be made legal in all 50 U.S. states, and Bush tied the future of the country itself to the issue of the family structure.

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Ethiopian Christians Stay Strong Despite Persecution

May 19, 2015 – MNN – Lindsay Steele

If you were unjustly thrown in jail, would you cry out and ask God why He was doing this to you? Or would you see it as an opportunity to share Christ in a new environment?

Seven Ethiopian Christians chose the second option, and Open Doors USA encouraged them to stay strong in the midst of suffering for Christ.

Open Doors UK reported three leaders and four church members were arrested on April 25 during a baptism for 40 new believers. The believers were accused of holding illegal meetings in secret locations, which the church denied.

Though Ethiopia’s constitution gives people freedom of religion, the law requires churches and Christian groups to have written permission to meet.

An anonymous source told Open Doors UK, “They have informed government officials about their ministry and their meetings both orally and in writing.”

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Teen With Down Syndrome Becomes a Supermodel, Challenges Us to See Disability Differently

Life News –  Sarah Zagorski  – May 19, 2015

18-year-old Madeline Stuart has Down syndrome but refuses to let that stop her from her dream of becoming a model. On her Facebook page she said she is pursuing modeling to “help change societies view of people with Down Syndrome.”

According to Buzzfeed, the woman’s mother, Roseanne Stuart, said her daughter has struggled with her weight throughout her life but recently picked up dance, swimming and cheerleading. Roseanne said, “I think it is time people realized that people with Down syndrome can be sexy and beautiful and should be celebrated.”

Roseanne said that culture is much more accepting of people with disabilities now than when her daughter was first born. She said, “Things were a lot different 18 years ago. I remember having her in a [stroller] when she was a baby and small-minded people telling me she should not be out in public. Even her doctors said Madeline would never achieve anything. But things are changing every day and people are more accepting of what they don’t understand yet.”

Additionally, Roseanne explained that her daughter has become very confident despite her disability and she constantly reminds her that she’s perfect just the way she is. She said, “I have made a point of never letting anyone be critical of her. [I tell Maddy] every day how amazing, funny, smart, beautiful, [and] wonderful she is. It’s that confidence — and beauty, both inside and out — that Rosanne wants others to see. People need to see how she shines, how her personality just bursts out.”

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