We even allowed the government to step in and define, license, regulate, and control marriage – a sacred covenant union between a man and a woman and God. It didn’t happen all at once, but it happened. When I bring this up, it is amazing – and a bit sad – to me how quickly people rise to defend government’s place in controlling and licensing marriage. They claim that without government help marriage would be chaos, cousins would marry, there would be no protection for the children should the marriage break, etc. I disagree on every point and at every level.
While Easter Sunday leads as the most attended church service, only about half of all professing Christians attended church on Easter. And we are getting younger when we do drop out of church. New church studies show that a large proportion of church-going people totally drop out of church between the ages of 18 and 24, right at the age when we begin to make our first independent decisions, which will influence much of our adult lives. What does this mean for our future if this trend of vacant pews continues in America?
Immigration Reform Pitfalls II: The Question of Family Reunification
Both these concerns are based on the idea that our economy’s ability to absorb immigrants is zero-sum: that there is a set number of jobs available for both immigrants and U.S. citizens, so that if we let an immigrant in through one door, we ought to let one fewer in through another in order to keep the overall number stable. But almost all economists find this logic flawed, because they know that most immigrants—including those who come in through family-sponsored visas, not just those admitted on employer-sponsored visas—are workers, and they tend to do jobs that complement the work of U.S. citizens. They are also consumers, and their purchasing power within the U.S. helps to add to the economy as a whole, creating a larger pie to divide. When an immigrant arrives (sometimes after decades of waiting) through a petition from her sibling, she will almost certainly get a job, contributing to the U.S. economy as a worker, as a consumer, and as a taxpayer.
A Working Class Manual On How To Reach The Middle Classes With The Gospel Of Jesus
Congratulations. You have been saved from a housing scheme background and you have taken the step to enter into cross cultural ministry. Ministering to the middle class is fraught with many pitfalls and dangers and is something not to be entered into lightly. Please take time to read the following.
TMI – How Bible Reading can be Bad for your Spiritual Health
They’ll wonder how a religion who’s founder said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” became obsessed with gun ownership, or worse, slave ownership. They’ll wonder how a religion whose found said “freely you have received, freely give” would have African natives saying to missionaries, “you told us to close our eyes and pray, and when we opened them you took our land”; or how it’s possible for an entire movement to obsess so much about virginity and have so many of its main leaders indicted for sexual abuse and scandals.
What’s In a Name? Church Names and Public Perception
On one hand, when people see a church with a denominational reference in its name, they are over four times more likely to perceive that church as formal than if it has no such reference. Denominational references are also three times more likely to make people see that church as old-fashioned, and almost three times more likely to make them feel it is structured and rigid, than if there is no denominational reference in the name. The lack of a denominational reference is also three times more likely to lead people to feel that the church is open-minded.
On the other hand, including a denominational reference is more than twice as likely to help people feel the church is honest. Excluding a denominational reference is more than twice as likely to give people feelings of uncertainty, and almost five times more likely to lead to thoughts that the church may be trying to hide what they believe.
Ideal or Idol: Avoiding the Family Cult in Church
Perhaps this is why most marriage and family material promoted in churches today comes from the social sciences not scripture. Proponents seek to align their teaching with scripture, but most of it does not originate there. Much of it is helpful and we can use it to strengthen our families. That’s great. But the purpose of this material is not advancing the Kingdom of God and often has little to do with being disciples. In our understandable anxiety about family, we can easily over-emphasizing family in church and get our families out of place. If that happens, it will not be good for our families or for the church.
In the Crosshairs of the Discernment Bloggers
The second lesson is one I am surprised I did not see before: Discernment bloggers often operate by fear. They are intimidating because of their willingness to release information and misinformation, to speculate and fabricate, to share personal details and confidential correspondence and to stretch what doesn’t quite fit. They have the power to destroy a reputation and a history that proves they are willing to do so. Though they immediately discredit any response, they at the same time imply that a non-response is an admission of guilt.
How Many Americans are Evangelical Christians? Born-Again Christians?
As shown in this figure, the percentage of Americans fitting this description rose in the 1970s and 1980s and has somewhat declined since then. Currently Evangelical Christianity in the US is at about its 40-year average, with 23%-24% of Americans affiliating with an Evangelical church or denomination.
Why you hate the sound of your own voice
We grow up getting used to all of our asymmetries as reflected in the mirror—parting our hair to the left, the little mole on our right cheek, that chip in our left incisor. When we see a photo of ourselves, all of these tiny differences don’t match up with what our brain expects to see, so we dislike it.
Likewise, we live our lives hearing and perfecting our bone-conducted, but not air-conducted, voices.
Saudi court said to order criminal to be surgically paralyzed
The Saudi Gazette newspaper reported last week that Khawaher had stabbed a childhood friend in the spine during a dispute a decade ago, paralyzing him from the waist down.
Saudi Arabia applies Islamic sharia law, which allows eye-for-an-eye punishment for crimes but allows victims to pardon convicts in exchange for so-called blood money.