You are here

Faith

Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers

From an article of the same title by Laurie Goodstein in the NY Times:

Despite their packed megachurches, their political clout and their increasing visibility on the national stage, evangelical Christian leaders are warning one another that their teenagers are abandoning the faith in droves. At an unusual series of leadership meetings in 44 cities this fall, more than 6,000 pastors are hearing dire forecasts from some of the biggest names in the conservative evangelical movement. Their alarm has been stoked by a highly suspect claim that if current trends continue, only 4 percent of teenagers will be "Bible-believing Christians" as adults. That would be a sharp decline compared with 35 percent of the current generation of baby boomers, and before that, 65 percent of the World War II generation. While some critics say the statistics are greatly exaggerated (one evangelical magazine for youth ministers dubbed it "the 4 percent panic attack"), there is widespread consensus among evangelical leaders that they risk losing their teenagers… Genuine alarm can be heard from Christian teenagers and youth pastors, who say they cannot compete against a pervasive culture of cynicism about religion, and the casual "hooking up" approach to sex so pervasive on MTV, on Web sites for teenagers and in hip-hop, rap and rock music. Divorced parents and dysfunctional families also lead some teenagers to avoid church entirely or to drift away. Over and over in interviews, evangelical teenagers said they felt like a tiny, beleaguered minority in their schools and neighborhoods. They said they often felt alone in their struggles to live by their "Biblical values" by avoiding casual sex, risque music and videos, Internet pornography, alcohol and drug." The phenomenon may not be that young evangelicals are abandoning their faith, but that they are abandoning the institutional church, said Lauren Sandler, author of "Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement" (Viking, 2006)… The reality is, when it comes to organizing youth, evangelical Christians are the envy of Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants and Jews, said Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, who specializes in the study of American evangelicals and surveyed teens for his book "Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual lives of American Teenagers" (Oxford, 2005). Mr. Smith said he was skeptical about the 4 percent statistic. He said the figure was from a footnote in a book and was inconsistent with research he had conducted and reviewed, which has found that evangelical teenagers are more likely to remain involved with their faith than are mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews and teenagers of almost every other religion… The 4 percent is cited in the book "The Bridger Generation" by Thom S. Rainer, a Southern Baptist and a former professor of ministry. Mr. Rainer said in an interview that it came from a poll he had commissioned, and that while he thought the methodology was reliable, the poll was 10 years old… Mr. Luce seems weary of criticism that his message is overly alarmist. He said that a current poll by the well-known evangelical pollster George Barna found that 5 percent of teenagers were Bible-believing Christians. Some criticize Mr. Barna's methodology, however, for defining "Bible-believing" so narrowly that it excludes most people who consider themselves Christians.

Tags: 

Vatican official: Pope to loosen restrictions on use of old Latin Mass

From an article of the same title by Victor Simpson of the Associated Press in the Detroit News:

Pope Benedict XVI has decided to loosen restrictions on use of the old Latin Mass, making a major concession to ultraconservatives who split with the Vatican to protest liberalizing reforms, a Vatican official said Wednesday. The pope's intent is to "help overcome the schism and help bring (the ultraconservatives) back to the church,"… The late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the Swiss-based Society of St. Pius X in 1969 in opposition to the reforms of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, particularly allowing Mass to be celebrated in local languages instead of Latin. The Vatican excommunicated Lefebvre in 1988 after he consecrated four bishops without Rome's consent. Benedict has indicated he wants relations with the St. Pius X group to be normalized… The Tridentine Mass, the name of the old Latin Mass, can now only be celebrated with permission of the local bishop. In addition to the use of Latin, the priest faces the altar -- his back to the worshippers -- and there are no lay readers as in the modern Mass.

Tags: 

Iraq's Christians Flee as Extremist Threat Worsens

From an article of the same title by Michael Luo in the NY Times:

BAGHDAD, Oct. 16 - The blackened shells of five cars still sit in front of the Church of the Virgin Mary here, stark reminders of a bomb blast that killed two people after a recent Sunday Mass. In the northern city of Mosul, a priest from the Syriac Orthodox Church was kidnapped last week. His church complied with his captors' demands and put up posters denouncing recent comments made by the pope about Islam, but he was killed anyway. The police found his beheaded body on Wednesday... Christianity took root here near the dawn of the faith 2,000 years ago, making Iraq home to one of the world's oldest Christian communities. The country is rich in biblical significance: scholars believe the Garden of Eden described in Genesis was in Iraq; Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees, a city in Iraq; the city of Nineveh that the prophet Jonah visited after being spit out by a giant fish was in Iraq. Both Chaldean Catholics and Assyrian Christians, the country's largest Christian sects, still pray in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. They have long been a tiny minority amid a sea of Islamic faith. But under Saddam Hussein, Iraq's million or so Christians for the most part coexisted peacefully with Muslims, both the dominant Sunnis and the majority Shiites. But since Mr. Hussein's ouster, their status here has become increasingly uncertain, first because many Muslim Iraqis framed the American-led invasion as a modern crusade against Islam, and second because Christians traditionally run the country's liquor stories, anathema to many religious Muslims. Over the past three and a half years, Christians have been subjected to a steady stream of church bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and threatening letters slipped under their doors. Estimates of the resulting Christian exodus vary from the tens of thousands to more than 100,000, with most heading for Syria, Jordan and Turkey.

Unity discussion takes center stage at Freed-Hardeman

In an article of the same title, Bobby Ross Jr. in The Christian Chronicle reports on speakers from a cappella and instrumental churches discuss "What Will It Take to Be Together Again?":

In a year of high-profile events advocating closer ties between a cappella Churches of Christ and instrumental Christian Churches, speakers from both fellowships again shared the stage Oct. 14. But the purpose this time was not to tout the common beliefs and heritage of two groups that split 100 years ago. Instead, organizers of a "Contemporary Discussion" on unity at Freed-Hardeman University made it clear their focus would be on what still divides the Restoration Movement churches... Part debate, part Bible study, the discussion featured Ralph Gilmore, a Bible professor at Freed-Hardeman, and David Faust, president of Cincinnati Christian University, which is associated with independent Christian Churches... Gilmore begged Faust to "lay aside the instrument" for the sake of unity. But Faust said that would require Christian Church members to give up convictions and freedom in Christ. He likened the request to asking a cappella churches to give up multiple communion cups or Sunday school classes because some congregations object to them. Faust highlighted similarities between the two groups that a 1906 federal census first reported as separate bodies. Both groups - with a combined 2.5 million baptized members in the U.S. - believe that Jesus is Lord, baptize for remission of sins and offer the Lord's Supper each Sunday. "Instrumental music is not the focus of my faith," Faust said. "Christ is." Appealing for unity and a deeper love for lost people, he said, "Often, we are like two lifeguards who get in a fistfight on the beach while a swimmer is drowning." Gilmore agreed that the Bible requires Christian unity. But he said, "There can be no genuine unity without truth." The issue boils down to how one understands God when he's silent about something, Gilmore said. Ephesians 5:19 calls for "singing and making melody in one's heart to the Lord." That verse "tells you where you're supposed to pluck the string - in your heart," Gilmore said. "It's a purely vocal reference." The same logic that allows a piano in worship could lead to doughnuts and coffee in the Lord's Supper, he said. Gilmore said the Bible does allow "expedients," such as songbooks, to help carry out specified actions, so long as the tool does not change the action or "involve swapping something in the category specified with something else."

Evangelicals Ally With Democrats on Environment

Interesting things are happening on the faith/politics front, and the news isn't good for the Republicans. David Kuo is making the rounds (I've seen him on The Colbert Report and Real Time with Bill Maher) promoting his book and its thesis that Christians are disrepected and used by some in the White House. Apparently, some Christians also think that the Republican tent is too big if it is big enough to include gay conservatives ("Some Seek 'Pink Purge' in the GOP", LA Times). Global warming is also coming into the mix. From an article of the same title by Stephanie Simon in the LA Times:

Democratic strategists are joining forces with conservative evangelicals to promote a faith-based campaign on global warming, in an improbable alliance that could boost Democratic hopes of taking control of Congress. At a news conference today, the president of the Christian Coalition and a board member of the National Assn. of Evangelicals - both groups closely tied to the religious right - will announce Call to Action, an effort to make global warming a front-and-center issue over the next three weeks for Christians in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, Colorado and several other states with pitched election campaigns. Through ads on Christian radio, sermons from the pulpit, Bible studies, house parties and a documentary film, "The Great Warming," Christians will be urged to view protecting the environment as a religious and moral issue every bit as urgent as opposing abortion and same-sex marriage. "We're not abandoning our previous positions: We're still pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-morality. But one or two issues can't adequately express the Gospel," said the Rev. Joel Hunter, new president of the Christian Coalition of America. Hunter is one of scores of evangelical leaders who have become convinced - often reluctantly, after months of study - that the planet is facing a crisis and that God expects Christians to act, in part by electing committed environmentalists to office. "I'm trying to make Christians ... look at candidates in a broader way, and look at individuals, not just parties," he said... "The Great Warming" is heavy on science, but it also lays out the biblical case for acting on global warming, starting with God's command to Adam to be a good steward of the Earth. Faith leaders increasingly make a moral argument as well, saying that floods, hurricanes and other effects of global warming will disproportionately affect the poor - whom Christ commanded his followers to help. In the long run, evangelicals leading the Call to Action say they hope, and expect, more Republicans to take up global warming as a priority cause. "Evangelicals are in the best position to change the GOP's mind on this - a better position than any group in America, other than big business," said Cizik, the vice president of governmental affairs for the National Assn. of Evangelicals, which represents 30 million Christians. But evangelicals are not united on the issue. Dissent is so pointed that Cizik did not sign his name to the Call to Action on global warming for fear of embroiling his group in controversy. A small minority of Christians believes that environmental degradation and natural disaster may be a sign of the Second Coming. Many others hold that science has not proved global warming is a crisis - or that God simply puts a higher priority on abortion and same-sex marriage.

Some links:

Pages

Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer