September 29th, 2011
Christians face persecution in many countries today, especially North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran. According to some estimates, about 100 million christians face persecution, far more than any other religious group. Right now, two people need our support. Asia Bibi Asia is a christian woman, wife and mother of two children. She has been imprisoned […]
September 28th, 2011
A recent survey of American religion reveals some interesting facts Robert Putnam (Harvard) and David Campbell (Notre Dame) undertook extensive research of religious attitudes in the US, and late last year published the results of their research in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. I haven’t read the book, but I’ve seen an […]
September 27th, 2011
Last weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald carried two opinion pieces on greed, ethics and a “broken” western society that presented a disturbing picture.
September 21st, 2011
Felicity Dale at Simply Church has posted some interesting accounts in Does prayer make a difference? Two groups of christians prayed for non-believers, with very striking results: A church in the US identified 160 homes, and prayed for 80 of them for 90 days. Then they approached all homes with the offer to visit and […]
September 18th, 2011
A month ago I pondered why so many christians appear unwilling to accept the broad consensus of reputable climate scientists that human-induced global warning is a serious threat to the earth. I have now come across some information that suggests that christians are not doing their homework, but are believing things told to them by […]
September 11th, 2011
If you attend a church, here is an interesting exercise. Think about your church’s regular services and its “outreach” activities. Do you try to make your services attractive to outsiders? Are the “outreach” activities held on church property? How many activities (whether evangelism or community service) are located in the community? I want to suggest […]
September 8th, 2011
The church in the western world is losing numbers and influence. Should we christians be worried? Is church as we know it important? And if so, why?
September 3rd, 2011
Last post I looked at some statistics on church attendance, which has been declining in recent years in many countries. This is just a brief aside to reference a post on the Christian CADRE blog suggesting that while churches may be losing numbers, these people are not going over to atheism, at least not in […]
September 1st, 2011
The church as an institution is losing ground in the western world. Most of us are pretty familiar with that. But what is its future? And what is the future of belief in God? There are some interesting statistics on all this.
August 27th, 2011
Not only did Jesus re-interpret many Old Testament passages (see Interpreting the Old Testament), but he sometimes undermined the authority of the Old Testament. This has some interesting implications.
A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.