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Clay Stauffer, Special to Nashville Tennessean, USA TODAY NETWORK newsrooms in Tennessee Published 5:00 a.m. CT Jan. 10, 2020 American scholar Sam Pascoe once said that, “Christianity was born in Israel, only to be taken to Greece and morphed into a philosophy.  From there it was taken to Rome and made into an institution of civil power.  Eventually it migrated into Europe where it was developed into a culture.  And later, it was brought to America and made into an entrepreneurial business enterprise.” One…

Once the faith of his youth had faded into the serene agnosticism of his mature years, Charles Darwin found himself amazed that anyone could even wish Christianity to be true. Not, that is, the kindlier bits — “Love thy neighbor” and whatnot — but rather the notion that unbelievers (including relatives and friends) might be tormented in hell forever. It’s a reasonable perplexity, really. And it raises a troubling question of social psychology. It’s comforting to imagine that Christians generally accept the notion of…

Threats have been coming from Iran over the killing of Iranian terrorist, Qasem Soleimani by the U.S. in a drone strike.  Joining Jim for another broadcast on this subject, this time from a prophecy perspective, was Dr. Gary Frazier. Dr. Frazier is a respected speaker and writer on the subject of Bible prophecy.  He is the founder and President of Discovery Missions and the author of numerous books including one we’ve previously discussed, ‘Miracle of Israel’ subtitled, ‘The Shocking, Untold Story of God’s Love…

(Screenshot via Christianity Today) What does Mark Galli, the now retired editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, make of the response to his call for Trump’s removal from office? We ask him. Guests Mark Galli, former editor-in-chief of Christianity Today. (@markgalli) Richard Land, executive editor of The Christian Post. President of the Southern Evangelical Seminary and Bible College. (@ChristianPost) Interview Highlights On how the editorial came about Mark Galli: “We generally don’t comment on the larger political scene in the United States. So I’d been thinking about, ‘Should…

On a gloomy Tuesday morning in April, the Christian activist Shane Claiborne was in the studio of WCPN, Cleveland’s NPR affiliate, waiting to go on air. The overhead lights glinted off his thick-rimmed glasses. The 43-year-old had spent the past five weeks on a national tour, living on a retrofitted school bus, speaking at community centers and churches every night, trying to accelerate regional movements against gun violence. His collaborator, Mike Martin, a Mennonite blacksmith from Colorado, was sitting to his left. “Mass shootings…

People have been upset with Mark Galli before. As the editor in chief of Christianity Today, a prominent evangelical magazine, he has printed some controversial editorials. But the people he irks usually do not include the IT department of his own publication. That is what happened when Mr. Galli published an explosive editorial on Dec. 19 arguing that President Trump should be removed from office. So many readers flocked to read the editorial online that the website crashed, overwhelming those whose job it was…

Listen to Today’s Program JD: I’ve been discussing with our broadcast partners top stories prophetically speaking in 2019. I wanted to give some perspective about handling the prophetic scriptures especially when thinking about current events. DJ: You and I have both heard a lot of prophecy teachers some very good and some not so good and probably too many who try to be sensationalistic. You know when I was a kid I always loved to get connect the dot books for Christmas and you would just…

Baba Vanga’s followers often refer to the mysterious woman as the Balkan Nostradamus due to her supposed prophetic powers. Baba Vanga rose to prominence in the year 2000 when she supposedly predicted the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk. Related articles End of the world claim: Jerusalem third temple fulfils Bible prophecy Asteroid warning: Deep impact predicted for 2069 claims Nostradamus Since then, Baba Vanga is said to have predicted the 9/11 terror attack, the cataclysmic 2004 tsunami and the 2008 election of President…

Fulfillment of biblical prophecies, such as Isaiah’s promised birth of Emmanuel by the “virgin,” isn’t what most Christians think. Fulfillment passages are littered about the first two chapters of “Matthew.” Fulfillment of what exactly? In this post we explore the “fulfillment passages” in the Matthean Infancy Narrative, oldest of all Christmas stories. Hopefully we can clear up some mistaken notions about Biblical prophecy, what fulfillment of prophecy actually means, and related issues. We have been exploring the Infancy Narratives of Matthew 1—2 and Luke…

“After that, I will pour out My spirit on all flesh; Your sons and daughters shall prophesy; Your old men shall dream dreams, And your young men shall see visions.” Joel 3:1 (The Israel Bible™) (Photo: GraphicStock) The signs clearly say, as so many rabbis and experts have confirmed, that we are living in prophetic times preceding the messiah. Indeed, many extraordinary events signal the miraculous times in which we are living. Breaking Israel News looks back on these prophetic moments and suggests five further prophecies…

Often media outlets, it seems, are uninterested in religion — especially Christianity — except when it is connected to scandals or electoral controversies. Thus, we get a steady diet of news about sex abuse cover-ups, politicized preachers and more. Unfortunately, a great deal of this negative coverage is entirely deserved by Christians and their churches. But as Christians reflect on the incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ, it is a good time to remember that Christianity has massively contributed to good in world history…

CLOSE Buy Photo Rev. Bethany Peerbolte, of Birmingham’s First Presbyterian Church, is expecting a full house for their Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  (Photo: JOHN HEIDER | hometownlife.com) Louise Ott is ready to broach tough subjects this Christmas at the dinner table, regardless of whether she is sitting across from a relative who doesn’t share her views. She got started on the often “off-limits” topic — religion — during a “Diversity in Christianity” panel discussion at Birmingham Covington School. “We have to agree that love and acceptance and agreeing to…

Germany’s submarine fleet is doing its job well—for the most part, it goes unnoticed by the world. But you should pay close attention to it. Germany has always excelled at military surprises, and its submarines make it well prepared to do this again. Germany announced in October that it will produce six more Type 212 diesel-electric attack submarines. Four will go to Norway, and two will be made for its own navy, bringing Germany’s total to eight. Italy has budgeted for two more, potentially…

The 83-year-old became head of the Catholic Church in 2013, following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI – a controversial move and the first of its kind in more than 500 years. However, a source close to the Pope claimed in 2013 that he would only serve for seven more years, stating he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor as resign in 2020, treading the path for an ancient prophecy to be fulfilled. Journalist Austen Ivereigh is the former Director for Public Affairs of the…

In the dusty highlands of northern Ethiopia, a team of archaeologists recently uncovered the oldest known Christian church in sub-Saharan Africa, a find that sheds new light on one of the Old World’s most enigmatic kingdoms—and its surprisingly early conversion to Christianity. An international assemblage of scientists discovered the church 30 miles northeast of Aksum, the capital of the Aksumite kingdom, a trading empire that emerged in the first century A.D. and would go on to dominate much of eastern Africa and western Arabia.…

Every Sunday morning during college, Stephen Patterson would drive to a church and deliver a sermon; then he’d go to another church and deliver another sermon; then, one more sermon at one more church. It was during this time in divinity school, while he was delivering these sermons to pay his tuition, that he figured out he didn’t want to be a minister. He wanted to study Christianity, going deeper into history. Which is what he did: he teaches religious and ethical studies at…

CELEBRATING ONE YEAR OF FOX NATION — FOR A LIMITED TIME, SIGN UP AND GET 35% OFF WITH PROMO CODE: CELEBRATE “At Christmas, there’s no more significant spot than this place,” said Fox News host Pete Hegseth, standing at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. “Today, this site… is controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The number of Christians here is dwindling.” In Fox Nation’s new documentary, “Battle for Bethlehem,” Hegseth traveled to the Holy Land to investigate why Christians are leaving the birthplace of Jesus Christ.  He spoke to…

“Religion poisons everything!” claimed new atheist Christopher Hitchens.  Hardly any comment thread on this blog is without someone blaming Christians and Christianity for war, slavery, oppression, sexism, intolerance, or whatever else is evil.  Bring up the value of Lutheran theology and you can count on accusations that Luther is responsible for Hitler and the Holocaust. So how should Christians respond to such criticisms?  Christianity Today has published an article on this subject by Natasha Moore, a researcher at Australia’s Centre for Public Christianity and the…

The Chick-fil-A surrender sends a crushing message to small business and run-of-the-congregation Christians. “Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” – John 12:42-43 Maybe the timid, cultural Christians in corporate Chick-fil-A know something regarding Mayor Pete’s presidential campaign that’s escaped the rest of us. The corporation recently jettisoned its last…

Christianity first arrived in Japan in 1549, but was banned for some 250 years during the Edo period (1603–1868). A look at the history of the faith on the Japanese islands. Statistics from the Agency for Cultural Affairs report that there were 1.9 million Christians in Japan as of December 31, 2017, amounting to 1.5% of the Japanese population, which is 126 million. Christianity first came to Japan in 1549 during an era of turmoil known as the Warring States period (1467–1568). In Kyūshū…

DAVID CLOSSON (FRC DIRECTOR OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW): But real quick, just the point of this is what’s really dangerous with what Pete is doing, he’s not just mistaken about what the Bible says. He’s actually twisting God’s word to advance a political agenda that is antithetical to biblical Christianity. … TONY PERKINS (HOST): They’re not the party of science when it’s inconvenient, when it comes to biology and gender and life. But that’s not where he stops. I mean, he goes…

By Michael Brown, CP Op-Ed Contributor | Thursday, November 14, 2019 YouTube.com / The Trump Prophecy/Screenshot In a recent article, Christian journalist Stephen Strang cited prophecies delivered in 2007 by the late Kim Clement, which pointed to Donald Trump being a two-term president. Are these true prophecies? And if so, how should they influence our voting? Some, of course, do not believe there is such a thing as prophecy at all, especially in our day. Others will dispute the accuracy of Clement’s prophecies, thereby…

“Both have baptized their commercial notoriety and their financial gains in Jesus’ name,” Walton said. “The communion table has become a merch table.” West’s recent album “Jesus Is King” has earned praise in unusual corners of conservative Christianity, but his comments have raised eyebrows over their association with Osteen’s prosperity gospel teachings, the idea that God grants health and wealth to his followers. Some Christians are also questioning whether black hip-hop artists are being used by white evangelical preachers to boost their own brand…

A pair of atheist families are suing a Middle Tennessee school district in federal court, claiming officials there promote Christianity. The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Nashville by the American Civil Liberties Union, claims Smith County school officials engage in unconstitutional practices including school-sponsored prayer during assemblies and Bible distribution during classes. The ACLU filed suit on behalf of plaintiffs Kelly Butler, Jason Carr and Sharona Carr on behalf of their children and names the following defendants: the Smith County Board of Education, Smith…

By Robin Schumacher, Voices Contributor | Tuesday, November 19, 2019 Unsplash/Stefan Kunze Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by reading the various stories chronicled in The Christian Post of people walking away from Christianity. The reasons for their departure have been different, but the result has been the same – a person who now believes the truth claims of the Christian faith are false. I’ve seen myself in many of their stories and have gone through some of the exact same things they have, but…

Dr. George O. Wood, chief executive officer of the Assemblies of God Church and global co-chair of the Empowered21 Spirit-empowered movement (l) and co-chair William Wilson, president of Oral Roberts University (r) lead a prayer session on the Empowered21 Global Congress in Jerusalem, Israel on Wednesday night. | (Photo: The Christian Post/Leonardo Blair) When the Empowered21 Global Congress convenes in Jerusalem, Israel, in spring 2020, one of the main items on the agenda will be how to get every person on the planet to…

But Pew’s survey, published Friday, finds that Americans hold more positive views of religion’s role overall and concerns about it declining. Fifty-five percent say churches and religious organizations do more good than harm in society (compared with 20 percent of people who think it does more harm than good). Similar majorities say religious organizations strengthen morality in society (53 percent), and 50 percent say they bring people together. Many younger Americans aren’t prioritizing church attendance the way their parents or grandparents did, he said,…

Two years after fleeing to the United States, Lakeland resident Junaid Saqib is lobbying American politicians to support the protection of religious minorities in his home country of Pakistan. LAKELAND — Junaid Saqib’s political activities put his life in danger in his native Pakistan. Two years after fleeing to the United States, Saqib is lobbying American politicians to support the protection of religious minorities in Pakistan. Saqib said he and other Christians in his home country faced discrimination, violence and restrictions on holding office.…

To the Editor: Re “Less and Less a Christian Nation,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, Oct. 27): The drop in those who identify as Christians in the United States is not a result of the non-politically correct views of some churches. The fact of the matter is that the mainline churches, which for the most part acquiesced to popular social trends, have had the greatest decrease in church attendance. A 2017 article in The Washington Post speculated that if present trends continue, mainline churches have…

In “Slander,” from her latest collection of essays, What Are We Doing Here?, Marilynne Robinson writes that when she applied for the faculty position at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa where she spent her teaching career until her retirement in 2016, the job description said that candidates should be able to teach the Bible as literature. And so she did—something that I also have the privilege of doing as a professor at Providence College. She notes, though, that this often made…

By Samuel Smith, CP Reporter Young adults attend The Porch, a young adult community founded by Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas. | Watermark Community Church Extensive new research from The Barna Group shows that nearly half of young adults worldwide who have a connection to Christianity feel that the Church can’t answer their questions. Barna, a California-based evangelical research firm, partnered with the leading international evangelical humanitarian organization World Vision to compile “The Connected Generation” study. Published in a research report, the study…

Every year, on the first Sunday of November, churches across America dedicate a time during their services to pray for their Christian brothers and sisters who live in countries where they cannot practice their faith freely. This year, the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church falls on Nov. 3. Religious persecution — particularly against Christians — is at an all-time high. More than 245 million Christians live in countries where they experience high levels of persecution, according to Open Doors. But there…

(RNS) — In a recent study, Pew reported that 26% of Americans now self-identify as religiously unaffiliated, up from 17% just 10 years ago. Millennials are defecting from organized religion at significantly higher rates than older generations and while the number of people who identify as atheists or agnostic has risen slightly, the largest category of leaver is the amorphous “nones.” Put another way, people aren’t leaving faith, but they are actively leaving Christianity. Seemingly every other week there is another story of churches…

Fifty years ago, many observers of American religion assumed that secularization would gradually wash traditional Christianity away. Twenty years ago, Christianity looked surprisingly resilient, and so the smart thinking changed: Maybe there was an American exception to secularizing trends, or maybe a secularized Europe was the exception and the modernity-equals-secularization thesis was altogether wrong. Now the wheel has turned again, and the new consensus is that secularization was actually just delayed, and with the swift 21st-century collapse of Christian affiliation, a more European destination…

Do recent polls really tell the full story here in America? Is it true that Christianity is experiencing a serious, ongoing, numerical decline? Those polls could well be accurate, speaking of a major spiritual crisis in our nation. But there may be a different way to understand what is happening, one that points to separation and refining more than to backsliding and apostasy. First, let’s look at the results of the most recent Pew Research Center poll. As reported on October 19, “The religious…

This is part 4 in a series of articles examining the origins of public education in the United States. Widely recognized as the founding father of America’s “progressive” public education system, John Dewey was a man on an unprecedented religious mission. With more fervor and devotion than many Christian missionaries or Islamic jihadists, he set out to win America over to his religious worldview. Like the collectivists whose shoulders he stood upon, government-controlled education was Dewey’s weapon of choice. And now, more than a…

Saint Malachy was the Archbishop of Armagh, to whom several miracles were attributed to in the 12th century. In 1139, Malachy went to Rome from Ireland to give an account of his affairs, when he reportedly received a strange vision about the future, including the names of 112 future Popes. His predictions are taken seriously by many Christians and according to reports “In 1958, before the Conclave that would elect Pope John XXIII, Cardinal Spellman of New York hired a boat, filled it with sheep…

Photo: SOPA Images/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett One of my favorite speeches in recent history was delivered by Barack Obama at Notre Dame University ten years ago. In it he warned against the particular kind of self-righteousness for which the Christian Right – and some advocates of an equally non-reflective Christian Left – is famed, in its certainty that God’s Will dictates particular political positions that are largely a matter of secular concern. Here’s a sample: [T]he ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily…

Attendees worship at the SafeZone Freedom Rally at Grace Midtown Church in Atlanta, Georgia, on Jan. 28, 2019. | Zachary Zoeller In Real Christianity: How to Be Bold for Christ In a Culture of Darkness, author and pastor Dale Partridge offers a sober, concise and profound reminder of the biblical characteristics and requirements of a Christian and challenges modern-day believers to see how they measure up. “I did not write this to accuse the lukewarm, but to rouse the faithful,” Partridge, a Bible teacher who…

        From the desk of Roy Roden: Every week I will be posting an overview of the teachings of the “basic Training for the Gift of Prophecy course we are doing in Belfast every Wednesday at 6:00pm.     2- The Purpose Of Prophecy – unveiling the gift    Prophecy is a ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is one of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit spoken of in 1 Corinthians 12:10. Lets read this verse together.   “To another the…

By Hannah Wheeler, Voices Contributor | Sunday, October 06, 2019 A small ladies ensemble worship in the Ndebele language; singing “Siyabonga, Jesu” at a church service in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. | Photo: Emma Lown I often find myself scrolling through pictures from last month. My heart is filled with joy as I look at the fellowshipping groups, the sporadic worship and the genuine moments, yet I feel a longing. There are some experiences in life you never forget. Although I only spent one week in…