the Web Editors 9-30-2013
[The person] that with all [their] heart, ceases from evil and learns to do well, to [them] the grace of the Lord is proclaimed throughout the whole scriptures - Menno Simons  -- Menno Simons + Sign up to receive our quote of the day via e-mail
Stephen Mattson 9-30-2013
Youth concept, Kjpargeter / Shutterstock.com

Expressions like "the world is getting worse and worse" and "we are living during the end times" are commonly thrown around within evangelical circles, and it needs to stop.

Are things really getting worse? Sure, church attendance might be down, fewer people are identifying themselves as 'Christian' on surveys, and the percentage of atheists continues to rise, but that doesn't mean the apocalypse is right around the corner.

Yet, I continually hear pastors and Christian leaders lament these evil times and Depraved Generation. They emotionally and emphatically condemn this fallen world and seemingly fulfill their own false prophecies by promoting a pessimistic outlook of the future of Christianity — simultaneously validating their theories by judging our future of Christianity: the youth.

The common scapegoat for Christianity's current “demise” is often blamed on young people, who are stereotyped as being more liberal, progressive, post-modern, and susceptible to spiritual relativism than ever before. They're the ones who have bought into the lies of the Emergent church, the temptation of the Prosperity Gospel, the sinfulness of our media-saturated world, and have become addicted to entertainment and denied the inerrancy of Scripture.

LaVonne Neff 9-27-2013
Photo Courtesy of LaVonne Neff

Q. What is one of the best ways to look good, feel good, and enjoy a long life?

A. Celebrate! 

Yes, it's counterintuitive. Most Americans are convinced that if only we could eat little enough fat, ingest few enough calories, spend enough sweaty minutes at the gym, and drink exactly 5 ounces of red wine a day, then we might live forever — with enough expensive medical intervention, of course.

How dreary.

Rose Marie Berger 9-27-2013
Violence against women illustration, Ron Zmiri / Shutterstock.com

Considering a move? Think twice if you are female, single, and headed toward any of the states below. According to data recently released by the Violence Policy Center, these are the states that have the highest murder rates of women by men.

...

What’s being used to murder us? Take a guess.

A 2002 study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that although the United States represented only 32 percent of the female population among 25 high-income countries, it accounted for 84 percent of all female firearm homicides.

The study’s lead author, Dr. David Hemenway, concluded that “the difference in female homicide victimization rates between the U.S. and these other industrialized nations is very large and is closely tied to levels of gun ownership. The relationship cannot be explained by differences in urbanization or income inequality.”

Christian Piatt 9-27-2013
Stephen Hawking, by NASA HQ / Flickr.com

Renowned scientist and author of such books as A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking suggested recently that it is conceivable in the future that we may be able to upload the contents of the human brain onto a computer so that the information may, in a sense, become immortalized. He readily conceded, however, that such a task was well beyond our current technological capacity, and he offered some measured words of caution for those who sought to read too much into this potential.

When asked if this meant that there was potential for the mind to live forever through an alternative medium, he was dismissive. Such talk of human immortality, he said (and in particular, the very notion of heaven), was the stuff of fairy tales for people “afraid of the dark.”

Then in the same week, TIME Magazine featured a story about Google on its cover, highlighting a new company it has recently launched called Calico. The new enterprise is perhaps the most ambitious of what Google commonly calls their “moonshot” projects, as its aim is to prolong the human lifespan potential, and perhaps eventually solve the “problem” of death.

All of this was particularly interesting to me in the context of the conversation between Richard Dawkins and Jon Stewart on a recent episode of The Daily Show about whether science or religion was more responsible for hastening humanities apparent self-destruction.

the Web Editors 9-27-2013

Last night, Jim Wallis appeared on "The Ed Show" to discuss why it's imperative to avoid cutting social programs like food stamps that feed millions of poor and hungry in our country. Those pastors who disagree, he says, usually don't know the faces of those directly affected by such cuts. You can watch the segment Jim appeared on here:

 

RNS photo by Sally Morrow

The Christian mission field “is a magnet” for sex abusers, Boz Tchividjian, a Liberty University law professor who investigates abuse said Thursday to a room of journalists.

While comparing evangelicals to Catholics on abuse response, ”I think we are worse,” he said at the Religion Newswriters Association conference. But it’s harder to track.

“Protestants can be very arrogant when pointing to Catholics,”  said Tchividjian, a grandson of evangelist Billy Graham and executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), which has investigated sex abuse allegations.

the Web Editors 9-27-2013
Give us grace, O God, to dare to do the deed which we well know cries to be done. Let us not hesitate because of ease, or the words of [other's] mouths, or our own lives. Mighty causes are calling us--the freedom of women, the training of children, the putting down of hate and murder and poverty--all these and more. But they call with voices that mean work and sacrifice and death. Mercifully grant us, O God the spirit of esther, that we say: I will go unto the King and if I perish, I perish. Amen. -- W.E.B Du Bois
the Web Editors 9-27-2013
"Jesus challenges us to love others as we would love ourselves. True love for God is not complete without true love and compassion for others." - Anissa Danielle Gibbs Anissa Danielle Gibbs, from "Women at the Well" + Sign up to receive our quote of the day via e-mail
the Web Editors 9-27-2013
He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons. - Mark 1:38-39 + Sign up to receive our social justice verse of the day via e-mail