Christianity
Meanwhile, the growth of the world-wide church surges in the global South. Gina Zurlo, Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, explained today’s facts. Two-thirds of all Christians now live in the Global South. During the lifetime of most those gathered in Bogota, Christians in Africa have grown from 134 million in 1970 to 621 million today, making that continent home to more of world Christianity than any other region. Almost as many Christians are in the continent of Latin America where we met. Pentecostalism drives much of this growth. But the complexity, divisiveness, and conflicts between churches in these regions as well as globally clouds the picture projecting Christianity’s future.
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Previous Avengers movies were about the challenges of building and sustaining and a community. Infinity War is a sobering reminder that even the biggest, strongest communities sometimes face adversity that results in sacrifice, uncertainty and loss. This is the MCU’s equivalent of C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, gathering characters both beloved and new, and throwing them into a brutal endgame. It’s a Good Friday movie, too, putting those left standing at the end into their own version of Gethsemane.
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Some theologians taught that eventually all evil human beings and even Satan himself would be restored to unity with God. Other teachers held that hell was an “intermediate state,” where some souls would be purified and others annihilated.
Stormy Daniels is interviewed by Anderson Cooper. CBSNews/60 MINUTES/via REUTERS
At the time, authors like conservative political activists Tim and Beverly LaHaye and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson acknowledged that porn was a problem that Christians (almost always men but on occasion women) faced. Their writing focused on how pornography harmed marital relationships and personal well-being. At the same time, however, it described how devout Christians may be pornography consumers.
Karenna Gore: When we talk about interfaith dialogue and religions, the traditional way of doing often includes only Abrahamic religions — Islam, Judaism, and Christianity — and certainly that’s a very robust interfaith dialogue, but then when you add the non-Abrahamic traditions of Hinduism and the Indic traditions, and Buddhism and the East Asian traditions, you often have a very different conversation about whether nature itself is a subject.
Worshippers kneel and pray in front of the closed doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City, February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
"Of course we apply, but in reality there must be no applying for permits to come to visit your own places."
British physicist Stephen Hawking delivers a lecture on "The Origin of the Universe" at the Heysel conference hall in Brussels May 20, 2007. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File photo
“What could define God [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God,” Hawking told Diane Sawyer in 2010. “They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible.”
Spiritual bypassing is not exclusive to Christians or white people, but I would argue we are the most guilty collective of practicing and enforcing it. We maintain systems and cultures that coerce all of us to assimilate into the practice of bypassing pain. In our anger-phobia, we shame oppressed people into the compliance of feigning joy. Worse than that, we tell them and ourselves — either simplicity or explicitly — that justice work is a distraction from the gospel message.
After each massacre, guns are defended with religious fervor, as though owning a weapon is akin to owning a Bible. We’re told that the problem in our society isn’t unfettered access to weapons, but a failure by godly people to arm themselves and go out and kill the ungodly people. We’re told we need more “good” people buying guns and perfecting their aim so they can shoot all the “bad” people.
A woman mourns in front of the fence of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
A high school shooting. 17 dead.
Angry white man. Assault rifle.
Broken community. Candle-lit vigils.
Grief. Rage. Hearts. Crosses.
Jesus told his disciples to “take up their cross and follow me” a year before his trial and execution. And his disciples at that time would have heard it very differently from the way we interpret it today. To the disciples, a cross wasn't a symbol of atonement, forgiveness, or forbearance — it was an official mode of execution, by oppressors and occupiers. It was an instrument of terror. Jesus' words to the disciples were not just a warning. They were an exhortation to follow him anyway, in complete defiance of the very worst anyone could possibly do to us.
Dec 16, 2017; Kerns, UT, USA; Maame Biney (1) reacts to winning the A Final of the 500-meter race qualifying her for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team at Utah Olympic Oval. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports
U.S. speedskater Maame Biney, just-turned 18, has a smile that can light up any room, a giggle that has charmed Olympic audiences and a joy that her coaches say has carried her so far in her athletic career at such a young age.
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Based loosely on A.J. Jacobs’ book The Year of Living Biblically, the show centers on Chip, a man who, after losing his best friend and learning that his wife is pregnant, decides to do a sort of “soul-cleanse” by living his life completely by the Bible. Chip, played by Jay R. Ferguson, rather than taking the advice of his priest to live generally by the Bible, chooses instead to live literally by the Bible. With the help of his “God Squad,” Father Gene (Ian Gomez) and Rabbi Gil (David Krumholtz), the grudging support/tolerance of his wife Leslie (Lindsey Kraft), his best friend Vince (Tony Rock), and his boss Ms. Meadows (Camryn Manheim) Chip explores his faith and how to live it out, often to hilarious effect.
Hermits exist in many of the world’s major religious traditions: They are individuals who choose temporary or permanent solitude in remote and isolated locations, such as mountains, caves and deserts. These locations are frequently depicted as sites for revelation and transformation.
Political rhetoric linking the United States with a divine power emerged on a large scale with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. M.R. Watkinson, a Pennsylvania clergyman, encouraged the placement of “In God We Trust” on coins at the war’s outset in order to help the North’s cause. Such language, Watkinson wrote, would “place us openly under the divine protection.”
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Some Minecraft users even “build” their own religious icons. Using blocky “skins” — Minecraft lingo for a character — they create Jesuses, popes, priests, rabbis, angels, and more to populate Minecraft worlds everywhere.
Christ, we thank you for your welcome
that tears walls and borders down,
that gives hope to people fleeing,
that helps churches stand their ground.
For our neighbors, Lord, are asking,
and they’re wondering what we’ll do.
May our churches give them welcome,
and so find we welcome you.
Image via Rebekah Fulton/Sojourners
And this is the America I believe in. No matter how we differ in our beliefs or practices, this country is meant to be a place where all of us feel safe and have the opportunity to thrive. So — despite demeaning rhetoric, stigmatizing policies, and acts of hatred and violence — I have hope, because I choose to see the many ways that people of faith and goodwill are pushing back. I hope that you do, too.
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Pluralism is valuable because Jesus is the sovereign lord of everything — all places, people, religions, and cultures.
Of course, the two political parties are not morally equivalent; it makes a great difference how we vote, as we will have the opportunity to do later this year. The Republican Party’s political sellout to Donald Trump — and the lack of a clear moral alternative by the Democrats many people of faith are excited to support — leaves many of us feeling politically homeless.