Days of Noah

Christians Adrift

This is not the faith of our fathers!

Half of Americans who call themselves “Christian” don’t believe Satan exists and fully one-third are confident that Jesus sinned while on Earth, according to a new Barna Group poll.

Another 40 percent say they do not have a responsibility to share their Christian faith with others, and 25 percent “dismiss the idea that the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches,” the organization reports.

Pollster George Barna said the results have huge implications.

“Americans are increasingly comfortable picking and choosing what they deem to be helpful and accurate theological views and have become comfortable discarding the rest of the teachings in the Bible,” he said.

[…]

By a margin of 71 percent to 26 percent adults “noted that they are personally more likely to develop their own set of religious beliefs than to accept a comprehensive set of beliefs taught by a particular church,” the report said.

Nearly two-thirds of “born again Christians” adopted that stance.

Revive us again!

And what are we — what am I — to do about it?

Shall I truly give up in passing the faith along Read it all

Replacing the Irreplaceable

Here’s a piece of a piece at American Thinker:

We can replace almost anything in our lives — human organs, currency and credit, electronic records and documents – but ultimately these things do not define life.

What matters in life is the yearning of the human spirit for goodness and truth and the courage and grit to make that yearning into deeds and words that matter. Men who personify these values, unlike hearts and dollars, are irreplaceable. It is not they who have died: They are immortal. It is rather us who die each time one of these rare few leave this world. We have forgotten, in our busy rush to nowhere, how to replace the irreplaceable.

If they don’t make them like they used to, why not?

And who will?

Next, personalize the matter: “Am I rare or run-of-the-mill? Would I be placed in the irreplaceable category?”

How would you go about replacing the “irreplaceable”?

Who Wants Children?

34th child abandoned under Neb.’s safe-haven law

A 5-year-old boy has been dropped off at an Omaha, Neb., hospital only a day before the state Legislature begins a meeting to change the state’s safe-haven law.

[…]

Nebraska’s safe-haven law was intended to protect unwanted newborns from being abandoned, but unlike similar laws in other states, Nebraska’s doesn’t include an age limit.

The Legislature opens a rare special session Friday afternoon to change the law and add an age limit.

As of Friday, 34 children have been abandoned under the law. Five have been from out of state.

Free birth control.

Easy abortions.

Safe dumping.

Abuse. Neglect. Unkindness.

Yup. Who wants children?

“Without natural affection,” the Bible says.

Congratulations, Mr. Obama

God has chosen to elevate you as President-elect of the United States of America, just as He chose to elevate Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon before you. (And many others, of course.)

May God be exalted in your administration. And in this country as a result of your administration.

May He keep you and your family.

And may God’s people find in Him the grace and renewal they need for the dim times in which we find ourselves…and for the darkening times which hover on the horizon.

Meanwhile, in other news, Israel launches first airstrike on Gaza since June. I wonder if this portends the trend in the Middle East over the next two months, as the Israelis prepare for President Bush’s departure from office.

Oh, and I’m glad I can not expect Mr. McCain’s disappointed legions to resort to riots and street battles and violent protests.

Muslims at the Vatican

Catholics, Muslims open landmark talks at Vatican

Senior Vatican and Islamic scholars launched their first Catholic-Muslim Forum on Tuesday to improve relations between the world’s two largest faiths.

The three-day meeting comes two years after Pope Benedict angered the Muslim world with a speech implying Islam was violent and irrational. In response, 138 Muslim scholars invited Christian churches to a new dialogue to foster mutual respect through a better understanding of each other’s beliefs.

In their manifesto, “A Common Word,” the Muslims argued that both faiths shared the core principles of love of God and neighbor. The talks focus on what this means for the religions and how it can foster harmony between them.

The meeting, including an audience with Pope Benedict, is the group’s third conference with Christians after talks with United States Protestants in July and Anglicans last month.

Jesus is the Word. (See 1 John 1.)

How can Muslims have a common Word with Catholics?

Or with Christians?

In Other Developments…

Here are three items to distract you from the economic wasteland of the week.

First up:

One + One = Two

Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that gay couples have the right to marry, making the state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions through the courts.

The ruling comes just weeks before Californians go to the polls on a historic gay-marriage ballot question, the first time the issue will be put before voters in a state where same-sex couples are legally wed.

[…]

Civil unions and a similar arrangement, known as domestic partnerships, are offered to same-sex couples in Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Oregon, Hawaii, Maine, Washington and the District of Columbia.

Read it all

Above all, love God!