In Times Like These, More People are Going to Church for Help

"Pleas for help — spiritual and financial — are flooding U.S. churches, from tiny congregations to megachurches, as recession woes seep into the pews, a new survey finds."

LifeWay Research: Americans Open to Outreach From Churches

"Despite worries among evangelicals that Americans are set against attending church, most people would attend if invited in the right manner. A recent study by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and LifeWay Research found that 67 percent of Americans say a personal invitation from a family member would be effective in getting them to visit a church. A personal invitation from a friend or neighbor would effectively reach 63 percent. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) are willing to receive information about a local congregation or faith community from a family member, and 56 percent are willing to receive such information from a friend or neighbor."

Southern Baptists Urge Their Members to Evangelize More

"The Southern Baptist Convention, which is launching a new national campaign to bring unbelievers to Jesus, is up against a major obstacle: motivating its own members to evangelize. But it may be the only effective way to reach people, according to a survey of 15,173 people by LifeWay Research, a Christian research firm. The survey found only two ways most people said they were somewhat or very willing to "receive information" about Jesus: 63% would hear it in a 'personal conversation with a family member,' or with a friend or neighbor from the church (56%)."

A Study Bible Wins 'Christian Book of the Year' Award

"The ESV Study Bible has been named the 'Christian Book of the Year' by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, marking the first time the honor has been given to a study Bible. The Bible, which is in the English Standard Version, includes study notes from evangelical Christian scholars and other reference materials. Published by Crossway, it also won in the best Bible category."

Time: 10 Ideas That are Changing the World

Included in this slideshow is an item on "the new Calvinism."

The Guard Who Found Islam

"Terry Holdbrooks stood watch over prisoners at Gitmo. What he saw made him adopt their faith."

Churches Adopting Point-Click Hymnal

"When Joe Christian started planning church services 35 years ago, it meant spending hours flipping through hymnals and copying sheet music. Today, it's point, click, worship. Christian, the music minister at Una Baptist Church in Nashville, is one of more than 12,000 people who have signed up for a new iTunes-like website called LifeWayworship.com. Along with buying recordings of worship songs and hymns, users can create and download sheet music for church bands and choirs. LifeWay officials hope their new site will make life easier for music ministers, while following copyright laws."

Jesus From a Middle Eastern Perspective

"Most scholars recognize that a cultural gap exists between what we read in the gospels and what actually happened in Galilee some 2,000 years ago. Modern exegesis labors to extract meaning from these gospels using well-established methods of interpretation. Every student has to master the Greek text along with the nuances of its syntax and grammar, word choices, and idioms. The problem with this method is that, just as a gap exists between that Greek text and our modern English translations, so too a gap existed long ago between the original stories of Jesus told by Aramaic-speaking Jews and their final write-up in Greek by the evangelists, who understood Middle Eastern culture (though they were writing in Greek). . . ."

Growing African Church Often Splits With Pope

"As Pope Benedict XVI makes his first pilgrimage to the continent this week, the church faces enormous challenges. Yet the number of Catholics has ballooned in the last century from fewer than 2 million to nearly 140 million — making it the most fertile ground in the world for Catholicism. Africa also is producing priests at a higher rate than anyone else, with ordinations rising by nearly 30 percent in 2007, the Vatican reported last month. . ."

Seminaries Face Financial Woes

"Sagging endowments and other shrinking revenue streams are challenging the status quo at the nation's seminaries, most of which aren't cushioned by a link to an endowed university. Among the 175 'free-standing' institutions in the Association of Theological Schools, 39% were 'financially stressed,' with less than a year's worth of spendable assets, a fall 2008 report says. That's up from 26% a year earlier, and the data don't reflect fallout from the stock market crash in the fall."

US Births Break Record; 40 Percent Out-of-Wedlock

". . .Behind the number is both good and bad news. While it shows the U.S. population is more than replacing itself, a healthy trend, the teen birth rate was up for a second year in a row. The birth rate rose slightly for women of all ages, and births to unwed mothers reached an all-time high of about 40 percent, continuing a trend that started years ago. More than three-quarters of these women were 20 or older."

"'For a variety of reasons, it's become more acceptable for women to have babies without a husband,' said Duke University's S. Philip Morgan, a leading fertility researcher. Even happy couples may be living together without getting married, experts say. And more women - especially those in their 30s and 40s - are choosing to have children despite their single status."

The Red Sea Might Save the Dead Sea

"Abundant water from the Red Sea could replenish the shrinking Dead Sea if Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians decide to commission a tunnel north through the Jordanian desert from the Gulf of Aqaba."

Religious Belief Influences End-of-Life Treatment Choices

"Terminally ill cancer patients who drew comfort from religion were far more likely to seek aggressive, life-prolonging care in the week before they died than were less religious patients and far more likely to want doctors to do everything possible to keep them alive, a study has found."

Collection of Offerings in American Churches - Historical Perspectives

"After America ended state support of churches in the early 19th century, the collection of 'tithes and offerings' became a standard feature of Sunday morning worship."

Pope Admits Mistakes in Letter About Holocaust Denier

Pope Benedict is somewhat unique in his willingness to admit mistakes. This is the second time he has done so:

"Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the letter — released in six languages — was 'really unusual and deserving of maximum attention.'"

Boom-Years Borrowing Hits Churches

"Add houses of worship to the list of casualties of the mortgage crisis. Foreclosures and delinquencies for congregations are rising, according to companies that specialize in church mortgages. With credit scarce, church construction sites have gone quiet, holding shells of sanctuaries that were meant to be completed months ago. Congregants have less money to give, and pastors who stretched to buy property in the boom are struggling to hold onto their churches."

Online Bible Atlas that Uses Google Maps

Online Bible Atlas that Uses Google Maps

Scientists Locate 'God Spot' in Human Brain

"Science can't say whether God represents a loving, vengeful or nonexistent being. But researchers have revealed for the first time how such religious beliefs trigger different parts of the brain. Brain scans showed that participants fell back on higher thought patterns when reacting to religious statements, whether trying to figure out God's thoughts and emotions or thinking about metaphorical meaning behind religious teachings. 'That suggests that religion is not a special case of a belief system, but evolved along with other belief and social cognitive abilities,' said Jordan Grafman, a cognitive neuroscientist at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland."

Top 15 Biblical Ways to Acquire a Wife

~ Find an attractive prisoner of war, bring her home, shave her head, trim her nails, and give her new clothes. Then she's yours. (Deuteronomy 21:11-13)

~ Find a prostitute and marry her. (Hosea 1:1-3)

~ Find a man with seven daughters, and impress him by watering his flock. (Moses--Exodus 2:16-21)

~ Purchase a piece of property, and get a woman as part of the deal. (Boaz--Ruth 4:5-10)

~ Go to a party and hide. When the women come out to dance, grab one and carry her off to be your wife. (Benjaminites--Judges 21:19-25)

~ Have God create a wife for you while you sleep. Note: this will cost you. (Adam--Genesis 2:19-24)

~ Agree to work seven years in exchange for a woman's hand in marriage. Get tricked into marrying the wrong woman. Then work another seven years for the woman you wanted to marry in the first place. That's right. Fourteen years of toil for a wife. (Jacob--Genesis 29:15-30)

~ Cut 200 foreskins off of your future father-in-law's enemies and get his daughter for a wife. (David--1 Samuel 18:27)

~ Even if no one is out there, just wander around a bit and you'll definitely find someone. (It's all relative, of course.) (Cain--Genesis 4:16-17)

~ Become the emperor of a huge nation and hold a beauty contest. (Xerxes or Ahasuerus--Esther 2:3-4)

~ When you see someone you like, go home and tell your parents, "I have seen a ... woman; now get her for me." If your parents question your decision, simply say, "Get her for me. She's the one for me." (Samson--Judges 14:1-3)

~ Kill any husband and take HIS wife (Prepare to lose four sons, though).
(David--2 Samuel 11)

~ Wait for your brother to die. Take his widow. (It's not just a good idea; it's the law.) (Onana and Boaz--Deuteronomy or Leviticus, example in Ruth)

~ Don't be so picky. Make up for quality with quantity. (Solomon--1 Kings 11:1-3)

~ A wife?...NOT? (Paul--1 Corinthians 7:32-35)

Most Religious Groups in USA Have Lost Ground, Survey Finds

"When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers. The percentage of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely."

The full report of the the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey is located here.

Blacks, Asians Use Less Hospice Care

"BibleMap.org is developed by the duo at He Lives Ministries (HeLives.com). The motivation for developing the site was simple, create a free Bible atlas which harnesses Google maps."

Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding: Documents and Statements

Collection of "the principal documents and statements available in English that have helped to chart and mark the direction and discussions of Christian-Jewish understanding and relations since the Second World War. Also included ... [are a few] Jewish-Christian-Muslim documents." Provides documents including the "Balfour Declaration" (1917), Roman Catholic statements, Protestant documents, and Jewish-Christian documents such as "The Vatican and the Holocaust, A Preliminary Report" (2000). From Sacred Heart University. (Lii.org)

More Americans Say They Have No Religion

"A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out o of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all. Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey."

Barna Survey Examines Changes in Worldview Among Christians

"A new nationwide survey conducted by The Barna Group among a representative sample of adults explored how many have what might be considered a “biblical worldview.” The report from Barna compared current results to the outcomes from a similar survey the company conducted in 1995, 2000 and 2005."

Study: Religious People Less Anxious

"Research from the University of Toronto found that those who believe in God have less anxiety and stress than those who are not as religious. To test the theory, the university’s assistant professor of psychology Michael Inzlicht conducted two studies in which he hooked participants up to electrodes to test their brain activity. The result proved believers and non-believers have significant differences in their brains."

A Digital Window on the Medieval World

"Thousands of medieval manuscripts have been digitized by libraries around the world. The trick has been finding them. Matthew Fisher, an assistant professor of English at the University of California at Los Angeles, thought up a solution: the Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts, a centralized online archive of holdings around the world."

Academic Freedom, Christian Context

"Academic freedom at religious institutions has always been a vexed and complex subject. Many religious colleges assert that they have academic freedom, while also requiring professors to sign statements of faith in which they subscribe to a certain worldview -- and there is not necessarily a public attempt to reconcile these principles. One evangelical Christian college has tried to change the conversation – reframing limitations on inquiry implied by signing a statement of faith, for instance, as opportunities."

US Muslims: Young, Diverse, Striving

"A 'national portrait' of Muslim Americans, released Monday by Gallup, depicts the youngest and most racially diverse religious community in the country as striving for a secure place in American society and an active role in public life. The report describes a group that has achieved successes and shares much in common with other Americans, yet struggles for a sense of belonging in a country where some citizens harbor post-9/11 suspicions about the Islamic faith. Drawing on data from three distinct Gallup surveys, the report compares Muslim Americans with other religious groups and the general US population, as well as with Muslims in other countries. Muslim Americans, for instance, are among the most highly educated religious groups in the US, second to Jews. In a remarkable finding, 43 percent of Muslim-American women hold a college or postgraduate degree, compared with 29 percent of US women overall. They are as likely as Muslim men to hold professional jobs. The group shows strong employment rates, including 30 percent in professional work and 25 percent self-employed."

Vatican: After Decline, Number of Priests Rises Slowly

"The Vatican says the number of priests worldwide is slowly but steadily rising. The Holy See presented its yearbook filled with statistics to Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday.Since 2000, the number of priests has gone up by several hundred each year. The two decades before that had witnessed a marked decline. The percentage of Catholics worldwide remains stable, at about 17.3%."