All posts filed under: Opinion

Sex Dolls: Can we talk about this?

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I have to start this article with a disclaimer. I am writing as a Christian, and the topic here is closely related to pornography. I hope we can understand some issues in our modern world, without being drawn into the behavior. If Christians don’t speak about some topics, the conversation will only be one-sided. Some challenges need an answer. There are some things we should be aware of. I will not give references or links to visual and video sites, because they tend to be pornographic. There is a line in a country song “I know what I was feeling, but what was I thinking?” So, what are we thinking? A few years ago, I was in a retail store, and I looked for something to buy, but they didn’t have anything for me. It was a strange place. As I was leaving, I passed a mannequin display, and I heard an angry woman. Another shopper, a woman, told me that something was disgusting. I wasn’t sure what she meant, so I looked around, and …

AI: Should we be afraid?

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“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” (Pogo) Have you heard the news stories about AI or Artificial Intelligence? Some people are worried. Should we be worried? AI can write for us, and soon we will have videos that seem real but are artificial creations of fake people speaking. Imagine if someone that you know sends you a video, with them asking you for money. If the voice and the appearance seem accurate, you might send the money, to help your friend. And then imagine that your actual friend contacts you. So, who got your money? Scenarios like this scare some people, as computer-generated technology becomes more sophisticated. How will we know what is real? I remember, many years ago, one person in my circle of friends was a law student at a university, and he was about to graduate. I remember that he smiled and told us, quietly, that in his entire university career, he had never written a single assignment. I didn’t ask if he wrote any exams. Of course, he …

Ancient Astronauts? Are they in the Bible?

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When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6: 1 to 4) Ancient Astronauts? The Nephilim? Pyramids? The Moa Heads on Easter Island? The Nazca Lines? Ancient Power Generators in the Pyramids? … Search any of these topics, on the Internet, and you will find a huge supply of articles and videos. People love these topics, and I think its popularity is growing. The Nephilim are in the first four verses of Genesis chapter six, in the Bible. “The …

65% of Americans state believing in God is not necessary for morality, survey

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Many years ago, the police union in our city went out on strike, I think legislation has since been passed preventing it from happening again. The union said police would still deal with major criminal offenses, but were refusing to enforce minor things like traffic violations or vandalism. For the first couple of days, everything continued normally. People obeyed the traffic laws. But as time passed it slowly began to break down. People started running red lights if there was no oncoming traffic, and eventually they were doing it even if there was. Even if the light was green, I remember deliberately slowing down as I entered an intersection, because I just didn’t know if someone would be barreling through the red. And I also felt the temptation to run a stop sign or red light, particularly if the oncoming street was clear. As the strike continued, bedlam ensued. People started drag racing each other on the city’s main thoroughfares. You would be driving down the street and suddenly two cars in front of you …

Video: ‘The Monster behind the Gender theory’ — The story of Dr. John Money and the Reimer Twins

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For millennia, people have believed that we have only two sexes, and it is hard-coded into a person’s DNA. So where did the theory come from that sex is only a cultural norm or something that is learned, and that can people can change their sex? The Money story Well, much of that can be attributed to Dr. John Money (1921-2006), a psychologist and sexologist from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Money held the controversial view at the time, that sex was cultural and primarily learned. He believed under proper supervision you could change a person’s sex, provided it was done before the age of two. In the video above, Dr. Jordan Peterson interviews Dr. Miriam Grossman who explains the horrific story of Money’s views and failed experiment to convert one of the Reimer identical boy twins from a boy to a girl. Shortly after birth in 1965 in Winnipeg, Canada, the two boys were diagnosed as having a problem with their urethra and circumcision was recommended. However, because of a malfunction in the equipment, Bruce’s …

No, God Did NOT Prescribe the Use of Cannabis in the Bible

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By Dr Michael Brown Just when you think you’ve heard it all, a pastor calls your radio show asking how to respond to a congregant who claims that cannabis was sanctioned by God in the Torah. That’s right, sanctioned by the Lord Himself, not to be smoked but to be burned in large quantities by the priests of Israel. Far out! To be sure, there was a time in my life when I would have readily believed something like this, since I spent 1969-1971 as a heavy drug-using, hippie rock drummer, consuming everything from pot to LSD and from speed to heroin. Not surprisingly, when my two best friends starting reading the Bible, telling me about the more esoteric passages in the Scriptures – all kinds of visions and dreams and revelations – I asked them in jest, “What were they smoking?” That, in fact, is what I asked the pastor (again, in jest) who called the show: What is this congregant smoking? It turns out that there is an alleged scholarly basis for this …

Are You Enabling? Or Maybe Gas Lighting?

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Enabling? Gas Lighting? What do those words mean? We also have related words like “woke” which is emotional and not thoughtful and rational reactions, and “narcissism.” which is focusing the attention and benefits on ourselves. And here are two more words: “Bud Lite.” You probably know about the arguments, a corporation made a controversial decision about sponsorship. At this time, the company has lost about five billion dollars in value. That’s a billion with a “B.” So, let’s try something impossible. Let’s try to understand without joining the emotional argument. The whole world is taking sides, but let’s try to be clinical. This argument is a symptom of something much larger. If we are honest, modern expressions like enabling and gaslighting describe us, and the way we talk to friends and relatives. I am a Christian, and I know, a lot of organized religion includes manipulation … We should just do what we are told, and we don’t need to think about it. I know a younger man who is interested in politics, and he …

So, They’re Burning Bibles Again?

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Burning books is an old idea. There is one story in the Bible where people burned books “a number of those who had practised magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.” (Acts 19:19) It’s always good to know the whole story. In the Roman Empire city of Ephesus, some new Christians had books with magic incantations. They had probably recited magic words, from their books, for spiritual and magic ceremonies. When they became followers of Jesus, they decided the books were not correct for them. They had a new way to live. So they burned their own, expensive, books of magic. This was probably not something we would call hate speech. They were removing an influence from their own lives, and they were not destroying other people’s books. Recently, a speaker named Ian Haworth was invited to speak at the State University of New York, in Albany. Some angry demonstrators tried …

Virtue Points: How Intersectional are you?

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How do you fit on the Intersectional scale? If you don’t know what that means, you are in the majority. There is an idea in our modern thinking, and it controls almost every political idea. You might agree, or disagree, or you might be neutral, but you should be informed. Intersectionality involves classifying people and through that process, they gain or lose virtue points. Here’s one example: Are you “Right Wing”? Most of us stay away from that label because we know it is dangerous. Most journalists use the label “Right Wing” to label people whose ideas are unpopular with them. But honestly, the same rules apply to “Left Wing” people, in some conversations. If someone asked you to define “Right Wing” thinking, in one brief sentence, could you do it? Most of us could not. “Left Wing” is slightly easier to define. Try this one: Have you repented of your white privilege? If you have children, are they learning “Critical Race Theory” in school? When I was a boy, we learned a song in …

Paganism, the new-old religions

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Have you heard of the new Paganism? The word “Pagan” is the name for the religions that came before Christianity, mostly in the Roman Empire and Northern Europe. The old Norse gods, like Odin and Thor are popular in fiction today; in comics, cartoons, and movies. The old religions died when large numbers of people converted to Christianity, many centuries ago. The expansion of Christianity happened in the Roman Empire until the Western Empire collapsed, shortly after the year 500. After that, missionaries continued to travel and preach in areas that had never been part of the Empire. Saint Patrick preached in Ireland, and two monks, Cyril and Methodius, expanded Greek Christianity into Eastern Europe. They founded the Eastern Orthodox religion, mostly among Slavic people. The world changed when the missionaries travelled. Now, two changes are happening: The number of active Christians is falling in Europe, and New Paganism is growing. Some people claim a reverse trend is happening, we are going back to where we started. This will change the way we live. Social …

Are Religious Debates Fruitful?

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By Dr. Michael Brown For the last 40 years, I have engaged in scores of public debates on religious subjects, sometimes drawing passionate, standing room only crowds. But are the debates actually fruitful? Do they bring more heat than light? Do they really change anyone’s mind? By the end of this week, I will have engaged in two major debates, one in London at a university campus and the other live-streamed from here in the States. The London event was with a Muslim apologist, debating whether Muhammad was prophesied in the Bible. The online event will be with a “Hebrew Israelite” leader, debating who are the legitimate children of Israel. (If you’re on our email list at AskDrBrown.org, you’ll be notified about links where you can watch online.) Certainly, these events stir a lot of interest and discussion. But, to repeat, are they actually fruitful? Do they do any real good? Are these debates more a matter of having polished rhetorical skills than convincing content? And don’t they simply reinforce the beliefs of each opposing …

So much religion. Did we just make it up?

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So, is religion just something that we made up? Are the Atheists correct, do we invent “spiritual” things to make us feel better? Yes. There is a story here, and it’s worth knowing: Jupiter by Jove. Here are some other god words: deity, dios, dieu, Zeus; or some very old names like Deva, Deywos, and Dyo. We also have Jupiter and Jove, and a very old form Dyo Pitr. That last one, from India, is an old form of Jupiter. We also have a related word “day” meaning the time when the sky is lighted. Those god words, in many languages, refer to a God in the sky, or heaven. “Pitr” or “Ju … piter” refers to a father, and we can see how our word “father” is related to “piter.” If you are wondering, our English word “God” comes from an ancient word “gudan” which means to call on, or to pray to. In history, and before history was recorded, tribal people lived on the grasslands of southern Russia, with herds of animals. They …

Believers and Hollywood: Which side are they on?

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Are you woke, or base? I am learning more about these terms, and they are interesting. We could use the older terms “left wing” and “right wing” but I believe most of us could not define those positions, in one sentence. Definitions are emotional, these days. The question really is, what tribe do you belong to? For you, which side is always right? And who is wrong, before they even speak? We are polarized by in our modern society. With polarized sides, and conspiracy theories, what happens if you believe in something spiritual? What side is God on, woke or base? I am a Christian, and for me, “spiritual” means God, and we find our way back to God through someone named Jesus. So, what does God think about Covid vaccines? Is God a Socialist, or a Capitalist? Does God approve of fifteen minute cities? What about climate change or global warming; yes or no? Is there any place for God in Hollywood? And for Americans, Republican or Democrat, and God? Other countries have their …

An Encounter with God is More Powerful than TikTok

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By Dr. Michael Brown

The influence of TikTok on America’s young people has become so pervasive that this past February I asked, “Is China Using TikTok to Control the Minds of Our Children?” As outrageous as that question may sound to some, I only raised it because others had already drawn attention to the disparity between TikTok in China and TikTok in America.

The Warning Signs of Toxic Religion

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By J. Lee Grady

After Elisha watched Elijah ascend into heaven, the prophet went to the city of Jericho and performed his first miracle. The men of that city faced an environmental crisis: Their water was toxic, most likely because of the sulphur and other chemicals that had rained down upon nearby Sodom and Gomorrah years earlier. This poison had made the land barren (see 2 Kings 2:19-22) and it was probably affecting people and animals as well as plant life.

SEX! … Do I have your attention?

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I remember the sexual revolution. I’m old enough that I lived through times when our culture was changing, and people were becoming liberated. I was raised in a religious family, and I talked to my friends, but I didn’t get to participate. My family and church had one word for me: NO! I am grateful now, that I avoided so many dangerous things, but that did not make me a good or moral person. I was just severely restricted. When I started my adult life, we had a pastor who explained morals to us. He didn’t just say the usual “NO!”, he explained the dangers to us. I am still grateful. I am writing about liberation, also known as playing around, promiscuity, or partying and any other words that I missed. My language is not always up-to-date. Basically, it’s describing a pornographic lifestyle. This is an uncomfortable topic, but we need to face it. Young adults in many parts of the world are going through a social revolution, and the results are not good. Depression …

Mindful Self-Compassion? Should I do that?

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Mindful self-compassion: Love yourself, forgive yourself, accept yourself, be aware of yourself … Do you believe in those concepts? I had a visit with some neighbors today. We have a coffee shop close by, and we are supposed to do a health walk and end up at the coffee shop. Winter is on us, and we drove to the destination and walked across the parking lot. Don’t judge us. We are all near retirement age, and the coffee conversation found a topic right away; family. In our fitness/coffee-break group, we have all lived long enough to know that people should get along, and we should be kind to each other. This is not just some feel-good lesson our mothers taught us. We need human kindness to survive. We are old enough to know that. We all had stories. In any family, when a large inheritance is passed out, there may be some terrible stories. If you can’t relate, someday you will. Family problems happen to us all. So, how do we deal with strife and …

God, He or She? And who are you, really?

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Fifteen Minute Cities, vaccine mandates, gender identification, politics … and what did I miss? Have you noticed that we are told who to be? Political correctness and wokeness are dominating our culture, and it is clear who we are supposed to be, in our modern culture. We are being pressured to conform. I have opinions, and so do you, but there is a bigger picture. What is our new orthodox religion? We have a modern culture, and there is pressure to follow the new way. People who do not agree are arguing, and I think our culture is in a civil war. If you want to see this war, consider the Anglicans, the Church of England, in Australia: The Anglican churches, worldwide, are divided and arguing about questions like, Should the Church support same-sex marriages? Is God a man or a woman? The divisions are deep, and this historical Christian denomination could split. We all have opinions about each question, but the bigger problem is; how do we live in our modern culture? Some Anglicans …

Devil Worship? What is that?

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Have you heard the claim that Climate Change is now a religion? Some people believe that. If you want to know more, try an Internet search with those keywords. Also, we have people with strong convictions about sexual orientation and gender transition. Those beliefs can become like the meaning of life for the people involved. Radical ideas can be like a religion. Some critics claim that many of these ideas came together at the recent Grammy Awards: So, have you noticed the talk about religions centered on the person of Satan? For example, there is some interest in “After School Satan Club” meetings for children in public schools. Also, there is a religious organization, that we might call a church, named the “Temple of Satan.” Again, an Internet search with those keywords will produce many discussions and articles. One member was interviewed and claimed that the followers of the Satanic religion were really Atheists. They did not believe in an actual person with that name and image: If we invert the Satanist argument, we could …

All religions lead to the same place: Agree – Disagree

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I was once a member of a team that travelled to a large city as summer missionaries. I was a driver and I drove small groups around, so they could meet with people to talk about religious things. Now, I have a clear memory of people from Asia and the Middle East, who were offended by everything that we did. This Included Muslims and Sikhs, and probably Hindus and Buddhists. I remember thinking; how can I dare to tell them that my religion is better than theirs? What makes me so special? I really wrestled with those questions, and people argued back when we spoke about our favorite religion. Sometimes it’s hard to be a missionary. In our woke culture, where tolerance is the best virtue, most people understand this. We need an answer to this puzzle. So, who has the best religion? Some people believe that the truth is like a wheel, and we are all on the rim somewhere. From where we are positioned, any spoke will lead us to the center, where …

Prove that God exists! Or be an Atheist!

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Do you believe in God? Ok, prove that God exists. And if you can’t prove that God exists, we know that God does not exist, and we should all be Atheists. It’s a common argument: Prove that God exists, or I refuse to believe. It goes back to the Middle Ages, at least, and you still might hear it today, or use it. The speakers in the video try to be reasonable and neutral. For them, it is enough that God is a possibility, but they are sure that we can never prove that God exists. So, do we have two stark choices, believe or be an Atheist? People on both sides want us to make a decision. They want us to fall into one side or the other, so we are coerced to believe something. The truth is, we are all free to decide, and we always have been. Researchers have found that most people are somewhere between believing and not: When we are not forced, we really don’t know, and we are not …

An Unexpected Benefit of Growing Older

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By Dr. Michael Brown

Speaking of that ancient hero named Job, the Bible records that after his time of severe suffering, he “lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation.” That is one of the great blessings that comes with getting older: you get to see your children’s children, and even their children. (If you live to be 140, like Job, you could see even more!)

Choose amputation? What are we born to be?

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Did you know there are people who believe they should be disabled? Do an Internet search with words like “trans” and “disabled” or just “transabled” or the psychological term BIID “Body Integrity Identity Disorder.” Be warned before you do any research. Doctor Phil had a guest who made herself blind. For people who identify as trans-disabled, there is a strong sense that they should remove a limb, paralyze themselves, or destroy their eyesight. One man cut off an arm with a saw, and he felt good about his decision. The blind woman on the Doctor Phil Show believed in what she was doing. Here is one video of a young person in Scotland who chose to amputate a leg: So, what is happening? Why are people like this? The term “trans” is a clue. We have many people, in our modern culture who believe that they should be something, and they need to make a change. There are also people who want to identify as an animal. Two common terms are “Otherkin” and “Furries” and …

What We Have Learned about Censorship and Suppression of Speech in ‘Free’ America

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By Dr. Michael Brown

America is certainly not China or North Korea when it comes to censorship and suppressing free speech. But we are not nearly as free as we thought we were. The events of the last three years have made that strikingly clear, bringing to a head a dangerous pattern that had been developing for years before that.

Why are enrollments in Public Schools continuing to drop?

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The decline in the number of children attending public schools is continuing in 2023, according to reports The trend towards homeschooling or private schools started before COVID dropped, as parents were already becoming concerned about what is taking place in the public schools. But once COVID hit, the exodus quickly ramped up largely due to the erratic behavior of the public school in response to the pandemic. Parents had no certainty of which way school officials would go, who were seemingly changing their minds on a whim. According to data released by the National Center for Education, the number of children in the public school system dropped from 50.8 million in the fall of 2019 to 49.4 million in the fall of 2020, a drop of over one million students in the course of a year. In 1973, there were approximately 13,000 children being homeschooled by American parents. This had grown to five million by 2020 and this trend is continuing. As an example, the number of students being homeschooled in Texas increased five times …

Are you a believer, in 2023? Who is?

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Many years ago, when I was in high school, I learned an important lesson. In most classes, I would chat with other students near me, and we would be like study-buddies for the course. Something happened, I think in a chemistry class, and I was shocked. I was a Christian, and I was struggling to find my maturity, as an adult. It was too easy to conform to “Churchianity” to keep my family and church happy. Before the class started, one of my two Chemistry buddies told us what happened to him. He went to a meeting and someone told him he should follow Jesus, and he said yes. I think that was the previous evening. My friend was a new believer, and he seemed happy with his decision. Our other friend was a bad boy. I will skip the details, but he was into things. I was surprised but happy to hear the news. Before I said anything, our bad friend reached up and pulled on the cord for a window blind. Each blind …

How to be arrested, as a Christian

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Have you ever been arrested? It’s an interesting experience. I know, because it happened to me once. Just once so far. When I was a young man, I travelled with a friend, in Europe, and we wandered too close to the iron curtain in Communist Europe, specifically Czechoslovakia. Today the location is in Slovakia. There was no iron and no curtain, and we missed a small border marker, and wandered onto the wrong side, and a heavily armed military squad came to get us. Yes, I was handcuffed and held in a forested area, and then we were released to the Austrian police. I remember they drove us to their police station in a Volkswagen Beetle patrol car. On the safe side, the Austrians were unhappy with us for disturbing the peace, and for being so dumb. They were going to lock us in a cell overnight, and then someone convinced them to let us go. That really happened, and it taught me a life lesson. I don’t confront officers in uniforms, with guns. Once …

Religious Wars: Could they happen to us?

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Peace love and harmony; isn’t that what it’s all about? I mean religion. Isn’t it supposed to be a force for good? Do you know that people fight about religion? In history, we have had wars and forced conversions and crusades. Some of those religious wars lasted for centuries. But that was history, so we can just read about it in history books, right? We have a problem today; we think we know how the world works, and sometimes we just don’t. For example, religion is still something to fight about, and things could explode anytime. Really. People are still ready to fight about religion, and we should be ready. Here’s an example: This violence happened in the English city of Leicester, recently. The two religious groups that fought were Hindus and Muslims, and the police worked hard to keep things from getting much worse. Actually, there were three religions in this war. Hindus and Muslims fought, after India (mostly Hindu) and Pakistan (mostly Muslim) played in a cricket final. The third religion was a …

Controlling Cults: How do you get out?

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Have you ever been in a cult? Do you know anyone who is, or was? The word “cult” is actually an insult and a label. It is shorthand for ‘stay away from them.’ Using the word “cult” too much is cult behavior. Telling people how to think, without explaining why, is controlling behavior, and that is what cults do. So, let’s find a better description. Who wants to control you? Who is telling you what to think, but not how to think? Are you doing this to yourself? Are you looking for a shortcut to the truth from some authority, with all the answers that you need? Our own laziness is an important part of the mix. Or are you doing this to other people? Is the truth so essential that they just need to agree? If this makes you think about religious “cults”, controlling groups are not always religious, as we understand religion. They are a “cheat” a short and easy route to some profound truth. ‘Someone else did the thinking, and I just …

Kanye (“Ye”), Kyrie, and the Black Hebrew Israelite Elephant in the Room

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By Dr. Michael Brown If you live in a major city of America, then you have probably been well aware of the Black Hebrew Israelites for a few decades. But for many other Americans, their numbers, their influence, and their beliefs are coming as quite a revelation – and a shocking one at that. In the early 1990s, while walking the streets of Manhattan before an outreach service one Saturday afternoon, I heard a loud voice booming through a PA system. When I got closer to the sound, I was surprised to see a small crowd of listeners, all of them Black, listening carefully to the speaker who was standing on a platform, with bodyguards standing on the street in front of him. Their outfits were striking – I remember thinking they looked like a cross between Star Wars and some type of angelic garb – but their words were even more striking. They were quoting the Bible and some other books, even using occasional Hebrew words. At once I realized who they were. They …

Christianized versus truly Christian

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The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics recently released data from its 2021 census that revealed for the first time since this information was first compiled in 1801, Christianity is now in the minority in Britain and Wales, the Christian Post reports. The UK has a population of 67 million and according to its most recent census only 27.5 million or just over 46% identify as Christian. This is down from 33.3 million (59.3%) who declared themselves as Christians in 2011. While the number of people checking off Christianity has declined, the number of people who checked off ‘no religion’ has risen. In 2011, 14.1 million people (25%) said they had ‘no religion,’ and by 2021, this had climbed to 22.2 million (37%). At the same time, the number of people claiming to be Muslims and Hindus has increased since 2011. Just over 3.9 million claimed to be Muslim in 2022, up from 2.7 million in 2011 and the number of people claiming to be Hindus is now sitting at 1 million up nearly 200,000 from …

Splitting churches: That LGBTQ Issue

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A very large split is happening in some churches, these days. You might have heard of the United Methodist Church, a very large denomination with many churches, and their arguments about sexual identity. One of the largest Christian communities in the world is falling apart. This morning I went for a walk with some neighbors and someone remembered me from many years ago. I asked him where we met, and he named my old family church. He still recognized me, after all these years. We talked, and he explained that he lived near us, with his husband. I tried to avoid an awkward pause in the conversation. At our church, a lady that we know was talking to some of us, including a pastor. She talked about her life, and what was happening to her. One issue was that she had recently broken up with her girlfriend. That was awkward. You probably have similar stories. So, with Gay, Trans, LGBTQ or any identification; what should we do? There are other issues, like abortion, and the …

Violence: Are we ready?

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A few years ago, I was driving on a wide and busy road. It was a warm summer evening, and I was caught in a slow stream of traffic. It all seemed normal. On the other side of the wide road, and slightly ahead, I noticed a group of people. I glanced over at them, and it looked like an argument was starting. It looked a bit scary, when I looked closely. One older man was talking to some younger men. The older man was not old, just older than the others. He was probably native. The young men were white, and they looked like skinheads. They had short hair and work boots, and they seemed aggressive. The boots are important in this story. If we could describe a racialized and ugly encounter, like a scene in a movie, this was it. Then the fight started. The lone, older man was shoved, and he fell to the ground, on his hands and knees. The fight continued, and I can still picture one of the young …