Category: Apostasy

Don’t speak about your faith unless you’re asked to says Archbishop of Canterbury

94948440_justin-welby_1-large_transbqqpmmcjbyosm10vwhmrjqtlwagunwpdb2r_teu00cgChristians should not talk to people about their faith unless they are actively invited to do so, the Archbishop of Canterbury has insisted.

The Most Rev Justin Welby, said enthusiastic members of his flock should not to be afraid to talk about Christianity in a more secular society but advised them to listen to others before saying anything and, crucially, to wait until they are asked.

Under Archbishop Welby, the Church of England has recently launched what is being viewed as its biggest evangelism drive in a generation in an effort to reverse decades of decline.  Continue reading…

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Reformation celebrations will be ecumenical and international, says German Protestant leader

image_previewThe 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 should be a profoundly ecumenical, as well as European and international celebration, according to Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD).

“With this clear distinction from all other commemorations of past centuries, we are sending a signal of reconciliation and a new beginning,” Bedford-Strohm said at a 9 May press conference in Berlin announcing events leading up to the anniversary on 31 October 2017.

The commemoration marks the day in 1517 on which Martin Luther is said to have posted his 95 theses denouncing church abuses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.  Continue reading…

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Interfaith Leaders Gather To Promote Peace In The Heart Of The Christian South

572cfc951300001a01380d99Renowned spiritual leaders and activists will convene in Louisville, Kentucky for the 21st annual Festival of Faiths later this month to address strategies for peace in an increasingly violent world.

The interfaith gathering, which is put on every year by the Louisville-based Center for Interfaith Relations, will host figures like Karen Armstrong, Pico Iyer, Vandana Shiva, Linda Sarsour and Jim Wallis for a long weekend of events centered on the theme “Sacred Wisdom: Pathways to Nonviolence.”  Source

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How This Church Is Morphing Into a Spirit-Filled Awakening

worship-service-htbOne of the most hopeful signs is what is beginning to happen in the Church of England, the official church of which Queen Elizabeth II is the titular head. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is a Spirit-filled Christian who speaks in tongues. Steven told me that recently he gave an altar call and prayed for each person who came forward for the baptism of Holy Spirit. This is virtually unheard of.  Source

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Cops bust ‘baby farm’ where you can buy an infant for $1,400

india-babies-1A hospital is persuading women who want to terminate their pregnancies to have the babies so it can sell them for $1,400 each to childless couples.

The shocking “baby farm” has been exposed at the 30-bed Palash Hospital in the Gwailor district of India. Two of the sold babies have since been rescued by police.

Prateek Kumar, from the ASP crime branch, told Times of India: “Three others have been sold to childless couples in Uttar Pradesh and Chattisgarh.”  Source

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Electronic ‘Tattoo’ Transforms Skin Into a Screen

wearable-technology-electronic-skin-tattoo-e-skinResearchers have taken the concept of wearable technology to a whole new level by developing an electronic patch that transforms skin into an LED screen.

The flexible display, created by scientists at the University of Tokyo, is as thin as cling film and is described as electronic skin, or “e-skin.”

“The advent of mobile phones has changed the way we communicate,” said Takao Someya from the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering. “While these communication tools are getting smaller and smaller, they are still discrete devices that we have to carry with us.  Source 

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Shaky Economy Costs General Conference Millions of Dollars

An unsteady global economy shaved 20 percent off the income received by the General Conference last year, and church leaders are reworking budgetary plans as they prayerfully seek to navigate the uncharted waters ahead. While tithe and offerings remained strong worldwide in 2015, exchange-rate losses linked to the fluctuationsadventist-spring-meeting-april12-2 of regional currencies against the U.S. dollar cost the General Conference, the administrative body that oversees the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a total of $19.4 million.

“My fears that were presented in October actually came true,” General Conference treasurer Juan R. Prestol-Puesán said in an interview…

The General Conference would have had $19,441,294 additional income this year if 2015 exchange rates had remained the same as in 2014, according to the treasury report to the Spring Meeting. In another loss, the variability of financial markets cost the General Conference a total of $2.8 million in capital and unrealized gains in 2015. Those investments had represented a gain of $2 million in 2014.  Source

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Protestant South Becoming a New Catholic Stronghold (2013)

st-_dominics_monastery_courtyardDixie Catholics credit the strong Southern sense of community, and dialogue with faithful Protestants, with helping to power the Church’s growth there.

LINDEN, Va. — In the waves of turbulence that rippled throughout the Catholic Church in the 1970s, the nuns of St. Dominic’s Monastery found themselves forced to leave their longtime home in Wisconsin in search of a new one.

The nuns moved to a temporary residence in Washington, D.C., while looking for a permanent setting conducive to the cloistered, contemplative life they sought to lead. It would be more than two decades before they found one. When they did, it was in what may seem a most unlikely place: the rural northeast of Virginia, considered one of the Protestant Bible Belt states of the South.

The story of St. Dominic’s Monastery’s southern move may be the story of U.S. Catholicism. New data shows that some of the fastest-growing dioceses in the country are deep in the U.S. South.

The third-fastest-developing diocese is Atlanta, which saw the number of registered parishioners explode from nearly 322,000 in 2002 to 1 million in 2012 — an increase of more than twofold, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Atlanta also has the largest Eucharistic Congress in the country, with an annual attendance of about 30,000, according to an archdiocesan official. Source

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Megachurch Pastor Preaches About Christians Making the ‘Dangerous Prayer’

a-gathering-of-evangelical-christians-in-washingtonChristians must push themselves to pray the “dangerous prayer” of availability, Pastor James Brown of Crossroads Church said in a recent sermon, telling his congregation that when “God calls you, he equips you.”

Brown, who serves as the executive pastor of discipleship at the Minnesota-based evangelical church, said in a March sermon that Christians need to be more like children in their service to God, pushing themselves to “fearlessly” invite God’s presence into their lives. Source

 

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