BIBLE ENRICHED SPIRITUAL TRUTHS

Monday, 3 February 2020

Buhari: Pastor Andimi’s Faith Should Inspire All Nigerians

President of Nigeria eulogizes Brethren leader executed by Boko Haram, and criticizes terrorist efforts to divide Christians and Muslims in Africa’s most populous state.

Nigerians everywhere, those of belief and those of none, are mourning the death of pastor Lawan Andimi, taken from us by Boko Haram for his refusal to denounce his Christian faith.

I did not know Pastor Andimi personally. Yet Nigerians and I both know him and his church by their works: healing, caring, feeding and educating, particularly in the northeastern regions of my country—in those areas threatened for too long by terrorists. Every day, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN) places itself there bravely where the brotherhood of man is most in need of sustenance.

Pastor Andimi’s ministry was located only 60 miles from the town of Chibok, from where in 2014 the world witnessed the shocking kidnapping of 267 schoolgirls. That even one individual—this time a man of the church—could still be taken by the terror group seven years later might be viewed as evidence the terrorists are fully functional, and undefeated. But it is not.

Since I was first elected to office in 2015, 107 of the Chibok girls have been freed. Today we seek the others. Boko Haram are no longer one, unified threat, but fractured into several rivals. These splinters are themselves degraded: reduced to criminal acts which—nonetheless no less cruel—target smaller and smaller numbers of the innocent. We owe thanks to the Nigerian defense forces, bolstered by our partnership with the British and American militaries, that we are winning this struggle in the field.

But we may not, yet, be completely winning the battle for the truth. Christianity in Nigeria is not—as some seem intent on believing—contracting under pressure, but expanding and numbers about 45 percent of our population today. Nor is it the case that ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/3b2AeVH

John Ortberg on Leave Over Church Volunteer Who Confessed Attraction to Minors

Menlo Church said the senior pastor showed “poor judgment” in allowing the member to work with children and failing to notify other staff.

John Ortberg, popular author and megachurch pastor, betrayed a “bond of trust” by allowing a church volunteer who admitted being attracted to minors to still work with children, according to a statement from the elders at the Bay Area church he leads.

“In July of 2018, a person serving in the Menlo Church community came to John and shared in confidence an unwanted thought pattern of attraction to minors,” the church’s elder said in a statement. “The person assured, to John’s satisfaction, that the person had not acted on the attraction and sought John’s support. John believed the person and provided prayers and referrals for counseling.”

But Ortberg took no steps to bar the person from working with minors, according to the elders. He also did not talk to other staff or church members about the situation.

The church’s statement did not name the third party who brought Ortberg’s actions to the church’s attention. On yesterday, Daniel Lavery, Ortberg’s estranged son, posted a message on Twitter saying he and his wife had reported the pastor.

Lavery said that a church member had confessed having “obsessive sexual feelings about young children” for years and that they had intentionally sought out “unsupervised” positions where they could volunteer with children—including volunteer opportunities that included overnight travel. He also said that the church member told him “John Ortberg had continually encouraged this person in their unsupervised work with children.”

After speaking to the church member, Lavery said he and his wife confronted his parents about the situation. He said that John Ortberg and his wife, Nancy, ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/31k7kMi

Nigerian Christians Marched Sunday to Protest Persecution

RCCG’s Enoch Adeboye participates, President Buhari disputes Christian Association of Nigeria rallies in 28 states.

Having finished his Sunday sermon from Psalm 18 on God as a stronghold who delivers his people from their enemies, Enoch Adeboye then led them to the cemetery.

It was an ironic yet appropriate choice.

Wearing a bright green tuxedo, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Lagos, Nigeria, marched three miles yesterday holding a placard that declared: “All Souls are Precious to God.”

Adeboye and his congregation, one of the largest in the world, answered the call issued by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for a three-day fast to conclude in a prayer walk Sunday. CAN estimates 5 million people marched in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states, according to Testimony Oyewale Onifade, special assistant to CAN president Samson Ayokunle.

Launched on January 29 to protest the beheading of Brethren pastor Lawan Andimi, the chairman of a regional CAN chapter in Adamawa state, by Boko Haram two weeks earlier, the prayer was also a protest at the Nigerian government’s failure to stop the abductions and killings.

Terrorist attacks, as well as clashes between mostly Muslim herdsmen and mostly Christian farmers, resulted in more than 100 deaths in January alone.

“Lord, have mercy on Nigeria, let there be peace and security,” said Adeboye. “God sees all things and knows where the terrorists are hiding.

“We pray that God send his light to Nigeria and expose the evildoers in the country.”

In the perspective of CAN, these reach into the upper levels of government.

“O Lord, in Jesus Name, expose all the government functionaries and security chiefs who have compromised and who are giving vital information to the terrorists, killer herdsmen, and kidnappers in the country,” ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/397M7b9

Americans Are Having Fewer Children. Evangelicals Are No Exception.

Declining fertility rates and environmental crisis challenge our understandings of family, stewardship, and being a good neighbor.

Lily Jones Howard grew up in a church in southern California with a burgeoning children’s and youth ministry. The church held afternoon and evening AWANA clubs and ran separate junior high and high school youth groups. She compares that to the church she and her husband and two children attend now. The median age of members, she guesses, is about 65 or 70. “The pastor has said explicitly that children are the lifeblood of the church,” Howard said. The congregation makes an effort to welcome young families like hers.

In the near future, an increasing number of American evangelicals may find themselves with church experiences like the Howard family’s for one principal reason: evangelicals with children are slowly becoming harder to find.

Americans in general are having fewer children today than they did two generations ago. Spiking after World War II, the fertility rate declined to around two lifetime births per woman in the ‘80s and has hovered there since, according to the Pew Research Center. Evangelicals, however, had maintained higher than average fertility rates until recently, according to University of Oklahoma sociologists Samuel Perry and Cyrus Schleifer.

Perry and Schleifer analyzed data from several decades of the General Social Survey (GSS) and found that, between 1972 and 2016, conservative Protestants went from having six percent more children than mainline Protestants to roughly the same number. Painted in broad strokes, what this means is that evangelicals now seem to be having about the same number of children as anybody else in America.

Demographers, politicians, and pundits are all concerned about head counting as the 2020 US Census approaches on top of a presidential election. ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/36UiJTW

The Good Place Finds Meaning in the End

What Christians might take away from a godless but moral imagining of the afterlife (and after-afterlife).

Heaven is a place
A place where nothing
Nothing ever happens
—Talking Heads, “Heaven”

Everything good must come to an end in order to be meaningful. That’s the message at the center of The Good Place, the afterlife comedy that ended last week after four seasons and 52 hilarious, philosophically enriching episodes.

Whereas Jean-Paul Sartre declared in his play No Exit that “hell is other people,” The Good Place proposed that heaven is other people; the loving friendships of the “Soul Squad” were genuinely salvific for the entirety of humanity. What began as an experiment in hell by the demonic architect Michael (Ted Danson) on four unsuspecting humans—the sinfully spunky Eleanor (Kristen Bell), moral philosophy professor Chidi (William Jackson Harper), aristocratic philanthropist Tahani (Jameela Jamil), and Floridian doofus Jason (Manny Jacinto)—concludes with a poignant and provocative solution to the problem of an eternal afterlife: death itself.

In the penultimate episode, “Patty,” the Soul Squad finally made it to the actual Good Place, only to discover that everyone there was languishing with boredom (there’s always a twist in this show, isn’t there?). So Eleanor offers a solution: They create the option to leave the Good Place through a door which leads to … well, that’s unclear, but most likely a peaceful transition into oblivion. In other words, they propose death as the solution to eternal life. The idea is met with ecstatic cheers by the Good Place residents.

So, instead of Sartre’s “no exit,” the sitcom’s finale, “Whenever You’re Ready,” is more like, “Yes, one exit, please.” ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/2vNGKiX

Christianity’s Influence on World History Is Real, but Easily Overstated

Did the teachings of Jesus launch a sweeping revolution in human consciousness? Maybe, but we need better evidence.

Tom Holland’s Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World is a substantial work that makes a straightforward case. In Holland’s view, the teachings of Jesus constituted an ethical revolution that would gradually transform human consciousness, to the extent that we today find it hard to imagine credible alternative systems. When we see Christians, past or present, behaving in ways we may find abominable, in matters such as war, slavery, colonialism, or patriarchy, our disgusted attitudes must themselves be understood as products of that sweeping revolution. Without the existence of Christianity, it would not occur to us to abhor such things, whoever the perpetrators might be.

Beyond any single policy or attitude, Christianity mattered because it taught respect (or even veneration) for the poor and the oppressed. That implied the historically unprecedented exaltation of humility, forgiveness, and love. Moreover, the faith created the practical urge to offer aid and relief, to assist the poor, and (among other things) to reject infanticide. Christianity is the essential foundation of the liberal West, of democracy, and of notions of human rights. As the book’s jacket copy proclaims, “Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the world.”

Christian, or Western?

These are bold claims, to which I will certainly offer some caveats. What is not debatable is the very high quality of the book as a whole, and its appeal to anyone interested in Christian history. Rather than offering a straightforward narrative, Holland ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/37XaI2e

Saturday, 1 February 2020

One-on-One with Diane Strack on She Loves Out Loud

I believe that hope and healing come through prayer and genuine, healthy relationships—women coming together in sisterhood, helping one another to find peace and a God-confident future.

Ed: Tell me about this movement.

Diane: She Loves Out Loud is a prayer movement led by and for women with the mission of inspiring women across America with hope for their lives. I believe that hope and healing come through prayer and genuine, healthy relationships—women coming together in sisterhood, helping one another to find peace and a God-confident future. We have created She Loves Out Loud to provide the opportunity for women around the country to love and support one another.

Ed: Is there also a specific prayer event?

Diane: Yes. On February 15 we will host a first-of-its-kind national livestream prayer event. The day is meant to encourage “out loud” sisterhood through unconditional love and earnest prayer regardless of color or creed.

Beginning at 11am CST, the event will broadcast seven streams of stories, worship, and ministry of prayer until 3 pm CST. Every woman is invited to attend or host a gathering for the interactive livestream produced on the set of the Life Today studio in Dallas to thousands of churches, pregnancy centers, and small-group gatherings from coast to coast.

Ed: What was the impetus for She Loves Out Loud?

Diane: It was started in the wake of the 2017 Women’s March, when I became burdened for so many women trapped in their anger and bitterness. I was reminded of my late mentor, Vonette Bright, and her words to me to, “Gather the women to pray. They are the only hope for our nation.”

I remembered her encouragement as I watched the angry women parade. I cried over the stories of abuse, and my heart broke at the wall of pain and anger that held back their hope. No one spoke of a way to find peace, and I kept thinking that this cannot be the last word for the women ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/36R1mDE