August 9, 2011

Why [Christians] create ghettos

Mark Shea, “It’s Hell, not the church.” In this little blog post, Shea explores the mistake we often make by reading Matthew 16:18 too fast. It’s a problematic verse for many (including me). It says, “You are Peter, and upon this petra [rock] I will build my church [ekklesia] and the pyle [gates] hades [hell] shall not katischyo [prevail] against it.” Shea suggests that gates are defensive. The gates are not attacking the church. Unfortunately most believers do not think of the church as a besieging army; we think of the church as the one being besieged, and that this verse promises the church [...]

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July 29, 2011

Muslims, non-Muslims dislike each other: the church should be the 10% to shift this

In “Issue: Muslims, non-Muslims dislike each other” (The Jakarta Post), we learn what most people would think is fairly obvious. The study was conducted by Pew and found that there have been some improvements but negative views of each other persist. Whenever we have a culture that promotes a negative stereotype of someone else, we will eventually have outlier behavior. The outlier behavior may eventually be violent, and the superempowered outlier can have a great destructive capacity. Yet we’ve also read that just 10% of the population can be enough to shift attitudes. The Bible tells us those who are [...]

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July 25, 2011

The Norway Bombing, Swarms, and the Church on Migrants and Multiculturalism

The summary of what we know about the Norway Bombing: it appears to be the work of one man, Anders Breivik, although he was possibly working with other cells. Rather than an Islamic fundamentalist, he appears to be a far-right extremist. The media has labeled him a “Christian fundamentalist” although whether this is a correct tag remains to be scene. Certainly he appears to have had a violent reaction to the growing multiculturalism in Europe–he is not alone in this regard, although his reaction was violent deeds instead of words. This kind of reaction is not to be unexpected. There [...]

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July 22, 2011

Mistaken Monotheism: Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?

It is perhaps one of the more controversial and challenging subjects, and not one which I can claim to be an expert on. But today The Gospel Coalition has up a post called “Mistaken Monotheism,” by Chris Bruno, which takes on the issue in light of a new book by Miroslav Volf, “Allah: A Christian Response.” Bruno thinks that without God’s self-revelation, it is impossible to know him. Fair enough. But he goes on to assert that, if you are worshiping a God other than through the path of Biblical revelation, either God is “unknown” (as he was to the [...]

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July 11, 2011

Relatives of Islamic leaders attracted to Christianity

It’s long been whispered, and this is one of the first public articles I’ve seen on the subject: The Iranian Christian News Agency on “Family members of the Islamic Leaders are attracted to Chrsitainity“: “One of the greatest concerns of the Islamic Republic leaders is the ever-increasing interest of the Iranian population, inside and outside of Iran, to Christianity and this interest has reached the family members of these leaders.” H/T Karen Hatley.

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July 8, 2011

Scenarios on the short-term future of ministry in China

Once, China was fairly open. No longer. If we are watched, how shall we then minister?

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May 2, 2011

Investigating Global Religious Dynamics of Christians and Muslims

Comparing and analyzing the growth rates of Christianity and Islam globally and for each of the six continents.

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February 16, 2011

The Christian divorce rate myth? Devil is in the Definitions 2

Baptist Press has published an article that says Christians don’t in fact divorce at the same rate as the world. Unfortunately in my view the article is a bit misleading. Once you dig into it, what they are really saying is that evangelicals have a lower divorce rate. The key sentence: “couples who regularly practice any combination of serious religious behaviors and attitudes… enjoy significantly lower divorce rates than mere church members, the general public and unbelievers.” (Although if we exclude “mere church members” the difference between “the general public” and “unbelievers” is lost on me.) Since they are differentiating [...]

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January 7, 2011

Egypt’s Muslims attend Coptic Christmas mass as “human shields”

What a wonderfully heartwarming set of articles, at least to me: Egypt’s Muslims attend Coptic Christmas mass, serving as “human shields” (read this article, it’s the one that made my eyes water, from Ahram Online) An Egyptian Blogger’s Account of a vigil in Cairo (NYT) Egyptian Muslims act as “human shields” for Coptic Christmas mass (Washington Post) Egypt’s Muslims support Coptic Christians on religious holiday (CNN)

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April 18, 2010

Africa: a clash of eschatologies is brewing?

A Pew survey shows that in every African country with a considerable Christian population, over 50% expect Jesus to return in their life time. Over 30% of Muslims in Muslim-dominated African countries expect the Caliphate (=golden age of Islamic rule) to be reestablished in their lifetime.

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April 15, 2010

Africa goes to church, the mosque and the witch doctor

http://bit.ly/a2femj - The Pew Forum has a major new study interviewing 25,000 people in 19 sub-Saharan African countries about all aspects of faith and belief: the results are that the overwhelming majority of Africans are committed followers of either Islam or Christianity. Click through for lots of statistics.

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March 22, 2010

Prison ministries: competition between Islam and Christianity?

Muslim gangs imposing sharia law in British prisons. In Religion News Blog. Also mentions forced conversions.

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