1. Where is the United States in
Prophecy?
Preparing for the coming energy wars - nations begin arms race for control of world's resources
Last summer, as Americans focused on the surge in Iraq, most ignored a military exercise with a potentially more far-reaching impact. In a remote location in the Ural Mountains, Russia, China, and several Central Asian nations gathered for a massive war game, ironically dubbed "Peace Mission 2007." Thousands of troops, armored vehicles, fighter-bombers, and attack helicopters stormed a town in a mock battle that was supposed to simulate fighting a terrorist takeover. Beneath its
anti-terror veneer, Peace Mission 2007 was a classic display of military readiness: When it was over, the troops paraded before their assembled defense chiefs, and the whole event laid the groundwork for a closer military alliance among the participating nations. That such an exercise was held at all might seem shocking. Despite the global war on terrorism, and a steady drumbeat of civil conflicts, no war involving a major power like Russia has occurred in decades, and no external enemy threatens any of the Central Asian nations. But the exercise highlighted an alarming new reality. With much less fanfare than the early days of the Cold War, the world is entering a new arms race, and with it, a dangerous new web of military relationships. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks international armed forces spending, between 1997 and 2006 global military expenditures jumped by nearly 40 percent. Driven mainly by anxiety over oil and natural resources, countries are building their arsenals of conventional weapons at a rate not seen in decades, beefing up their armies and navies, and forging potential new alliances that could divide up the world in unpredictable ways. Much of this new arms spending is concentrated among the world's biggest consumers of resources, which are trying to protect their access to energy, and the biggest producers of resources, which are taking advantage of their new wealth to build up their defenses at a rate that would have been unthinkable for a developing country until recently........
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Global food crisis sparks US survivalist resurgence
So far the threat of a global food crisis has not affected Australia, but there are worrying signs appearing in the United States where some worried locals are beginning to hoard supplies. Two bulk US retailers are rationing some sales of imported rice and that's been enough for some Americans to begin stocking up. It has also rekindled America's survivalist movement. One leading survivalist warning of lean and hungry times ahead is Jim Rawles, a former US intelligence officer and editor of a survivalist blog, who lives in California. Mr Rawles says he thinks the food shortages being seen in the United States could soon become a matter of survival. "I think that families should be prepared for times of crisis, whether it's a man-made disaster or a natural disaster, and I think it's wise and prudent to stock up on food," he said. He says there are thousands of people in the United States stocking up to prepare for the possibility of a food shortage........
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U.S. population to hit 1 billion by 2100
If the USA seems too crowded and its roads too congested now, imagine future generations: The nation's population could more than triple to 1 billion as early as 2100. That's the eye-popping projection that urban and rural planners, gathered today for their annual meeting in Las Vegas, are hearing from a land-use expert. "What do we do now to start preparing for that?" asks Arthur Nelson, co-director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, whose analysis projects that the USA will hit the 1 billion mark sometime between 2100 and 2120. "It's a realistic long-term challenge." The nation currently has almost 304 million people and is the world's third most populous, behind China (1.3 billion) and India (1.1 billion). China passed the 1 billion mark in the early 1980s. Nelson's projection assumes that current fertility rates remain constant but that longevity and immigration will continue to rise. Jeff Soule, director of outreach for the American Planning Association, hopes it will be provocative enough to inspire planners who anticipate development patterns and infrastructure needs to look beyond their lifetimes and localities. "We have to be more aggressive about looking out at the long term," Soule says. "It may get people thinking beyond their jurisdictions. … It's clear we have to think about such issues as food, water and basic transportation infrastructure.".......
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What will America look like in 17 years? - A fictional scenario
Think back to January 1991: The Web, e-mail, cellphones -- all virtually unknown. The three networks still mattered. The Soviet Union still existed. Downtown Bethesda was barely worthy of the name. There was no Dulles Town Center, no Verizon Center, no Green Line. The Redskins played at RFK. A lot can change in 17 years. On the other hand, the Washington area road system was largely identical to what it is today. Madonna was already Madonna. The Wizards -- okay, the Bullets -- were already cursed. We had long since passed Orwell's dystopia date but hadn't yet partied like it was 1999. It hadn't yet occurred to us to panic about a Y2K disaster. So, looking 17 years into the future is a daunting task. We studied reams of reports on the region's future, convened two panels of experts on everything from shopping to energy policy, and we found unanimity on only one point: In 2025, the haves will have more. The have-nots won't. As for everything else about the next phase of history, we reached enough consensus to spin out two separate, even conflicting, fictional scenarios -- views of life as it might be 17 years hence from the perspective of two Washington area families, one thriving and the other struggling........
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2. Israel - God's Timepiece
Intelligence chief: Terror groups planning massive Independence Day attack
Military Intelligence Chief Major-General Amos Yadlin warned the cabinet Tuesday of terror organizations seeking to carry out a major terror attack during Independence Day. The Israel Defense Forces, he said, "has intelligence indicating terrorists might try to mimic the Passover attack, including the possible abductions of IDF soldiers." On the eve of the holiday, a Palestinian terror cell detonated a car bomb near the Kerem Shalom crossing, in a failed infiltration attempt. Thirteen IDF soldiers were wounded in the attack. Yadlin briefed the cabinet on the situation in the Gaza Strip at the request of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Hamas, he told the ministers "wants to break the blockade on Gaza and since Egypt is determined to stop that from happening on its side, Hamas will try to carry out another attack similar to the one on Kerem Shalom."..........
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Israel's military shows off unmanned, armed patrol vehicle
Israel's newest "soldier" can see at night, never nods off on sentry duty and can carry 660 pounds without complaining. The Guardium, a remote-controlled, unmanned vehicle commissioned by the Israeli military and shown to The Associated Press on Monday, is among the first such machines to be ready for the battlefield. The four-wheeled vehicle is designed to replace human soldiers in dangerous roles, and sometimes tedious missions, cutting casualties. Like the pilotless drones that have become a mainstay of air forces in Israel, the U.S. and elsewhere, the Guardium is operated from a command room far from the front line. It can carry cameras, night-vision equipment and sensors, as well as weapons like machine guns.
Following preprogrammed routes, it can navigate alone on patrol along a barrier fence or make its way through a city
- the vehicle knows how to deal with intersections, traffic and road markings. Relying on cameras that scan 360 degrees at all times, the vehicle's sensors send alerts of anything suspicious to the remote operator, who can take control at any time. The Guardium never mentally wanders or falls asleep during mind-numbing guard or patrol missions in dangerous war zones. Robots like this are potentially the future of ground warfare according to John Pike, director of the Virginia-based military think tank Globalsecurity.org..........
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The Shift Toward an Israeli-Syrian Agreement
The Middle East, already monstrously complex, grew more complex last week. First, there were strong indications that both Israel and Syria were prepared to engage in discussions on peace. That alone is startling enough. But with the indicators arising in the same week that the United States decided to reveal that the purpose behind Israel’s raid on Syria in September 2007 was to destroy a North Korean-supplied nuclear reactor, the situation becomes even more baffling. But before we dive into the what-will-be, let us first explain how truly bizarre things have gotten. On April 8 we wrote about how a number of seemingly unconnected events were piecing themselves into a pattern that might indicate an imminent war, a sequel to the summer 2006 Lebanon conflict. This mystery in the Middle East has since matured greatly, but in an unexpected direction. Israeli-Syrian peace talks
- serious Israeli-Syrian peace talks - are occurring..............read
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Hizbollah builds up covert army for a new assault against Israel
An Observer investigation has discovered that this covert organisation is quietly but steadily replacing its dead and redoubling its recruitment efforts in anticipation of a new, and even more brutal, conflict. Hizbollah has embarked on a major expansion of its fighting capability and is now sending hundreds, if not thousands, of young men into intensive training camps in Lebanon, Syria and Iran to ready itself for war with Israel. 'It's not a matter of if,' says one fighter. 'It's a matter of when Sayed Hasan Nasrallah [Hizbollah chief] commands us.'But what is becoming more obvious, even as Hizbollah tries to hide it, is that the group has embarked on an unprecedented build-up of men, equipment and bunker-building in preparation for the war that almost everyone - Lebanese and Israeli - considers inevitable. 'The villages in the south are empty of men,' said one international official. 'They are all gone, training in Bekaa, Syria and Iran.' A trip by The Observer through villages in the Hizbollah heartland confirmed a conspicuous lack of fighting-age men. Visible were several new martyr posters, but unlike the traditional ones they portrayed anonymous, fresh-faced youngsters without military garb. According to locals, these are boys who have been killed accidentally in the latest wave of training in Iran.
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4.
Gog/Magog War
Russia's De-Facto State Religion labels Protestant heretics
Former communist Russia now upholds freedom of religion on paper, but practices a different policy in real life. Reports indicate that religious freedom is being squashed under President Vladimir V. Putin, whose government has in a sense tacitly endorsed the Russian Orthodox Church as the official state religion. Putin frequently appears with the Orthodox head, Patriarch Aleksei II, on television. Other Christian denominations, however, are suppressed – proselytizing by Protestants is all but banned and harassment of Protestant worshippers is meant to discourage adherents, according to the New York Times. Protestant groups are linked to the United States and the West, groups that both Putin and Aleksei often denounce in their effort to restore Russia’s power that was lost after the dissolve of the Soviet Union. In Moscow, the city’s chief Russian Orthodox priest gave a sermon last month on local television with the theme of Protestant heretics. “We deplore those who are led astray — those Baptists, evangelicals, Pentecostals and many others who cut Christ’s robes like bandits, who are like the soldiers who crucified Christ, who ripped apart Christ’s holy coat,” declared the priest, the Rev. Aleksei D. Zorin, according to the New York Times. Protestant churches are required by law to register with the government if they do anything
other than pray in an apartment. But even when the churches register, the government usually finds fault with their paperwork and reject their application to be a legal body of worshippers “They have made us into lepers to scare people away,” said the Rev. Vladimir Pakhomov, minister of a Methodist Church in Russia. “There is this climate that you can feel with your every cell: ‘It’s not ours, it’s American, it’s alien; since it’s alien we cannot expect anything good from it.’ It’s ignorance, all around.”.......
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Tanks, Rockets Roll Across Red Square in Soviet Parade Revival
More than 100 tanks, rocket launchers and armored vehicles, flanked by 8,000 soldiers, rattled across the tarmac, while sorties of jet fighters ripped through the sky as army generals saluted below. The display wasn't in communist North Korea or China. It was a practice for a May 9 parade of Russian military hardware on Moscow's Red Square, the first since the Soviet era. President Vladimir Putin has called the end of the Soviet Union a ``catastrophe,'' and when the army crunches the cobblestones in front of the Kremlin next month Muscovites will get another reminder of his efforts to restore Russian power and its symbols. Putin has endorsed a history book lauding Stalin and won popularity by facing up to the West with Cold War-style rhetoric. The event will mark Victory Day, commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. This year, it arrives two days after Putin hands over the presidency to chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev after eight years........
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5.
Apostate Christianity
Top evangelical theologian leaves Anglican Church of Canada over it's "poisonous liberalism"
One of the world's most famous evangelical theologians quit the Anglican Church of Canada this week because he believes many of its bishops are "arguably heretical" for adhering to "poisonous liberalism." James (J.I.) Packer, whom Time magazine recently named as one of the planet's 25 most influential evangelicals, said he hesitated before using the harsh terms to describe the Anglican bishops, but believed he must do so in the name of truth. Vancouver-based Packer, who has sold more than four million copies of his many books, said he and 10 other B.C. Anglican clergy left the national denomination this week to operate under the authority of a South American Anglican archbishop because they felt they were being "starved out and worn down." Packer, 81, said he can no longer serve under Vancouver-area Bishop Michael Ingham, who in 2002 sanctioned a diocesan vote that eventually permitted the blessing of same-sex couples at eight out of 67 parishes. "He is a bishop who appears heretical," Packer said, comparing Ingham to high-profile progressive U.S. Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong and Scottish Episcopal Church Bishop Richard Holloway. Packer is a long-time member of St. John's Shaughnessy Anglican Church in Vancouver, which in February left the 640,000-member Anglican Church of Canada to join with 14 other congregations from across the nation to operate under the authority of the South American prelate. Known for the way he does not sugarcoat his conservative Christian beliefs despite his soft-spoken, gracious demeanour, Packer said the Bible is the "absolute" authority on divine truth, which clearly describes homosexuality as a grave sin. Opening his English Standard Version of the Bible, of which he was chief editor, Packer read out passages from 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, in which the apostle Paul compares "men who lie with men" to drunkards, thieves, slanderers and adulterers, none of whom will enter the kingdom of heaven. "That's a very solemn apostolic warning," said Packer..........
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United Methodists Engage in Transgender Talks
Hundreds of United Methodists have begun looking over some 1,500 petitions that have been proposed by those seeking change in church policies and structures, among other things, during the church's quadrennial gathering. Much of the media spotlight, however, has fallen on two submitted petitions aimed at changing the United Methodist Church's current position on homosexuality. The church body holds that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. One petition would state that homosexuality is a subject about which Christians disagree and the other would define marriage as the union of two loving adults. To support gay and transgender church members, young Methodists from the Mosaic Youth Network are holding a 24-hour "drumming and rally," which began Friday at noon, outside the Fort Worth Conference Center in Texas, where the United Methodist General Conference is taking place. Recent General Conferences have seen protests by gay-rights advocates, some of whom were arrested for disrupting proceedings. Debates on whether gay Christians can be ordained as clergy have gone on for decades in the denomination and most recently, controversy has erupted over transgendered persons. The Rev. Drew Phoenix, pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church in Baltimore, sparked debate when the transgender minister was allowed last year to remain pastor of the church. Phoenix, who previously led the church as the Rev. Ann Gordon, underwent surgery and hormone therapy to become male.........
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Pagans find a welcome home among many Quakers
Kevin-Douglas Olive is part of a small but growing movement of Quakers who also identify as pagan -- a trend that may or may not exist in other Christian traditions, but certainly not in such an organized, public fashion. Across the board, the number of Quakers is dwindling, to roughly 100,000 in the U.S. But if Quakerism continues to catch on among the estimated half million pagans in the U.S., those who embrace both traditions predict that could reverse the Quakers' downward trend. Still, some Quakers worry about losing their own traditions through the process of accepting new ones. In the last decade, this dual faith has sprung up around the country, including Quaker-pagan gatherings, seminars, an extensive presence on the Internet, and even explicitly Quaker-pagan congregations. There may be only several hundred Quaker pagans, but among American Quakers, their presence can be distinctly felt. "It seems that now, in most liberal meetings at least, you can always find a few members that identify as pagan," says Stasa Morgan-Appel of Ann Arbor, Mich., who has facilitated a Quaker pagan interest group since 2002.
Liberal Quakers are less tied to the Christianity and instead hold established Quaker practices, such as unprogrammed pastor-less meetings, as the basis of their faith. Because of that flexibility, many liberal Quakers no longer see Jesus as divine, and some don't believe in God at all..........
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6.
The Rise of Islam
Rising Euro-Muslim Tensions
Radicalized Islam places little value on the individual, while holding up for supreme value the interests of the group, particularly their view of the group called Islam. And it is this aggressive, assertive insistence by radicalized Muslims in the West to subordinate our inherent rights to their collective demands that slowly and more or less quietly is forcing Westerners to take sides in the radicals' demands. A recent example of such intimidation was reported in The Washington Times Monday: Muneer Fareed, head of the Islamic Society of North America, is "demanding" that Sen. John McCain stop using the word "Islamic" to describe terrorists who are radical Islamists. He insists that McCain (and all others) just call Islamic terrorists "criminals." "That is more acceptable to the Muslim community," Fareed said. McCain, being as tough as nails, has said he has no intention of submitting to Fareed's demand and will continue to use "Islamic" to describe Islamic terrorists. But it will be interesting to see what the two Democratic candidates for president choose to do about this demand. Meanwhile, in Canada, Mark Steyn awaits trial before the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal for the crime of committing hate speech by writing a book and a magazine article that warned against the dangers of Islam overwhelming Europe (No. 1 best-seller in Canada; New York Times best-seller in the United States)..........
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7. Increase in Knowledge/New Technologies
Return To Planet Of The Apes? Scientists look to breeding apes with humans
A leading scientist has warned a new species of "humanzee," created from breeding apes with humans, could become a reality unless the government acts to stop scientists experimenting.
In an interview with The Scotsman, Dr Calum MacKellar, director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, warned the controversial draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill did not prevent human sperm being inseminated into animals. He said if a female chimpanzee was inseminated with human sperm the two species would be closely enough related that a hybrid could be born. He said scientists could possibly try to develop the new species to fill the demand for organ donors. Leading scientists say there is no reason why the two species could not breed, although they question why anyone would want to try such a technique. Dr MacKellar said he feared the consequences if scientists made a concerted effort to cross humans with chimpanzees. He said: "Nobody knows what they would get if they tried hard enough. The insemination of animals with human sperm should be prohibited. "The Human Fertilisation and Embryo Bill prohibits the placement of animal sperm into a woman The reverse is not prohibited. It's not even mentioned. This should not be the case." He said if the process was not banned, scientists would be "very likely" to try it, and it would be likely humans and chimps could successfully reproduce. "If you put human sperm into a frog it would probably create an embryo, but it probably wouldn't go very far," he said. "But if you do it with a non-human primate it's not beyond the realms of possibility that it could be born alive." Dr MacKellar said the resulting creature could raise ethical dilemmas, such as whether it would be treated as human or animal, and what rights it would have...........
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Newborns' DNA targeted for state research, profiling
The state of Minnesota has advanced a plan to own the DNA of newborns, preserving it in a warehouse for use in genetic research, experimentation, manipulation, and profiling, according to an advocacy organization seeking to protect the privacy of that individual information. "Citizen DNA is citizen property. The government should be required to ask, not allowed to take," said Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care, a Minnesota-based organization familiar with the progress in that state. "If this bill becomes law, each year 73,000 newborn citizens will not be protected by the state genetic privacy law. The state will take their DNA and unless the parents figure it out, the government will keep it," she said. "Children grow up. Eventually, every citizen will have their DNA owned by state government and available for government to engage in genetic research, experimentation, manipulation, and profiling," she warned. "What good is the state genetic privacy law if government warehousing and analysis of every child's DNA from birth is exempt from its informed consent protections?"
"We now are considered guinea pigs, as opposed to human beings with rights," she said, warning such DNA databases could spark the next wave of demands for eugenics, the concept of improving the human race through the control of various inherited traits. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, advocated eugenics to cull people she considered unfit from the population.
In 1921, she said eugenics is "the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems," and she later lamented "the ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all." Minnesota already has stockpiled the DNA of more than 780,000 Minnesota children, and already has subjected the DNA of 42,210 children to research without their consent or knowledge, Brase told WND..
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8. Christian Worldview/Issues
Christian Ministry Fined $23,000 in Gay Discrimination Case - employees forced to attend a homosexual oriented “human rights training program"
One of Canada’s largest Christian ministries dedicated to caring for the disabled was fined $23,000 recently by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario for allegedly discriminating against a former homosexual employee. Connie Heintz claimed discrimination against Christian Horizons after she said she was “subjected to a poisoned work environment” and pressured into quitting her job after she entered a homosexual relationship – which was in violation of her work contract back in 2000. In line with its Christian foundation and principles, the ministry requires that all its employees sign “morality statements” vowing to abstain from immoral behavior, including pornography, pre-marital, extra-marital, and homosexual activity as a condition of employment. In a recently made public ruling, Michael Gottheil, the single adjudicator representing the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, ruled against Christian Horizons, ordering the organization to pay Heintz $23,000 in fines plus two years wages and benefits. Gottheil also ordered that the organization abandon its Christian principles barring homosexual behavior and issued mandates that it begin requiring all employees to attend a homosexual oriented “human rights training program.” The Family Research Council, criticized the recent ruling as yet another attack in the worldwide effort to stamp out Christianity. “It sounds unfair, yet this is the same rationale that's fueling the U.S. Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) debate. ENDA would mandate employer tolerance of all forms of sexual orientation in hiring, firing, promotion, and many Christian-oriented businesses (such as bookstores and radio stations) may not be protected by the bill's limited religious exemption,” the FRC said in a statement. John Jalsevac, of LifeSiteNews.com, also wrote incredulously of the ruling in a column. "It is unreasonable for any tribunal to make a decision which assumes that faith and practice can be severed and in this case the capacity for practice in the type of ministry that Christian Horizons exhibits is dependent on a shared faith commitment amongst its staff.".......
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Christian Broadcaster Reaching Unprecedented Numbers of Iranian Youth
As young people in Iran find themselves trapped between rising political instability, the harsh systems of Islamic Sharia laws that increasingly govern and control their lives, as well as arrests and "public security” crackdowns, a Christian satellite station is providing them with rest and winning their hearts for the Lord. SAT-7, a Middle Eastern Christian satellite station, says it has reached unprecedented numbers of young people in the region with its 24-hour SAT-7 PARS Farsi language broadcasts. Many viewers are testifying of the station’s broadcasts, which have become their sole source for Christian teaching and guidance in their daily lives, the staff explained. "The young people seem to be drawn either toward a completely secular view of things or to sort of a negative and hopeless look. In between that, people are thirsty, and they are watching SAT-7 PARS. We're getting tremendous responses from people who are coming to know the Lord, who are so appreciative of the programs that are training them,” the SAT-7 staff said, according to the Mission News
Network. Unprecedented ratings and a record number of responses from new viewers seeking to know how they can become followers of Christ, the staff explained, prompted the station to hire new counselors and move into a bigger office........
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Comparison study of American/European religious practices
When compared to people living in Europe’s most Christian-populated nations, Americans are the most prayerful and most likely to be connected to the Bible, according to a new study released on Monday. Three-quarters of American respondents said they had read a phrase from the Bible in the past 12 months, found the poll conducted by GFK-Eurisko research group. In comparison, only 20 to 38 percent of respondents from the other eight countries surveyed – Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Russia, Italy, Spain and Poland – replied they had read from the Bible in the past year. Among the countries with the lowest Bible reading rate were Spain (20 percent), France (21 percent), Italy (27 percent), and Germany (28 percent). Similar results were found when respondents were asked if they had read a book with a religious theme in the past 12 months. More than half of Americans (58 percent) responded affirmatively, while Polish came in second with 50 percent. Other countries have between 22 and 35 percent. In all countries, the majority of respondents said they believe the Bible was the direct word of God or inspired by God. But Germany and the Netherlands had the highest percentage of respondents that did not believe the Bible was divinely inspired, rather they consider it “an ancient book made up of legends, historical facts and teachings written by man.” Nearly all Americans (93 percent) said they had a Bible at home, compared to the French who were the least likely to have a Bible at home (48 percent).
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Christian History Being Erased - The Last Church Standing in North Cyprus
One lone church struggles to survive in a land where hundreds have been damaged or destroyed. But this is no ordinary land; it is the very ground where Apostle Paul took his first missionary journey to proclaim salvation through Jesus Christ to the Roman Empire. Now 2,000 years later, the small Mediterranean island of Cyprus is divided into two with the northern third occupied by Turkey. In the span of three decades under Turkish control, more than 530 churches and monasteries have been pillaged, vandalized, or destroyed in the northern area, according to The Republic of Cyprus. Since its 1974 invasion, Turkey has controlled northern Cyprus which it calls the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.” No international nation has ever recognized this entity except for Turkey. The United States has only recognized the Republic of Cyprus. Starting in 2003, Greek-Cypriots again were allowed to cross the border between the Republic of Cyprus and the area under Turkish control. It was around this time that scholars and photographers were able to visit northern Cyprus to document the destruction of historic churches and artifacts. St. Mamas Church in the northwest town of Morphou is the only notable church that is known to be semi-active in Turkey-controlled Cyprus, according to the New York-based Hellenic Times and the Embassy of The Republic of Cyprus in the United States. Turkish officials who rule the area reportedly give permission twice a year for remaining residents – who were there before Turkish occupation – to worship in the church. But other churches did not fare so well. About 133 churches, chapels and monasteries have been converted to military storage facilities, stables and night-clubs. Seventy-eight churches have been converted to mosques, and dozens more are used as military facilities, medical storage facilities, or stockyards or hay barns, according to statistics from The Republic of Cyprus..
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Study: Churches Slow to Adopt New Technology
New research shows that a majority of churches use some type of emerging technology in their services, but the pace of technology adoption has slowed in recent years. Although 65 percent of Protestant churches now have a large screen projection system, that number is just slightly higher than in 2005 when 62 percent had such a system, according to The Barna Group. The Barna study, released Monday, found that churches that say they are theologically conservative are more likely to have large screens (68 percent) than churches described by their pastor as having "liberal theology" (43 percent). Over half the churches that have a big screen use it to show movie clips or other video segments during their services and events. Along with the slower adoption of large screens, sending e-mail blasts have also not prevailed in the last couple of years. Fifty-six percent of Protestant churches send email blasts to large groups or to the entire church body but that number has remained the same since 2005. More churches have created an Internet presence since 2005. The latest study showed that 62 percent of Protestant churches have a church Web site, up from 57 percent in 2005. In 2000, only 34 percent had a Web site. Larger churches are more likely to have an Internet presence. Nine out of 10 churches with more than 250 adults attending have a Web site while only 48 percent of churches with less than 100 adults have one. Also connecting to the MySpace generation, 26 percent of Protestant churches have some presence on one or more social networking sites. Charismatic churches were more likely to use such sites (38 percent) than mainline or evangelical congregations. Nearly half of large churches (more than 250 adults) have adopted podcasting. Only 16 percent of Protestant churches overall are utilizing podcast technology. Blogging is also being picked up by more churches with 13 percent of Protestant churches now having blog sites or pages where people can interact with the thoughts posted by church leaders..
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Christians who study Bible Prophecy - nuts?
If you are a Christian, and you believe that Bible prophecy is being fulfilled in this generation, then you are probably the oddball in your church. In fact, scratch 'probably'. It is pretty much a dead-bang certainty that you are. It is fascinating to me that a person can be pro-choice, anti-Israel, pro-gay marriage, and be labeled a 'Christian progressive'. But if you believe that God not only knows the future, but recorded it for us in advance, well, then you're a nut. Most Christians are ok with the idea that God created the universe. Whether or not they accept it as a literal 'creation' or some kind of modified evolutionary scheme notwithstanding, few Christians would argue that creation is beyond God's power. For reasons nobody has ever been able to logically articulate to me, Christians have no problem agreeing that the First Advent of Jesus Christ was prophesied. But prophecies pointing to His Second Advent are merely symbolic and not to be taken literally. If you do, then you are a nut. There are some churches, on the other hand, that are wholly given over to the study of Bible prophecy for the last days. If you are a member of a church like that, not only are you a nut, but you probably belong to a cult. If you wanted to draw a cartoon in which you wanted one of the characters to be instantly recognized as being a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic, the most recognizable way would be to draw a guy with a long beard wearing a burnoose and brandishing a sign saying, "Repent! The end is near!" And that's just the way the subject is treated by other Christians. To the world, if you study Bible prophecy, you are probably not just crazy, but dangerous..
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