Christianity

New Survey Finds That 1 In 3 Christians Have “Dropped Out Of Church” During The COVID-19 Pandemic

(Barna) Recent data show that, among practicing Christians—those who identify as Christian, agree strongly that faith is very important in their lives and attend church at least monthly (prior to COVID-19)—over half (53%) say they have streamed their regular church online within the past four weeks. Another 34 percent admits to streaming a different church service online other than their own, essentially “church hopping” digitally.

Finally, about one-third of practicing Christians (32%) says they have done neither of these things. Though some of these churchgoers may be part of the minority of congregations that were still gathering for physical worship during these weeks, we can, for the most part, confidently interpret this group as those who have dropped out of church for the time being. (Read More…)

The Percentage Of Christians In America Has Hit An All-Time Low

The decline of the Christian faith in the United States continues to accelerate, and the latest numbers that we just got are absolutely staggering. Most European countries are already considered to be “post-Christian” nations, and the U.S. appears to be headed down the exact same path. But when America was originally founded, it is estimated that 98 percent of the colonists were Christians. The Christian faith played a critical role in the development of our form of government, and down throughout history every generation of Americans was overwhelmingly Christian. But now things are changing in a major way. According to a brand new survey that was just released by the Pew Research Center, only 65 percent of Americans now consider themselves to be “Christians”, and that represents the lowest level ever recorded…

The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.

When it comes to religion, a 12 percent drop in a single decade is not just a decline.

In reality, it is a mass exodus.

As a Christian, this alarms me greatly. Year after year we have seen a steady decline in the percentage of Americans that consider themselves to be Christians, and this has been helping to fuel the rapid growth of the “nones”…

Meanwhile, all subsets of the religiously unaffiliated population – a group also known as religious “nones” – have seen their numbers swell. Self-described atheists now account for 4% of U.S. adults, up modestly but significantly from 2% in 2009; agnostics make up 5% of U.S. adults, up from 3% a decade ago; and 17% of Americans now describe their religion as “nothing in particular,” up from 12% in 2009. Members of non-Christian religions also have grown modestly as a share of the adult population.

The Pew Research survey also showed that there is a tremendous generation gap when it comes to religious affiliation.

Older Americans still overwhelmingly identify with the Christian faith, but at this point less than half of all Millennials consider themselves to be Christians…

Furthermore, the data shows a wide gap between older Americans (Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation) and Millennials in their levels of religious affiliation and attendance. More than eight-in-ten members of the Silent Generation (those born between 1928 and 1945) describe themselves as Christians (84%), as do three-quarters of Baby Boomers (76%). In stark contrast, only half of Millennials (49%) describe themselves as Christians; four-in-ten are religious “nones,” and one-in-ten Millennials identify with non-Christian faiths.

The Millennials are the first generation in American history in which Christians are a minority.

Just think about that. We have never seen a religious shift of this magnitude, and it has tremendous implications for the future of our society.

The percentage of our young adults that are “nones” has nearly quadrupled since 1986. That is a mind blowing statistic, and it is one of the clearest indications that the left has been winning the culture war.

As a result of this mass exodus from the Christian faith, churches are closing down in droves all across the country.

In fact, it has been estimated that somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 churches are shut down in the United States every single year, and that means that over 100 churches will die this week alone.

As a result, we have a whole lot of empty church buildings on our hands, and many of them are being converted into hotels, bars and indoor playgrounds…

A large number of abandoned churches have become wineries or breweries or bars. Others have been converted into hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, and Airbnbs. A few have been transformed into entertainment venues, such as an indoor playground for children, a laser-tag arena, or a skate park.

But just because the Christian faith is declining in America does not mean that it has to stay that way. Throughout U.S. history, the greatest spiritual awakenings have often erupted when things seemed the bleakest. The message of Jesus is timeless, and we have an opportunity to show an entire generation of young people what it really means to be a Christian.

Just because they aren’t going to church does not mean that Americans have lost their spiritual hunger. Sadly, these days they are just searching out other outlets to satisfy it.

Today, the fastest growing religion in America is Wicca. It has been estimated that there are now more than a million witches in the United States, and one of their most important holidays is coming up. The ancients called it “Samhain”, but today we refer to it as “Halloween”.

Of the 65 percent of Americans that still consider themselves to be “Christians”, many of them never really go to church or practice their faith at all. Church attendance in the U.S. has been plummeting for years, and the influence that faith has on our political process has also been waning.

At one time, it was exceedingly difficult to run for public office in this country if you did not consider yourself to be a Christian. But today, being a Bible-believing Christian is considered to be a huge political liability in much of the nation.

The faith that was once the foundation of our republic is now mocked, ridiculed and laughed at on television and in our movies. It has been pushed out of our government, out of our schools and out of the mainstream entertainment industry.

We wanted a godless society, and so that is what we got.

But if we ever do intend to “make America great again”, we need to get back to what made it great in the first place.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I can only allow this to happen if this “About the Author” section is included with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of this website. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

Halloween Warning: Here Are 15 Reasons Why You Should Not Celebrate “The Devil’s Holiday”

Halloween has become one of the most important holidays in the United States, and thanks to relentless marketing it is now celebrated in virtually every nation on the entire planet. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans will spend a whopping 8.8 billion dollars on Halloween this year, and most of that money will be spent on costumes, candy and decorations. The vast majority of the U.S. population will participate in some form of Halloween festivities, and most of them probably don’t want to hear anything “negative” about a holiday that they really look forward to enjoying. But should we actually be celebrating this holiday? After reading what I have to share with you below, you may be forced to reconsider what you believe about Halloween.

Before I get to my list, there is one key point that I would like to make. A lot of people out there seem to believe that engaging in Halloween customs is okay as long as they change the name of the holiday to something else. For example, many organizations will hold a “fall festival”, a “harvest festival” or a “trunk or treat” event this time of the year. But the word “Halloween” is not the problem. In fact, according to Wikipedia the word “Halloween” is just a shorthand way of saying “All Hallows’ Eve”…

The word Halloween or Hallowe’en dates to about 1745[32] and is of Christian origin.[33] The word “Hallowe’en” means “Saints’ evening”.[34] It comes from a Scottish term for All Hallows’ Eve (the evening before All Hallows’ Day).[35] In Scots, the word “eve” is even, and this is contracted to e’en or een. Over time, (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en evolved into Hallowe’en. Although the phrase “All Hallows'” is found in Old English “All Hallows’ Eve” is itself not seen until 1556.[35][36]

Changing the name of your celebration is not going to change anything. Ultimately, it is the traditions that are rooted in ancient pagan religious rituals that you should really be concerned about.

Look, if I attended a Satanic black mass and called it “Fun Fest 2019”, would that make it okay?

Of course not.

The ancient pagan festival that eventually became known as “Halloween” is still practiced today by occultists all over the world. They consider it to be a time when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest, and therefore it is an optimal time for communicating with the spirit world. And the original purpose for many of the ancient traditions associated with this holiday (such as dressing up in costumes) was to facilitate that sort of communication.

If communicating with evil spirits is something that you want, then go ahead and celebrate Halloween.

But as for me and my house, we don’t be doing it.

The following are 15 reasons why you should not celebrate “the Devil’s holiday”…

#1 Halloween is simply “a modernized version of the Druidic festival of the dead” known as Samhain.

#2 Samhain is one of the most important holidays on the Wiccan “wheel of the year”. In other words, it is considered to be a high holy day for witches all over the globe.

#3 Wiccan high priestess Doreen Valiente once made the following statement about this holiday: “Halloween is one of the four Great Sabbats of the witches that everyone has heard about. To witches, Halloween is a serious occasion, however merrily celebrated. It is the old Celtic Eve of Samhain.”

#4 Former Satanist John Ramirez says that he “sacrificed animals as part of satanic rituals” on Halloween, and now that he is a Christian pastor he warns people about how they can curse themselves by participating in Halloween traditions.

#5 In fact, Ramirez said that he would sleep all day long so that he “could unleash hell” all Halloween night long…

I remember the days leading up to Halloween, we devil worshippers had our instructions from the demon world about what had to be done, and we knew it was going to be a long night. I would sleep all day to be rested up and ready for midnight so I could unleash hell on the world into the wee hours of the morning.

#6 The founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey, was absolutely thrilled that so many Christian parents embrace Halloween: “I am glad that Christian parents let their children worship the devil at least one night out of the year. Welcome to Halloween.”

#7 LaVey also once said that “after one’s own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht and Halloween.”

#8 According to an article in a British news source, animals and humans were both “thrown in to huge firepits as offerings” on the night of Samhain…

But the reality of Halloween through the eyes of the Celts and Druids is scarier than any horror film.

According to old documents, in its most primitive guise, Samhain would have featured many sacrifices to the Celtic gods of death, with both animals and humans thrown in to huge firepits as offerings.

People claimed the ancient Druids ate their first born children on Samhain, or collected the blood of their sacrificial humans in cauldrons and drank it.

#9 Even the History Channel admits that this was a night when animals would be sacrificed to the gods by the ancient Celts…

In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes.

#10 According to Smithsonian.com, many pet shelters across America will not adopt out black cats during this time of the year because this “is a time when blood rituals take place”…

It’s unclear exactly where the superstitions around black cats and bad luck came from, but people tend to eye ancient folkloric traditions like the Druids or associations with witchcraft that arose during the Middle Ages. But being the bearers of bad luck isn’t the only rumor that follows dark-furred kitties into the present. For decades, many animal shelters have refused to adopt out black cats on or right before Halloween out of fear they will be tortured or sacrificed, Kate Knibbs writes for Gizmodo.

“This is a time when blood rituals take place,” Hedy Litke, director of animal placement at the ASPCA, told K.C. Baker for the New York Daily News in 1999. “Black cats are often sacrificed.”

#11 Today most people consider “Halloween costumes” to be innocent fun, but their original purpose was “to allow for communication with the spirit world”…

Halloween masks and costumes were used to hide one’s attendance at pagan festivals or—as in traditional shamanism (mediated by a witch doctor or pagan priest) and other forms of animism—to change the personality of the wearer to allow for communication with the spirit world. Here, costumes could be worn to ward off evil spirits. On the other hand, the costume wearer might use a mask to try to attract and absorb the power of the animal represented by the mask and costume worn. According to this scenario, Halloween costumes may have originated with the Celtic Druid ceremonial participants, who wore animal heads and skins to acquire the strength of a particular animal.

#12 Even today, Wiccans consider dressing up on Halloween night to be “a form of ‘sympathetic magick’ allowing us to experience what it could be like to be on the other side of the veil”…

On Samhain night the Faerie folk are believed to be very active and delight in playing tricks on humans. If you’re near a faerie mound, be very careful not to be drawn inside, else you may disappear for a few hundred years. The Fey enjoy gifts of food and drink and pretty baubles, so be sure to leave treats for the Faeries so you won’t be tricked! In order to fool the Nature Spirits, our pagan ancestors would dress up in costumes if they had to travel about on Samhain night. They would dress all in white, like ghosts, make disguises of straw, or dress as the opposite gender. I suppose that the Faeries were so busy laughing at the costumes they forgot to play any tricks!

Another school of thought regarding dressing up at Samhain has a much more spiritual basis. Dressing as a ghost or skeleton could be seen as a form of “sympathetic magick” allowing us to experience what it could be like to be on the other side of the veil.

#13 Almost every year, dressing up as a witch is the number one costume for adults in the United States. Of course demons, goblins and vampires are very popular too. Do we really want to be engaging in a practice that actually embraces and celebrates darkness?

#14 Considering how much is done each year to normalize witches and witchcraft, should it be a surprise that Wicca has now become the fastest growing religion in America?

#15 The tradition of “trick-or-treating” is also an ancient pagan religious practice that was eventually “Christianized”…

The idea of trick-or-treating is further related to the ghosts of the dead in pagan, and even Catholic, history. For example, among the ancient Druids, “The ghosts that were thought to throng about the houses of the living were greeted with a banquet-laden table. At the end of the feast, masked and costumed villagers representing the souls of the dead paraded to the outskirts of town leading the ghosts away.”

As already noted, Halloween was thought to be a night when mischievous and evil spirits roamed freely. As in modern poltergeist lore, mischievous spirits could play tricks on the living—so it was advantageous to “hide” from them by wearing costumes. Masks and costumes were worn to either scare away the ghosts or to keep from being recognized by them

There is so much more that could be written, but hopefully you get the point.

This “day of the dead” is a holiday that fully embraces evil, and that is not something that you should want to participate in.

As I explained in my most recent book (#ad), life is all about choices, and the choices that we make consistently define who we are.

You can say that you want to be good all you want, but if your actions consistently embrace evil that is what you will become.

And let there be no doubt – Halloween is a holiday that is absolutely saturated with evil, and nothing good can come from celebrating it.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep.  I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.  (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing those books you help to support my work.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles in written form on their own websites as long as this “About the Author” section is included.  In order to comply with government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished.  This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate.  You can follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of this website.

 

Syrian Refugees Convert To Christianity After Seeing Jesus In A Dream

(ETH) Syrian refugee Abu Radwan was born into a Muslim family, but after reportedly seeing Jesus appear to him in a dream, everything changed.

It was a year and a half ago that Radwan, who is now in Beirut, Lebanon, with his wife and two children, converted to Christianity — an event that unfolded just months after the purported dream.

“Of course it was a difficult decision. I was born into a Muslim family,” he recently said of his conversion, noting that his family fled Syria after the civil war began. “I started going to church. I believed that Jesus was coming to help us, to save us.” Radwan’s story isn’t unique, as there are likely many other Syrian refugees who have converted from Islam to Christianity, though the move doesn’t come without profound risk. In fact, Radwan said he was recently stabbed while coming out of the church, saying the culprits were Syrians from his tribe who disagreed with his conversion decision; he risks his life if he ever returns to Syria. READ MORE

Churches Have Become The #1 Target For Hate Attacks – An Average Of 105 Every Single Month

The bombings in Sri Lanka have once again put a spotlight on the rising tide of violence against Christians all over the world. According to Open Doors USA, an average of 105 churches and/or Christian buildings are burned or attacked every month. That is more than three per day, and almost all of those attacks get ignored by the mainstream media in the western world. In addition, an average of 345 Christians are killed for faith-related reasons every single month. Of course these numbers will soon be out of date, because violence against Christians continues to escalate all over the globe, and the horrifying attacks that we just witnessed in Sri Lanka are a perfect example. The following comes from CBS News…

A series of eight bombings in Sri Lanka targeting Christian churches and hotels in three cities killed at least 207 people and wounded up to 450 others on Easter Sunday. Defense Minister Ruwan Wijewardene described the coordinated blasts as a terrorist attack by religious extremists.

More specifically, the attackers were Muslim extremists.

Why does the mainstream media have to be so politically-correct all the time?

Of course this comes right on the heels of the fire that almost destroyed the Notre Dame Cathedral. Authorities are still attempting to determine the cause of that fire, but we do know that many other churches have been hit by vandals and arsonists in France since the beginning of February…

Vandals and arsonists have targeted French churches in a wave of attacks that has lasted nearly two months.

More than 10 churches have been hit since the beginning of February, with some set on fire while others were severely desecrated or damaged.

In an apparent attempt to copy what happened at Notre Dame, a deranged philosophy professor was caught bringing gas cans and lighter fluid to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York…

The man who allegedly brought gas cans and lighter fluid into St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City has taught philosophy at different colleges in New York and New Jersey, school officials said.

Marc Lamparello, 37, was arrested on Wednesday night and was charged with attempted arson and reckless endangerment. He was taken into custody after a security guard at the cathedral on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan spotted him.

Fortunately a great tragedy was averted in that case, but most churches around the world are very “soft targets” with absolutely no security whatsoever.

And these days, there is literally nowhere that is safe. Attacks on churches are happening literally all over the globe, and sometimes they happen right in the middle of a worship service.

For instance, here is an example from the Philippines that recently made worldwide headlines…

Two suicide attackers detonate two bombs during a Mass in a Roman Catholic cathedral on the largely Muslim island of Jolo in the southern Philippines, killing 23 and wounding about 100 others.

Earlier this year in India, a group of Christians was absolutely horrified when they arrived for worship only to find that their church had burned completely to the ground…

Christians were horrified to see Pentecostal Church in India’s Telangana state completely engulfed by black smoke when they arrived for worship. On closer inspection much of the inside of the church, including furniture, the pulpit, the sound system, fans, carpets, and lights, were burned to ashes during the attack on February 2 at about 11am. The devastating attack on the church, home to 200 worshippers, has left Christians from ten villages without a place to worship.

By a very wide margin, churches are the number one target for hate attacks, and it is only going to get worse.

Sadly, churches in the U.S. are increasingly being attacked as well. You may not have heard about it in the news, but three churches in Louisiana were recently destroyed by arson…

Much of Monica Harris’s identity is tied to the Greater Union Baptist Church, a 129-year-old sanctuary that has been at the center of her family for generations. As a child, she was dunked into a baptismal basin and then paraded like a princess up the aisle in a white dress and white patent leather shoes. She was married at the church, and she said goodbye to her parents there, too.

And so she felt like a piece of her was missing when she set eyes upon the charred remains of Greater Union, one of three predominantly black churches in St. Landry Parish, La., that law enforcement authorities said were set ablaze and destroyed over the stretch of 10 days.

In previous articles, I have argued that all churches are going to need armed security from this point forward. The world has changed, and we need to change with it.

When I was growing up, I never imagined that someone might come in to my church and start shooting, but over the last several decades we have seen such a scenario play out numerous times. Just check out this list of fatal church shootings that have happened since Columbine…

  • 1999 Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas
  • 2001 Greater Oak Missionary Baptist Church in Hopkinsville, Kentucky
  • 2002 Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church in Lynbrook, New York
  • 2003 Turner Monumental AME Church in Kirkwood, Georgia
  • 2005 Living Church of God in Brookfield, Wisconsin
  • 2005 World Changers Church in College Park, Georgia
  • 2006 Zion Hope Missionary Baptist in Detroit, Michigan
  • 2006 Ministry of Jesus Christ Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
  • 2007 First Presbyterian Church in Moscow, Idaho
  • 2007 First Congregational Church in Neosho, Missouri
  • 2007 New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado
  • 2008 First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois
  • 2009 Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas
  • 2012 World Changers Church in College Park, Georgia
  • 2015 Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina
  • 2017 Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee
  • 2017 First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas
  • 2017 St. Alphonsus Church in Fresno, Texas

Christian persecution is on the rise all over the world, and it is likely to intensify greatly in the years ahead.

But of course most of the time the mainstream media attempts to ignore this growing trend as much as possible. When there are spectacular attacks with large numbers of deaths like we just witnessed in Sri Lanka they will cover the story, but other than that they try very hard to avoid any stories that would put Christians in a sympathetic light.

They can try to ignore what is happening all they want, but it doesn’t change the fact that hatred for the Christian faith is growing, and what we have been witnessing in recent weeks is just the beginning.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Survey Finds That Half Of America’s Pastors Are Afraid To Speak Out About Controversial Topics

Have you ever wondered why most church services in America seem to be filled with lots of fluff and very little substance? As America’s moral foundations literally collapse right in front of our eyes, a large percentage of our pastors are afraid to speak out about controversial topics because they might offend someone. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why they are so afraid. Most U.S. churches are shrinking, and more than 100 die every week. In a day and age where pastors are judged by attendance numbers and budget levels, scaring people away is bad for business.

With all that in mind, the results from a recent Barna survey shouldn’t be surprising at all…

We wanted to know if pastors felt limited or pressured when it comes to speaking about controversial topics. Half of Christian pastors says they frequently (11%) or occasionally (39%) feel limited in their ability to speak out on moral and social issues because people will take offense. The other half of pastors say they only rarely (30%) or never (20%) feel limited in this way. When asked to identify the source of the concerns, pastors are much more likely to say that they feel limited by those inside the church than those outside. In other words, the reactions of those in the pews are most on the minds of today’s pastors.

And remember, these numbers just show the percentage of pastors that are willing to admit that they are afraid to speak out about controversial issues.

In reality, the percentage of U.S. pastors that actually hit the hard issues on a consistent basis is exceedingly low.

Not offending people is obviously a strategy that can work, because many of America’s largest churches today are pathetically shallow. In fact, one of America’s most famous pastors absolutely refuses to ever use the word “sin” because it might offend someone.

But eventually people get tired of superficial religion that doesn’t have any substance, and nobody can deny that there has been a mass exodus from the Christian faith in this country. In fact, the number of Americans with “no religion” has risen by 266 percent over the last three decades.

In particular, young people crave authenticity, and they can spot a fake a mile away. They are leaving America’s churches faster than anyone else, and that is incredibly sad.

Some churches are attempting to reverse this trend, and many of them seem to think that being “hip” and “trendy” is the key to winning young people back. For example, the following comes from a profile on C3 Church in New York City by Topic Magazine…

Have you ever been to a church where the Jesus music is so loud that some congregants—young, hip urbanites all—wear earplugs? Where the Christian pop-rock stirs people into such rapture that they jump up and down, both feet leaving earth, both hands raised ecstatically skyward, as if in a mild-mannered mosh pit? Where half the pastors, band members, and congregants have nose piercings and the other half have forearm tattoos, and a teeny-tiny beanie is the accessory du jour?

There is certainly nothing wrong with having good music and a modern presentation, but it must also be accompanied by truth if it is going to do any good.

In the profile, the reporter for Topic Magazine asked “Pastor Josh” about his stand on one of the most controversial issues of our day, and he did his very best to dance around it…

But Pastor Josh knows that some of his congregants are gay—or, in his words, “would say they’re gay”—and he’s happy to tell them where he feels “the truth lands on the issue.” He just doesn’t want “the conversation” to end the moment someone reads on C3’s website that gay marriage is an affront to God. “To me, that’s a shame,” he says. “I’m trying to show, ‘Hey, I’m not judging anyone. I’m not condemning anyone.’ We’ve all got our views and attractions and all those kinds of things.” He knows that young people, especially, inhabit a complicated, alienating world.

“I think every one of us is searching for love,” Pastor Josh says. “Even though we might disagree on where the best place to look for love is.”

I have read that quote several times, and I still don’t understand what he is trying to say.

Whether people agree with it or not, Pastor Josh owes it to all of us to tell us directly what he really believes.

Of course there are thousands upon thousands of other ministers just like “Pastor Josh” in America today.

The church business has become all about making people feel good, and in this type of spiritual environment even Kanye West can start a church…

Imagine stumbling into a church you’ve never seen on Sunday morning. As you approach you hear rapper DMX praying, “I have special privileges. I am God’s favored child.” In front of you sit Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, who were both raised Christian but now consider themselves “spiritual.”

The prayer ends, and a gospel choir in matching Yeezy merchandise belts out rapper Kid Cudi’s “Reborn.” Presiding over it all is Pastor Kanye West.

It isn’t a dream. Kanye reportedly started his own church on the first Sunday of the year, and since then, he’s attracted celebrities to his entertaining, religion-laced gatherings.

Of course not all is lost. There are some pastors out there that are doing a fantastic job, and all over the world God is raising up a Remnant. But overall, the institutional church in America is failing to influence the culture because pastors are deathly afraid of scaring their customers away.

All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

And right now a whole lot of good men are doing precisely that.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

The Number Of Americans With “No Religion” Has Increased By 266% Over The Last 3 Decades

Over the last 30 years, there has been a mass exodus out of organized religion in the United States. Each year the needle has only moved a little bit, but over the long-term what we have witnessed has been nothing short of a seismic shift. Never before in American history have we seen such dramatic movement away from the Christian faith, and this has enormous implications for the future of our nation. According to a survey that was just released, the percentage of Americans that claim to have “no religion” has increased by 266 percent since 1991…

The number of Americans who identify as having no religion has risen 266 percent since 1991, to now tie statistically with the number of Catholics and Evangelicals, according to a new survey.

People with no religion – known as ‘nones’ among statisticians – account for 23.1 percent of the U.S. population, while Catholics make up 23 percent and Evangelicals account for 22.5 percent, according to the General Social Survey.

In other words, the “nones” are now officially the largest religious group in the United States.

At one time it would have been extremely difficult to imagine that one day the “nones” would someday surpass evangelical Christians, but it has actually happened.

And the biggest movement that we have seen has been among our young people. According to a different survey, two-thirds of Christian young adults say that they stopped going to church at some point between the ages of 18 and 22…

Large numbers of young adults who frequently attended Protestant worship services in high school are dropping out of church.

Two-thirds of young people say they stopped regularly going to church for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22, a new LifeWay Research survey shows.

These are the exact same patterns that we saw happen in Europe, and now most of those countries are considered to be “post-Christian societies”.

The young adults of today are going to be the leaders of tomorrow, and they have a much higher percentage of “nones” than the population as a whole. According to a study that was conducted a while back by PRRI, 39 percent of our young adults are “religiously unaffiliated” at this point…

Today, nearly four in ten (39%) young adults (ages 18-29) are religiously unaffiliated—three times the unaffiliated rate (13%) among seniors (ages 65 and older). While previous generations were also more likely to be religiously unaffiliated in their twenties, young adults today are nearly four times as likely as young adults a generation ago to identify as religiously unaffiliated. In 1986, for example, only 10% of young adults claimed no religious affiliation.

To go from 10 percent during Ronald Reagan’s second term to 39 percent today is an absolutely colossal shift.

Right now, only about 27 percent of U.S. Millennials attend church on a regular basis. Most of them simply have no interest in being heavily involved in organized religion.

And even the young people that are involved in church do not seem very keen on sharing their faith with others. According to one of the most shocking surveys that I have seen in a long time, 47 percent of Millennials that consider themselves to be “practicing Christians” believe that it is “wrong” to share the gospel with others…

A new study from the California-based firm Barna Group, which compiles data on Christian trends in American culture, has revealed a staggering number of American millennials think evangelism is wrong.

The report, commissioned by the discipleship group Alpha USA, showed a whopping 47 percent of millennials — born between 1984 and 1998 — “agree at least somewhat that it is wrong to share one’s personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith.”

These numbers are hard to believe, but they are from some of the most respected pollsters in the entire country.

Politically, these trends indicate that America is likely to continue to move to the left. Those that have no religious affiliation are much, much more likely to be Democrats, and so this exodus away from organized religion is tremendous news for the Democratic Party.

In a previous article, I documented the fact that somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 churches in the United States are dying each year.

That means that more than 100 will die this week.

And thousands more are teetering on the brink. In fact, most churches in America have less than 100 people attending each Sunday…

A majority of churches have fewer than 100 people attending services each Sunday and have declined or nearly flatlined in membership growth, according to a new study from Exponential by LifeWay Research.

The study, which was conducted to help churches better understand growth in the pews, showed that most Protestant churches are not doing well attracting new Christian converts, reporting an average of less than one each month.

But even among all the bad news, there are some promising signs for the Christian faith. The home church movement if flourishing all over the country, and many of those home fellowships are focused on getting back to the roots of the Christian faith. All throughout history there have been relentless attempts to destroy the Christian faith, and yet it is still the largest faith in the entire world.

However, there is no doubt that Christianity is in decline throughout the western world, and churches are dying one after another.

This is what one pastor had to say about the slow death of his church…

‘My church is on the decline,’ he said. ‘We had 50 (congregants) in 2005 and now we have 15. We’re probably going to have to close (in a few years).’

‘Mainline Christianity is dying,’ he added. ‘It’s at least going away. It makes me feel more comfortable that it’s not my fault or my church’s fault. It’s part of a bigger trend that’s happening.’

John Adams, the second president of the United States, once said the following about our form of government…

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

As America has turned away from the Christian faith, we have become steadily less moral and steadily less religious.

If we continue down this path, many believe that the future of our nation is going to be quite bleak indeed.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Why Does The Mainstream Media Purposely Ignore The Mass Killings Of Christians That Happen All Over The Globe?

Last week, when a deranged lunatic gunned down dozens of Muslims at two mosques in New Zealand it suddenly became the biggest news story in the world, and rightly so. It was a major news event, and it needed to be reported. But shouldn’t mass killings of Christians be given the same sort of media coverage? Sadly, we all know that doesn’t happen. Whenever there is a mass killing of Christians, it is usually entirely ignored by the mainstream media in the United States, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why this is happening. Those that control the mainstream media consider Christians to be one of the main obstacles to “progress” in this country, and so any story that would put Christians in a positive or sympathetic light simply does not fit any of the narratives that they are pushing.

As a result of the lack of media coverage, the vast majority of Americans do not know that “4,136 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons” last year.

That number breaks down to an average of 11 per day.

In Nigeria, more than 120 Christians have been gunned down or killed with machetes over the past three weeks, but Breitbart was the only big media outlet to report on it…

As Breitbart News alone reported among major news outlets, Fulani jihadists racked up a death toll of over 120 Christians over the past three weeks in central Nigeria, employing machetes and gunfire to slaughter men, women, and children, burning down over 140 houses, destroying property, and spreading terror.

The New York Times did not place this story on the front page; in fact, they did not cover it at all. Apparently, when assessing “all the news that’s fit to print,” the massacre of African Christians did not measure up. The same can be said for the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, the LA Times, and every other major paper in the United States.

And of course Breitbart is not exactly “mainstream” media.

So why won’t anyone else report on this?

And this isn’t the first time this has happened. Last June, twelve entire Christian villages in central Nigeria were completely wiped out…

In only days, a dozen villages in Nigeria’s Plateau state were wiped out. The affected communities surround the city of Jos—known as the epicenter of Christianity in northern Nigeria’s Middle Belt.

As many as 200 Christians had been killed, however, some residents fear the death toll may be even higher, as more bodies are yet to be recovered, while others were burned beyond recognition. On Sunday, 75 of the victims were buried in a mass grave.

I’ll bet that most of you had not heard about that until now.

On the other side of the world, 20 innocent people were slaughtered when Muslim radicals bombed a Roman Catholic cathedral in January…

On January 27, Muslim extremists bombed a Roman Catholic cathedral on the Philippine island of Jolo, killing some 20 people and injuring dozens of others.

Once again, this is yet another mass killing that was almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media.

Is the anti-Christian bias among the mainstream media so strong that they can’t even bring themselves to report the basic facts to us?

People deserve to know what is happening. Christian persecution is rising in almost every nation on the planet, and this huge ongoing crisis should be on our front pages on a continual basis.

But instead, we never get to hear any of these stories unless we seek out alternative sources of information.

Over in China, the persecution of Christians has reached a frightening crescendo. Recently, officials have been going house to house and replacing pictures of Jesus Christ “with pictures of dictator Mao Zedong and/or China’s current authoritarian president, Xi Jinping”…

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to harass and persecute Christians and, in recent months, has taken to removing pictures of Jesus Christ from inside homes and replacing them with pictures of dictator Mao Zedong and/or China’s current authoritarian president, Xi Jinping.

In addition, Communist officials have removed Christian symbols and phrases on the outside of homes and replaced them with phrases praising socialist materialism.

But they aren’t stopping there. Bibles are being burned, and any churches that do not “cooperate” with Chinese officials are being either shut down or destroyed. Earlier in 2019, one of the largest megachurches in the entire country was literally blown to pieces with dynamite…

Chinese authorities blew up a well-known Christian megachurch earlier this year, inflaming long-standing tensions between religious groups and the Communist Party.

Witnesses and overseas activists said the paramilitary People’s Armed Police used dynamite and excavators to destroy the Golden Lampstand Church, which has a congregation of more than 50,000, in the city of Linfen in Shanxi province

We are talking about evil that is on a level that is difficult to comprehend.

So why won’t the mainstream media talk about any of this?

Similar things are happening on the other side of the world too. In Eritrea, Christians are being imprisoned in “small shipping containers in scorching heat”…

Since 1993, President Afwerki has overseen an authoritarian brutal regime that rests on massive human rights violations. During the 2019 World Watch List reporting period, government security forces conducted many house-to-house raids and imprisoned hundreds of Christians in inhumane conditions, including small shipping containers in scorching heat.

And in North Korea, Christians are “being hung on a cross over a fire, crushed under a steamroller, herded off bridges, and trampled underfoot”…

According to charity Aid to the Church in Need, at least 200,000 Christians have gone missing in North Korea since 1953 — many of those have been summarily executed. As to the specific treatment of those persecuted, the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry report discovered that the North Korean regime has been guilty of “crimes against humanity.”

According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, violent incidents against Christians include “being hung on a cross over a fire, crushed under a steamroller, herded off bridges, and trampled underfoot.”

If you were to replace “Christians” with some other favored group in any of the examples that I have just shared, you would instantly have front page news all over the planet.

The mainstream media is definitely not “independent”, and they are not looking out for you.

They have their own agenda, and anything that does not fit that agenda does not get to be part of “the news”.

So far in 2019, there have been 453 Islamic terror attacks in which 1,956 people have been murdered. But you will never hear those numbers from the mainstream media.

Instead, when the mainstream media talks about Bible-believing Christians it is almost always an attack story. As a recent Breitbart article aptly observed, having “an anti-Christian bias” has become “the last acceptable prejudice”…

How much mileage can be gained from Muslims murdering Christians, when Christians in America are often seen as an obstacle to the “progress” desired by liberals? The left sees Christians in the United States as part of the problem and seeks to undermine their credibility and influence at every turn rather than emboldening them.

Anti-Christian bias has been rightly called “the last acceptable prejudice,” one that few bother condemning.

It is time to turn off the mainstream news for good.

They quit reporting “the news” a long time ago, and now it is all about promoting one left-wing narrative after another.

Today, trust in the media is at an all-time low, and it is easy to understand why so many Americans are absolutely sick and tired of being lied to by the big media companies.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Is The Debate Over? New Survey Discovers That Religious People Are Far More Likely To Be “Very Happy”

A shocking new public opinion poll seems to have settled the debate about whether religious people or non-religious people are happier. In recent years, more people than ever are “throwing off the shackles of religion” in an attempt to find personal happiness, but it looks like they have been running the wrong way. According to the Pew Research Center, Americans that are “actively religious” are much more likely to say that they are “very happy” compared to “the inactively religious” and those that are “unaffiliated”. The following comes from Breitbart…

Actively religious people are much more likely than those who are less religious to describe themselves as “very happy” according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center.

In the United States, 36 percent of the actively religious describe themselves as “very happy,” while only 25 percent of the inactively religious and 25 percent of the unaffiliated self-identify in this way, Pew revealed.

Of course things could potentially be very different in other parts of the world, and so the Pew Research Center asked the same question in more than two dozen countries. And what they discovered is that actively religious people were more likely to be “very happy” in 19 of the 26 countries that they surveyed…

The trend linking greater happiness to more active religious practice held good for a remarkable 19 nations out of the 26 nations surveyed, Pew found, and where the pattern did not hold, the differences were minimal.

Wow.

And very religious people are not just happier. According to that same survey, they are far more likely to be engaged in their communities…

Aside from being happier, the religiously active are also more engaged socially and civically, Pew discovered, with religious people being more likely to vote in elections and to join charitable organizations, including non-religious organizations, than the religiously inactive and unaffiliated.

On top of everything else, the children of those that are “actively religious” tend to do much better in school…

Children involved in a religious organization “take tougher courses, get higher grades and test scores, and are less likely to drop out of high school,” which means they also have better employment prospects, Putnam declared in his book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis.

So it would appear that there are tremendous benefits to having a nation that is full of people that are “actively religious”, but unfortunately our society is running in the exact opposite direction as rapidly as it can. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Mass Exodus From The Church: The Percentage Of Young Adults With No Religious Affiliation Has Nearly QUADRUPLED Since 1986”.

As I wrap up this article, for a moment I wanted to take a quick look at what life is like for the other side.

San Francisco is one of the most “anti-Christian” major cities in the United States, and it is certainly one of the wealthiest.

But instead of the “liberal utopia” that many that moved there had been hoping for, it is literally becoming a hellhole. For example, San Francisco “now has more intravenous drug users than high school students”…

According to a report from the Chronicle, San Francisco now has more intravenous drug users than high school students. San Francisco, which operates 15 high schools, currently has 16,000 students enrolled grades nine through twelve.

By comparison, the northern California city currently has 24,500 “injection drug users.” That is approximately 8,500 more drug users than high school students.

In recent years the city has become known as “the poop capital of America” because of all the piles of human feces that are all over the place, and visitors to the city are often horrified by what they see. During his recent trip, Bill Blain was stunned by the squalor that he witnessed…

I hope my American hosts will forgive me for raising this, but the squalor we saw in The City was frightful. San Francisco has always been one of favourite US cities, but the degree of homelessness, mental illness and drug abuse we saw on this trip was truly shocking. Walking round SF on a Sunday Morning and we saw sights we couldn’t believe. This must be one of the richest cities in the world – home to 4 of the 10 richest people on the planet according to Wiki. I asked friends about it, and they shrugged it off.. “The City has always attracted the homeless because of the mild weather,”.. “It’s a drug thing”.. “its too difficult”… “you get used to it..”

Well, I didn’t.

I found it quite shocking the number of folk sleeping rough on the sidewalks, the smell of weed and drug impedimenta everywhere, the filth, mental illness and degradation on view just a few meters from the financial centre driving Silicon Valley. It’s a city where the destitute seem to have become invisible to the Uber hailing elites. We found ourselves hopping on one of the beautiful F-Route Trolley Buses to find nearly every seat occupied by someone lugging around their worldly possessions around in a plastic bag. It was desperately sad.

Sadly, this is where our culture is going.

If we stay on the path that we are currently on, the entire country will eventually become just like San Francisco.

This is why we desperately need a change. If we want our lives to be great, and if we want our country to be great, we need to have a great relationship with God.

But you can choose the other path if you want, and in the end your own life will likely resemble a miniature version of San Francisco.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

“Between 6,000 and 10,000 churches in the U.S. are dying each year” – and that means that over 100 will die this week

America is littered with thousands upon thousands of church buildings that aren’t being used anymore. As you will see below, between 6,000 and 10,000 churches are dying in the United States every single year, and that means that more than 100 will die this week alone. And of course thousands of others are on life support. All over the country this weekend, small handfuls of people will gather in huge buildings which once boasted very large congregations. At one time, America was widely considered to be “a Christian nation”, but that really isn’t true anymore. As an excellent article in The Atlantic has noted, even though most Americans still consider themselves to be “Christian”, the numbers are telling us a very different story…

Many of our nation’s churches can no longer afford to maintain their structures—6,000 to 10,000 churches die each year in America—and that number will likely grow. Though more than 70 percent of our citizens still claim to be Christian, congregational participation is less central to many Americans’ faith than it once was. Most denominations are declining as a share of the overall population, and donations to congregations have been falling for decades. Meanwhile, religiously unaffiliated Americans, nicknamed the “nones,” are growing as a share of the U.S. population.

In fact, the “nones” have risen from just 6 percent of the population in 1991 to 25 percent today. That makes them the single largest “religious group” in the United States.

Today, less than 20 percent of all Americans attend church on a regular basis. As a result, churches are dying in very large numbers, and this is a trend that appears to be accelerating. According to Thom S. Rainer of Lifeway, when you break the numbers down it means that “around 100-200 churches will close this week”…

Between 6,000 and 10,000 churches in the U.S. are dying each year. That means around 100-200 churches will close this week. The pace will accelerate unless our congregations make some dramatic changes.

Any institution needs resources in order to survive, and churches are not any different.

As attendance has declined, so has giving, and at this point the percentage of charity donations going to religious institutions is at an all-time low…

Religious institutions are still the single biggest recipients of overall charity donations, according to the 2015 survey by the Giving USA Foundation. About 32 percent — $119.3 billion — of a total of $373.25 billion Americans gave to charities went to churches, synagogues, mosques and temples.

But that is down from about 50 percent since 1990, according to Rick Dunham, vice chairman of Giving USA, and the percentage has been “in steady decline for some time.”

So when churches die, what happens to their buildings?

Well, some are torn down, some are renovated for residential or business purposes, and some are being put to other uses…

A large number of abandoned churches have become wineries or breweries or bars. Others have been converted into hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, and Airbnbs. A few have been transformed into entertainment venues, such as an indoor playground for children, a laser-tag arena, or a skate park.

A similar thing is happening in Europe, only on a much greater scale. Over there, hundreds of churches have been transformed into Islamic mosques, and this has generated quite a bit of controversy.

As I discussed in my article about demographic trends, we are witnessing societal change happen at a pace that would have been absolutely unthinkable a couple of generations ago.

This is especially true for our young people. If you go back to 1986, just 10 percent of all young adults were “religiously unaffiliated”, but now that number has jumped all the way to 39 percent…

Today, nearly four in ten (39%) young adults (ages 18-29) are religiously unaffiliated—three times the unaffiliated rate (13%) among seniors (ages 65 and older). While previous generations were also more likely to be religiously unaffiliated in their twenties, young adults today are nearly four times as likely as young adults a generation ago to identify as religiously unaffiliated. In 1986, for example, only 10% of young adults claimed no religious affiliation.

That makes young adults the single largest group of “nones” in the entire country. We are living at a time when there is a mass exodus from the Christian faith in America, and it is likely going to take something quite dramatic to reverse that trend.

According to the Pew Research Center, Millennials are about half as likely to attend religious services on a weekly basis as the oldest Americans are.

Church attendance is simply not as important to Americans as it once was. In the old days, churches were central hubs where you got to know your neighbors and important events were commemorated. But now churches sit idle and empty most of the time, and attendance on Sunday mornings is depressingly low in most cases.

When I was growing up, my parents made sure that we were in church on Sunday morning, Sunday evening and sometimes even on Wednesday evening. But today, most churches don’t even have Sunday evening or midweek services because nobody would show up.

Our entire society, including our system of government, was birthed out of a culture of Bible-believing Christians. The following comes from an excellent piece by Dr. Mark David Hall…

In 1776, every European American, with the exception of about 2,500 Jews, identified himself or herself as a Christian. Moreover, approximately 98 percent of the colonists were Protestants, with the remaining 1.9 percent being Roman Catholics.

Not only did early Americans identify themselves as Christians, but nearly all of them regularly attended church.

Now our society is moving very rapidly in the exact opposite direction, and many believe that this has tremendous implications for the future of our nation.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Gunned Down For Believing In Christ: The Mainstream Media Is Silent As The Persecution Of Christians Escalates

The global persecution of Christians continues to escalate dramatically, and yet the mainstream media in the United States is virtually silent about it. In this article, I am going to quote a lot of sources, but they are all either overseas news outlets or Christian websites in the United States. To a certain extent, I think that the mainstream media is extremely hesitant to report about the global persecution of Christians because it may cause the general public to feel sympathetic, and that would definitely be counterproductive to what they are trying to accomplish. Ultimately, the elite are trying to demonize Christians, conservatives, patriots and anyone else that would attempt to oppose their radical agenda for America. So they are banning us from their Internet platforms, they are mocking us on their news and entertainment programs, and they certainly don’t want to highlight the fact that the persecution of Christians is escalating rapidly around the globe.

In this article, I would like to share with you 8 recent examples of Christians being persecuted that you probably never heard about from the mainstream media…

#1 In Kenya, two Christians were recently pulled off a bus and shot dead for failing to recite the Islamic creed…

International Christian Concern reported on the statements of witnesses and heartbroken families a month after the two Christians, Fredrick Ngui Ngonde and Joshua Ooko Obila, were shot dead by Somalia-based terror group al-Shabaab for refusing to recite the Islamic creed.

“The armed Somali fighters ordered all of us to [get off of] the bus and produce our identity cards. They singled out three passengers and ordered them to remain down the bus as we boarded. They asked them if they were Muslims and if they knew the Shahada and the seven verses of Suratul Fatiha. One of them recited part of the Shahada and was allowed to [return] to the bus,” a witness who wasn’t named told the watchdog group.

“The other two kafir men refused to obey the jihad fighters and remained adamant that Christ is their savior and they cannot deny the Christian faith. They were shot dead.”

#2 In Nigeria, the death toll for Christians “continues to rise to catastrophic proportions” as radical groups continue their genocidal campaign…

The death toll for Christians in Nigeria continues to rise to catastrophic proportions as the nation seems helpless or unwilling to stop bloodthirsty Islamic radicals targeting Christians in the region.

This time jihadists—identified as notorious Fulani Herdsmen—toting guns and machetes slaughtered 17 innocent victims in one evening, including four young children and a grandmother.

All of the victims are said to be members of a local evangelical Christian church.

#3 An American missionary that just moved to Cameroon was viciously gunned down in front of his wife and children…

An American Christian missionary has been shot dead in front of his wife and kids in a volatile region of Cameroon. Charles Wesco, 44, was killed when a volley of gunfire struck his car windshield as he traveled to a local store with his wife, Stephanie, one of his children and a fellow missionary. The ministry worker was rushed to a hospital in the city of Bamenda where he was pronounced dead.

#4 In Pakistan, a Christian pharmacist recently died after a gang of Muslims attacked him with acid…

According to Asia News, Faraz Ahmed Badar was a 26-year-old pharmacist who worked at the DHQ Hospital in Gujaranwala. Before his death, he had been harassed relentlessly by a Muslim colleague, who was reportedly jealous that Badar was in a more senior position than him at work. The understanding was this – if you are a Christian, you should never be allowed to rise above a Muslim at work. And it was this prejudice that resulted in Badar’s untimely death.

On 5 September, the pharmacist was preparing for his shift when he was brutally attacked with acid by a group of men who were wearing face masks. The suspects are still at large. Badar was rushed to a local hospital, where he spent 10 days, before succumbing to his injuries and dying on September 15.

#5 In Myanmar, rebel attacks have “destroyed or closed” 12 churches, and some pastors have even had their heads shaved…

A group of rebels has set its sights on Burmese Christians in a fresh series of attacks, with devastating results. Over the past couple of weeks, Ethnic Wa rebels have shut down churches, destroyed religious buildings and even shaved the heads of local pastors.

The communist United Wa State Army (UWSA), Myanma’s largest ethnic rebel force, launched the assaults in Shan state, according to Morning Star News.

“We confirmed that at least 12 churches have been destroyed or closed as of Sept. 20,” said one church leader of the latest spree of attacks.

#6 In India, the police recently stormed a church service on a Sunday morning and arrested 10 pastors as they were praying because “they had been converting non-members”…

The 10 pastors were detained with their loved ones as they prayed at a church on Sunday in Uttar Pradesh, northern India, following allegations made by Hindu nationalist groups that they had been converting non-members.

Pastor Bahavan Ram was arrested after police burst into his church in Kariyabar in what has been described as a major crackdown on Christianity in the state.

#7 The persecution of Christians in China is the worst that it has ever been in modern times. According to a British news source, “hundreds of churches” have now been demolished by government officials…

China has imposed a massive crackdown on Christianity across the country, with hundreds of churches demolished and Bibles banned.

Beijing’s President Xi Jinping has previously labelled Christianity as “Western infiltration”, insisting Western ideologies that post a threat to the country’s Communist authority.

In April, China’s religious affairs department published an article stating all churches in country must follow the Communist Party’s rules so that they are “Sinicized” (made more Chinese).

#8 American Christians generally have it much easier than the rest of the world, but incidents of violence are becoming more frequent here as well. For example, a church in Seattle was recently firebombed with Molotov cocktails…

As a group of about 50 congregants attended a worship service at a Seattle-based church, an arsonist hurled several Molotov cocktails toward the sanctuary.

Witnesses told authorities they saw a person throwing lit bottles filled with an unknown substance at Iglesia ni Cristo just after 8 p.m. Thursday and immediately called 9-1-1, according to KCPQ-TV.

If some leftist group had been firebombed, it would have made front page news all over the country and CNN and MSNBC would have been breathlessly examining every little detail for hours.

In the end, everyone has an agenda to push, and stories about Christian persecution absolutely do not fit with the narratives that the corporate media are trying to propagate.

But just because they are ignoring this global surge in Christian persecution does not mean that it does not exist. We truly do live in apocalyptic times, and we should expect persecution to continue to rise as anti-Christian sentiment continues to grow.

Thankfully, we don’t have to worry too much about being gunned down or arrested here in the western world, but we can certainly see anti-Christian sentiment rising all around us. Christians are portrayed as nutjobs on our television shows and in our movies, Christian values are endlessly demonized on our news programs, and now prominent Christians voices are continually being silenced on social media.

We are going down the same path that much of the rest of the world has already gone down, and it is just a matter of time before the sort of brutal persecution being experienced elsewhere happens here too.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

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End Times Persecution Is Here: The Largest Country In The World Is Destroying 1000s Of Crosses And Bibles

Many Christians in the western world don’t even realize that the persecution of the end times has already started. All over the world, Christians are being attacked, Bibles are being burned and churches are being shut down. This persecution has been escalating for quite some time, but what prompted me to write this article today was the dramatic change that we have witnessed in China this year. Up to this point, the Chinese government has largely tolerated the booming house church movement, but now that era of toleration is officially over. New religious regulations that went into effect in February are being brutally enforced, and this is causing some to point out the frightening parallels between Communist China and Nazi Germany.

According to Fox News, during this new crackdown Chinese government officials have been “destroying crosses, burning bibles, closing churches and forcing Christian believers to sign papers renouncing their faith”…

The Chinese government is destroying crosses, burning bibles, closing churches and forcing Christian believers to sign papers renouncing their faith as the crackdown on religious congregations in Beijing and several provinces intensifies.

The suppression of religious freedoms is part of an official campaign to “Sinicize” religion by demanding loyalty to the atheist Communist party and removing any potential challenge to the party’s power in the country.

Doesn’t that sound quite similar to Nazi Germany and other tyrannical regimes?

If Christians refuse to sign these papers, they could lose their jobs or be cut off from all government benefits.

So let us pray for strength for our brothers and sisters in China, because many of them will be confronted with some very hard choices.

According to the Express, authorities have also “raided Christian homes to remove religious symbols, arrested church members and seized churches”. In Henan province alone, more than 7,000 crosses have been destroyed, but other than Fox News most of the mainstream media outlets in the United States have been completely silent about this very important story.

You can see some footage of Bibles being burned in China on Twitter right here. This is evil on a level that is hard to describe, and it seems to be getting worse with each passing month.

Earlier this month, one pastor was heartbroken after authorities burned crosses, Bibles and furniture after a raid on his church…

A Christian Pastor in the Henan city of Nanyang, whose name was not identified out of fear of retaliation by the authorities, reportedly confirmed that crosses, bibles and furniture were burned during a raid on his church on Sept. 5.

He added that local authorities were in discussions with the church about reforming it, but no agreement had been reached.

According to Chinese laws, religious believers are allowed to worship only in government-sanctioned congregations. But many millions of Christians belong to underground or house churches that ignore government regulations.

So exactly what kind of “reform” did the authorities have in mind?

Basically, China wants churches to look like something out of a George Orwell novel. The following comes from CBN…

Chinese Christians report authorities have urged church leaders to remove pictures of Jesus from their sanctuaries and replace them with patriotic posters, or posters of President Xi instead. They’ve suggested hymns be replaced with patriotic songs about the “wonderfulness of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Nettleton also said Chinese authorities are using advanced artificial intelligence software to monitor church attendees.

“One pastor in Beijing not long ago was told by the government, ‘pastor we don’t mind if you continue holding your services, we just want to put this camera on your platform looking out at the audience and it’s attached to facial recognition software so that we can tell who comes to church on Sunday and who’s there and what they are doing and how involved they are,'” he said.

Could you imagine going to a church like that?

I couldn’t.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is it.

This is the persecution of the last days, and it is only going to get worse.

In addition to everything else, the Chinese government is banning just about all expressions of faith on the Internet…

In addition to these attacks, the Chinese government is implementing tight restrictions on online content related to religion. Images and descriptions of religious activities will be largely prohibited, with exceptions for organizations that have obtained licenses from the government — and even then, what kinds of religious content they may share is restricted. As the Telegraph reports, “Individuals would be forbidden from posting photos, videos and even text related to religious activities, or sharing links related to preaching.”

This will happen here in the United States too eventually if we don’t fight it.

And of course it isn’t just in China that we are seeing a rise in persecution.

Just a couple weeks ago, Islamic radicals viciously attacked home churches in Egypt…

Homes of Copts in the Minya region were attacked by hundreds of furious locals leaving two Christians with knife wounds in the head and face, World Watch Monitor reports.

Four homes were ransacked, looted and partially set on fire by a Muslim mob during the three-hour-long attack, which was reportedly in protest of one of the properties being used as a home church.

A local source for Christian persecution watchdog World Watch Monitor said the small Coptic community had been warned about the attack on August 31 a few days before it took place.

And earlier this year in Ethiopia, a total of 69 churches were torched by radical Islamists…

On March 2nd, Muslims went on a rampage in an Islamic area of Ethiopia, beginning with an assault on churches in Asendabo. ICC and others alerted the world and called on the Ethiopian government to intervene. Unfortunately, the local government did not intervene and the attacks continued for a week. When the smoke cleared, the damage was evident. The Muslims had burned down the homes of 30 Christian leaders, they had killed one Christian, wounded several others, and torched 69 churches, a Bible school, and a Christian orphanage. One of the many wounded in these attacks was the grandson of a church elder who put himself in between the Muslim militants and his grandfather when they arrived to kill the elderly man. The Islamists attacked the young man with machetes – seriously wounding his head and hand and leaving him for dead. His family was forced to make a three-hour journey on foot to bring him to a hospital in a nearby city.

Hatred for Christians and the Christian faith is rapidly rising all over the planet, and this was something that I warned about in my book about Bible prophecy. We should do all that we can to put pressure on governments to stop persecuting Christians, but if we really are in the end times, ultimately the persecution is just going to continue to escalate.

The good news is that persecution always brings out the best in the people of God, and I believe that the greatest chapters of the Church are still ahead.

So let us pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters all over the world, and let us also prepare ourselves for the immense persecution that is on the horizon for all of us.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Christianity CRACKDOWN: Fury at plans to create a CHRISTIAN-FREE village in India

(The Express) Srinivas Sapa, a pastor and 42-year-old resident of the village located in Maharashtra, told International Christian Concern the issue has sparked “panic” among Christians living there.

He said: “All that the Hindu radicals want is for Sangameshwar to be a ‘Christian-free’ village.

“Of all the 50 odd Christians who are native to Sangameshwar, most were born in the village and are now panicked over the situation.”

Mass Exodus From The Church: The Percentage Of Young Adults With No Religious Affiliation Has Nearly QUADRUPLED Since 1986

We are witnessing a religious shift that is unprecedented in size and scope in American history. With each passing year, the percentage of Americans that claim no religious affiliation is growing, and this trend is especially pronounced among our young people. If things continue to steadily move in this direction, that is going to have enormous implications for the future of our society. The United States was founded by people that were extremely committed to their faith, and now we are rapidly becoming a nation where people are choosing no religion at all. We live at a time when there is a mass exodus from Christian churches, and while it is true that some smaller faiths are growing, the reality of the matter is that most of the people that are leaving are remaining unaffiliated. According to PRRI, if you go back to 1991 only 6 percent of all Americans were “unaffiliated”, but today that number has shot up to 25 percent…

In 1991, only six percent of Americans identified their religious affiliation as “none,” and that number had not moved much since the early 1970s. By the end of the 1990s, 14% of the public claimed no religious affiliation. The rate of religious change accelerated further during the late 2000s and early 2010s, reaching 20% by 2012. Today, one-quarter (25%) of Americans claim no formal religious identity, making this group the single largest “religious group” in the U.S.

The most dramatic change during this time period has been among our young people.

If you go all the way back to 1986, just 10 percent of Americans in the 18 to 29-year-old age group were “unaffiliated”. Today, that number has skyrocketed to 39 percent. Here is more from PRRI…

Today, nearly four in ten (39%) young adults (ages 18-29) are religiously unaffiliated—three times the unaffiliated rate (13%) among seniors (ages 65 and older). While previous generations were also more likely to be religiously unaffiliated in their twenties, young adults today are nearly four times as likely as young adults a generation ago to identify as religiously unaffiliated. In 1986, for example, only 10% of young adults claimed no religious affiliation.

And just because Millennials claim a religious affiliation of some sort does not mean that they actually go to church.

In fact, a study from the Pew Research Center discovered that only 27 percent of Millennials say that they “attend religious services on a weekly basis”…

Millennials – especially the youngest Millennials, who have entered adulthood since the first Landscape Study was conducted – are far less religious than their elders. For example, only 27% of Millennials say they attend religious services on a weekly basis, compared with 51% of adults in the Silent generation. Four-in-ten of the youngest Millennials say they pray every day, compared with six-in-ten Baby Boomers and two-thirds of members of the Silent generation. Only about half of Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty, compared with seven-in-ten Americans in the Silent and Baby Boom cohorts. And only about four-in-ten Millennials say religion is very important in their lives, compared with more than half in the older generational cohorts.

Of course not all of those that are “attending religious services” are going to Christian churches. Some are going to mosques, others are attending synagogue, and yet others are involved in other faiths.

At one time you could count on fast growing groups such as the Southern Baptists and the Mormons to produce positive growth numbers, but those days are long gone…

The Southern Baptists have lost more than a million members over the last decade, according to LifeWay. Giving and attendance are down, and Baptists are seeing more gray and silver heads in the pews.

Meanwhile, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has seen its once-enviable U.S. growth rate slow to under 1 percent in each of the last two years. Mormonism, which grew by just .75 percent in this country in 2017, is barely keeping pace with the growth of the U.S. population (+.71 percent).

Europe has been described as a “post-Christian society”, and we are well on our way to joining them.

So what is causing this to happen?

Well, there is certainly a lot of debate about this within Christian circles. From the outside, many experts are pointing to demographic changes. The following comes from a recent article by Jana Riess…

One of the biggest demographic trends of our time is that millennials are delaying marriage or not getting married at all. And since there’s a strong correlation between being married and being involved in religion, the fact that fewer Americans are getting married is worrisome news to clergy.

In addition to a decline in marriage numbers, experts also point to the fact that Americans are having fewer children these days…

The number of children a family has is related to the couple’s religious involvement — couples without kids are a bit less likely to be religious. So the fact that fertility is on the decline is, again, worrisome news for organized religion.

But are those factors a cause of the decline of religious faith in America, or are they the result of it?

It could be argued that churches have always heavily promoted marriage and family, and if young Americans are no longer as engaged in church it would make sense that they put less of a priority on those things now.

The good news for churches is that even though atheism is rapidly growing, most Americans (even the unaffiliated ones) still believe in God…

Despite their lack of connection to formal religious institutions, most unaffiliated Americans retain a belief in God or a higher power. A majority of unaffiliated Americans say God is either a person with whom people can have a relationship (22%) or an impersonal force (37%). Only one-third (33%) of religiously unaffiliated Americans say they do not believe in God. Strong majorities of Americans who belong to the major Christian religious traditions hold a personal conception of God. Compared to Christians, Americans who identify with a non-Christian tradition are significantly less likely to hold a personal conception of God (33%) and are more likely to say God is an impersonal force in the universe (49%).

Americans still have a keen interest in spiritual things, but many of them are now attempting to fill that void in alternative ways. For example, it has been claimed that Wicca (a very popular form of witchcraft) is now the fastest growing faith in America.

Many like to focus on the political changes that are happening in this country, but the truth is that these cataclysmic shifts in our faith numbers are going to have far more to do with determining the future course of this nation.

If we ever hope to restore the Constitutional Republic that our founders once established, we must return to the Christian values and principles that this nation was originally founded upon.

Any other approach is simply not going to work, and time is running out.

Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Texas Church Forced To Take Down 2 Billboards Declaring That “America Is A Christian Nation”

For Bible-believing Christians, restrictions on what you can safely say are getting tighter and tighter and tighter.

For example, just check out what just happened in Texas…

Pastor Robert Jeffress is fighting back after he says his mega-church, First Baptist Dallas, was forced to take down two billboards advertising his upcoming sermon, “America is a Christian Nation.”

Jeffress tells CBN News the day after the billboards went up, the Dallas Morning News published two articles characterizing their content as “hateful” and “divisive.” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings was quoted in one of the articles.

Jeffress says the articles were sent to the company that created the billboards, Outfront Media, which ended up taking them down and canceling its contract with First Baptist Dallas. The company pointed to the Dallas Morning News articles and classified the advertisements as “anger-provoking.”

Eventually the days will come when the true church has to go completely underground, and those days may be a lot closer than many of us originally thought.

Joel Osteen’s Church Spends About 90 Million Dollars A Year

Running a megachurch in America today is very big business, and it has been revealed that Joel Osteen’s church spends about 90 million dollars a year…

Pastor Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas has an annual budget of around $90 million, and their last fiscal year’s financial statement reveals how they use the money.

During the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2017, the megachurch spent $31.7 million on its weekly services and programs, according to Houston Chronicle, which further says $6.7 million was spent on the church’s Night of Hope events, and $25.1 million on its television ministry.

For general and administrative expenses, the church used $11.5 million, and another $11.9 million for fundraising. And the remaining $1.2 million was spent on mission and outreach.

11.9 million dollars for “fundraising” and only 1.2 million on “mission and outreach”?

It looks like someone has their priorities out of order…

Science Is Not God, So Why Do So Many People Keep Trying To Turn It Into A Religion?

This article is likely to get a lot of people out there quite angry. In our world today, many have become convinced that science has all of the answers to humanity’s most important questions, and those that question the high priests of this new religion (scientists) are often accused of a form of “blasphemy”. We saw this clearly on display last Saturday when protesters gathered in Washington D.C. and in about 600 other cities worldwide for “the March for Science”. Those of us that are skeptical and that don’t necessarily buy into the scientific orthodoxy of the day were accused of “ignoring facts” and being “climate deniers” by various speakers at these protests. But of course the truth is that scientific theories have always been in flux all throughout history, and this will continue to be the case as time moves forward.

Google defines science as “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” Personally, I very much believe in the scientific method because it has helped us to understand a great deal about how our world operates.

But in recent years, many in the scientific community have elevated “theory” to the same level as “fact”, and those that dare to question the most cherished theories of the scientific priesthood are often persecuted greatly. Just ask all of the professors that have been “purged” from universities all across the United States for challenging conventional wisdom on climate change or the origin of life.

I have studied the scientific evidence that both sides have produced, and I have become entirely convinced that climate change is not primarily caused by human activity. Does that make me a “heretic” according to these science zealots?

According to some of the more radical adherents of “scientism”, it should actually be a crime to deny that man-made climate change is happening, and those that do so should be put into prison.

But as a lawyer, I was trained to be skeptical and to consider the evidence on both sides. And to me, the evidence seems quite clear that solar activity and other factors have much more to do with our changing climate than human activity does.

Does thinking for myself make me “evil”?

It amazes me that so many “scientific minds” are now labeling carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

Do you know what would happen if we got rid of all carbon dioxide on the entire planet?

Every single plant would die, and all life on Earth would cease to exist shortly thereafter.

So please don’t try to tell me that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

In fact, there were times in the history of our planet when levels of carbon dioxide were far, far higher than they are today, and the world obviously did not end.

The climate of this planet has always been changing, and it always will be changing, and there is next to nothing that humanity can do to stop this process.

If that statement offends you, that is okay, because the free exchange of ideas is healthy for scientific debate.

That is one reason why I am so alarmed by the rhetoric coming from some of these scientific zealots that seem to be absolutely determined to silence everyone that disagrees with them.

One of the “high priests” of this new religion is “Bill Nye the Science Guy”. He only has a B.S. in mechanical engineering, and he is best known for hosting a ridiculous kid’s show in the 90’s, but today he is treated as a rock star by those that have embraced “scientism”. The following comes from an article about the recent “March for Science” in the Washington Post…

The moment he emerged onstage in a black jacket and red bow tie, the crowd noise hit near-deafening decibels. A sea of iPhones appeared, everyone stretching and jostling for the best possible photo angle. They cupped their hands to their mouths, screaming his name.

“Greetings, fellow citizens,” Bill Nye said to the thousands huddled beneath umbrellas and hand-lettered signs. “We are marching today to remind people everywhere, our lawmakers especially, of the significance of science for our health and prosperity.”

Near the foot of the stage, a young woman with a bright-green pixie cut shouted: “I love you!”

But what has Bill Nye ever done to deserve this level of adoration?

Just because you have been on television a lot does not make you an “expert” on anything.

And Bill Nye’s new show on Netflix is actually a complete embarrassment for the scientific community. In fact, a segment that he aired the other day is already being called “the worst music video of all time”…

Bill Nye “The Social Justice Guy” and actress Rachel Bloom just released what people are calling the worst music video of all time.

The song “My Sex Junk,” which was released Friday as part of Bill Nye’s new NetFlix show “Bill Nye Saves The World,” features Rachel Bloom twerking and rapping about how “sexuality is a spectrum” and “everyone is on it.”

I was going to point out where you could watch it on YouTube, but I decided not to do that because it is extremely raunchy. Nobody should ever watch such filth, and Bill Nye should publicly apologize to the entire country because he has just willingly exposed thousands of innocent children to explicit sexual content.

So far this horrific video has only 427 likes and more than 27,000 dislikes on YouTube. It mentions just about every form of sexual perversion that you can imagine, and by conducting himself in this manner Nye is bringing shame on his entire profession. The following comes from Mike Adams of Natural News…

With this push for transgenderism, Bill Nye has become an embarrassment to real science. He also demonstrates to the whole world why every narrative pushed by what I call “religious science fundamentalism” — including vaccines, climate change, GMOs and pesticides — is rooted in either sheer lunacy or corporate propaganda. Remember: The guy telling you that GMOs, vaccines and fluoride are all safe is the same guy who thinks men can transform into women by wishing really hard. Yeah, that’s the new “science” being pushed by Bill Nye.

One of the things that Bill Nye is best known for is his ardent defense of the theory of evolution.

Personally, I don’t understand how anyone can possibly believe that men came from monkeys, but unfortunately there are millions of people out there that have been brainwashed into believing such nonsense.

To end this article, I would like to share with you a list of 44 reasons why the theory of evolution is not true that I included in a previous article. If you just use a little common sense, it is easy to see that what Bill Nye and others are telling you simply cannot be the truth…

#1 If the theory of evolution was true, we should have discovered millions upon millions of transitional fossils that show the development of one species into another species. Instead, we have zero.

#2 When Charles Darwin came up with his theory, he admitted that no transitional forms had been found at that time, but he believed that huge numbers certainly existed and would eventually be discovered…

“Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed. But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?”

#3 Even some of the most famous evolutionists in the world acknowledge the complete absence of transitional fossils in the fossil record. For example, Dr. Colin Patterson, former senior paleontologist of the British Museum of Natural History and author of “Evolution” once wrote the following…

“I fully agree with your comments about the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them …. I will lay it on the line – there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.”

#4 Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology at Harvard University, once wrote the following about the lack of transitional forms…

“The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.”

#5 Evolutionist Stephen M. Stanley of Johns Hopkins University has also commented on the stunning lack of transitional forms in the fossil record…

“In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another.”

#6 If “evolution” was happening right now, there would be millions of creatures out there with partially developed features and organs. But instead there are none.

#7 If the theory of evolution was true, we should not see a sudden explosion of fully formed complex life in the fossil record. Instead, that is precisely what we find.

#8 Paleontologist Mark Czarnecki, an evolutionist, once commented on the fact that complex life appears very suddenly in the fossil record…

“A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth’s geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin’s hypothetical intermediate variants – instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God.”

#9 The sudden appearance of complex life in the fossil record is so undeniable that even Richard Dawkins has been forced to admit it…

“It is as though they [fossils] were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. Both schools of thought (Punctuationists and Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and both agree that the major gaps are real, that they are true imperfections in the fossil record. The only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation and both reject this alternative.”

#10 Nobody has ever observed macroevolution take place in the laboratory or in nature. In other words, nobody has ever observed one kind of creature turn into another kind of creature. The entire theory of evolution is based on blind faith.

#11 Evolutionist Jeffrey Schwartz, a professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, openly admits that “the formation of a new species, by any mechanism, has never been observed.”

#12 Even evolutionist Stephen J. Gould of Harvard University has admitted that the record shows that species do not change. The following is how he put it during a lecture at Hobart & William Smith College…

“Every paleontologist knows that most species don’t change. That’s bothersome….brings terrible distress. ….They may get a little bigger or bumpier but they remain the same species and that’s not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don’t change, its not evolution so you don’t talk about it.”

#13 Anyone that believes that the theory of evolution has “scientific origins” is fooling themselves. It is actually a deeply pagan religious philosophy that can be traced back for thousands of years.

#14 Anything that we dig up that is supposedly more than 250,000 years old should have absolutely no detectable radiocarbon in it whatsoever. But instead, we find it in everything that we dig up – even dinosaur bones. This is clear evidence that the “millions of years” theory is simply a bunch of nonsense…

It’s long been known that radiocarbon (which should disappear in only a few tens of thousands of years at the most) keeps popping up reliably in samples (like coal, oil, gas, etc.) which are supposed to be ‘millions of years’ old. For instance, CMI has over the years commissioned and funded the radiocarbon testing of a number of wood samples from ‘old’ sites (e.g. with Jurassic fossils, inside Triassic sandstone, burnt by Tertiary basalt) and these were published (by then staff geologist Dr Andrew Snelling) in Creation magazine and Journal of Creation. In each case, with contamination eliminated, the result has been in the thousands of years, i.e. C-14 was present when it ‘shouldn’t have been’. These results encouraged the rest of the RATE team to investigate C-14 further, building on the literature reviews of creationist M.D. Dr Paul Giem.

In another very important paper presented at this year’s ICC, scientists from the RATE group summarized the pertinent facts and presented further experimental data. The bottom line is that virtually all biological specimens, no matter how ‘old’ they are supposed to be, show measurable C-14 levels. This effectively limits the age of all buried biota to less than (at most) 250,000 years.

#15 The odds of even a single sell “assembling itself” by chance are so low that they aren’t even worth talking about. The following is an excerpt from Jonathan Gray’s book entitled “The Forbidden Secret“…

Even the simplest cell you can conceive of would require no less than 100,000 DNA base pairs and a minimum of about 10,000 amino acids, to form the essential protein chain. Not to mention the other things that would also be necessary for the first cell.

Bear in mind that every single base pair in the DNA chain has to have the same molecular orientation (“left-hand” or “right hand”)? As well as that, virtually all the amino acids must have the opposite orientation. And every one must be without error.

“Now,” explained Larry, “to randomly obtain those correct orientations, do you know your chances? It would be 1 chance in 2110,000, or 1 chance in 1033,113!

“To put it another way, if you attempted a trillion, trillion, trillion combinations every second for 15 billion years, the odds you would achieve all the correct orientations would still only be one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion … and the trillions would continue 2755 times!

“It would be like winning more than 4700 state lotteries in a row with a single ticket purchased for each. In other words…impossible.”

#16 How did life learn to reproduce itself? This is a question that evolutionists do not have an answer for.

#17 In 2007, fishermen caught a very rare creature known as a Coelacanth. Evolutionists originally told us that this “living fossil” had gone extinct 70 million years ago. It turns out that they were only off by 70 million years.

#18 According to evolutionists, the Ancient Greenling Damselfly last showed up in the fossil record about 300 million years ago. But it still exists today. So why hasn’t it evolved at all over that time frame?

#19 Darwinists believe that the human brain developed without the assistance of any designer. This is so laughable it is amazing that there are any people out there that still believe this stuff. The truth is that the human brain is amazingly complex. The following is how a PBS documentary described the complexity of the human brain: “It contains over 100 billion cells, each with over 50,000 neuron connections to other brain cells.”

#20 The following is how one evolutionist pessimistically assessed the lack of evidence for the evolution of humanity…

“Even with DNA sequence data, we have no direct access to the processes of evolution, so objective reconstruction of the vanished past can be achieved only by creative imagination.”

#21 Perhaps the most famous fossil in the history of the theory of evolution, “Piltdown Man”, turned out to be a giant hoax.

#22 If the neutron were not about 1.001 times the mass of the proton, all protons would have decayed into neutrons or all neutrons would have decayed into protons, and therefore life would not be possible. How can we account for this?

#23 If gravity was stronger or weaker by the slimmest of margins, then life sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would also make life impossible. How can we account for this?

#24 Why did evolutionist Dr. Lyall Watson make the following statement?…

“The fossils that decorate our family tree are so scarce that there are still more scientists than specimens. The remarkable fact is that all of the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a single coffin!”

#25 Apes and humans are very different genetically. As DarwinConspiracy.com explains, “the human Y chromosome has twice as many genes as the chimpanzee Y chromosome and the chromosome structures are not at all similar.”

#26 How can we explain the creation of new information that is required for one animal to turn into another animal? No evolutionary process has ever been shown to be able to create new biological information. One scientist described the incredible amount of new information that would be required to transform microbes into men this way…

“The key issue is the type of change required — to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content, from over half a million DNA ‘letters’ of even the ‘simplest’ self-reproducing organism to three billion ‘letters’ (stored in each human cell nucleus).”

#27 Evolutionists would have us believe that there are nice, neat fossil layers with older fossils being found in the deepest layers and newer fossils being found in the newest layers. This simply is not true at all…

The fossil layers are not found in the ground in the nice neat clean order that evolutionists illustrate them to be in their textbooks. There is not one place on the surface of the earth where you may dig straight down and pass through the fossil layers in the order shown in the textbooks. The neat order of one layer upon another does not exist in nature. The fossil bearing layers are actually found out of order, upside down (backwards according to evolutionary theory), missing (from where evolutionists would expect them to be) or interlaced (“younger” and “older” layers found in repeating sequences). “Out of place” fossils are the rule and not the exception throughout the fossil record.

#28 Evolutionists believe that the ancestors of birds developed hollow bones over thousands of generations so that they would eventually be light enough to fly. This makes absolutely no sense and is beyond ridiculous.

#29 If dinosaurs really are tens of millions of years old, why have scientists found dinosaur bones with soft tissue still in them? The following is from an NBC News report about one of these discoveries…

For more than a century, the study of dinosaurs has been limited to fossilized bones. Now, researchers have recovered 70 million-year-old soft tissue, including what may be blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex.

#30 Which evolved first: blood, the heart, or the blood vessels for the blood to travel through?

#31 Which evolved first: the mouth, the stomach, the digestive fluids, or the ability to poop?

#32 Which evolved first: the windpipe, the lungs, or the ability of the body to use oxygen?

#33 Which evolved first: the bones, ligaments, tendons, blood supply, or the muscles to move the bones?

#34 In order for blood to clot, more than 20 complex steps need to successfully be completed. How in the world did that process possibly evolve?

#35 DNA is so incredibly complex that it is absolutely absurd to suggest that such a language system could have “evolved” all by itself by accident…

When it comes to storing massive amounts of information, nothing comes close to the efficiency of DNA. A single strand of DNA is thousands of times thinner than a strand of human hair. One pinhead of DNA could hold enough information to fill a stack of books stretching from the earth to the moon 500 times.

Although DNA is wound into tight coils, your cells can quickly access, copy, and translate the information stored in DNA. DNA even has a built-in proofreader and spell-checker that ensure precise copying. Only about one mistake slips through for every 10 billion nucleotides that are copied.

#36 Can you solve the following riddle by Perry Marshall?…

1) DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism.

2) All codes are created by a conscious mind; there is no natural process known to science that creates coded information.

3) Therefore DNA was designed by a mind.

If you can provide an empirical example of a code or language that occurs naturally, you’ve toppled my proof. All you need is one.

#37 Evolutionists simply cannot explain why our planet is so perfectly suited to support life.

#38 Shells from living snails have been “carbon dated” to be 27,000 years old.

#39 If humans have been around for so long, where are all of the bones and all of the graves? The following is an excerpt from an article by Don Batten…

Evolutionists also claim there was a ‘Stone Age’ of about 100,000 years when between one million and 10 million people lived on Earth. Fossil evidence shows that people buried their dead, often with artefacts—cremation was not practised until relatively recent times (in evolutionary thinking). If there were just one million people alive during that time, with an average generation time of 25 years, they should have buried 4 billion bodies, and many artefacts. If there were 10 million people, it would mean 40 billion bodies buried in the earth. If the evolutionary timescale were correct, then we would expect the skeletons of the buried bodies to be largely still present after 100,000 years, because many ordinary bones claimed to be much older have been found. However, even if the bodies had disintegrated, lots of artefacts should still be found.

#40 Evolutionists claim that just because it looks like we were designed that does not mean that we actually were. They often speak of the “illusion of design”, but that is kind of like saying that it is an “illusion” that a 747 airplane or an Apple iPhone were designed. And of course the human body is far more complex that a 747 or an iPhone.

#41 If you want to be part of the “scientific community” today, you must accept the theory of evolution no matter how absurd it may seem to you. Richard Lewontin of Harvard once made the following comment regarding this harsh reality…

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism. . . . we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

#42 Time Magazine once made the following statement about the lack of evidence for the theory of evolution…

“Yet despite more than a century of digging, the fossil record remains maddeningly sparse. With so few clues, even a single bone that doesn’t fit into the picture can upset everything. Virtually every major discovery has put deep cracks in the conventional wisdom and forced scientists to concoct new theories, amid furious debate.”

#43 Malcolm Muggeridge, the world famous journalist and philosopher, once made the following statement about the absurdity of the theory of evolution…

“I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.”

#44 In order to believe the theory of evolution, you must have enough blind faith to believe that life just popped into existence from non-life, and that such life just happened to have the ability to take in the nourishment it needed, to expel waste, and to reproduce itself, all the while having everything it needed to survive in the environment in which it suddenly found itself. Do you have that much blind faith?

So what do you believe about the origin of life?

Please feel free to join the debate by posting a comment below…

Based On Current Trends, It Is Only A Matter Of Time Before The Gay Population In The U.S. Is Larger Than The Evangelical Population

The LGBT population in the United States is on the rise, and meanwhile the number of evangelicals is on the decline.  For now, evangelicals still greatly outnumber those that identify as LGBT, but if current trends continue it is only a matter of time before the size of the gay population actually surpasses the size of the evangelical population.  The primary reason for this is the enormous cultural shift that is taking place among our young people.  Millennials are much less likely to identify as “evangelical” than the general population as a whole, but they are more than twice as likely to identify as LGBT.  Unless something dramatic happens, the percentage of LGBT Americans will continue to increase and the percentage of evangelical Americans will continue to fall as older Americans slowly die off.

Many evangelicals and many that identify as LGBT will get angry when you bring up these numbers.  A lot of evangelicals want to continue to believe the myth that America is still a “moral country”, but that stopped being true a long time ago.  And many of those that identify as LGBT do not want to accept the fact that more people are choosing to be gay because they want to maintain the narrative that “people are born that way”.

But the numbers don’t lie.  According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans that identify as LGBT has been steadily rising for years.  Just check out these numbers…

2012: 3.5 percent

2013: 3.6 percent

2014: 3.7 percent

2015: 3.9 percent

2016: 4.1 percent

And the numbers are much more pronounced when you look only at Millennials…

2012: 5.8 percent

2013: 6.0 percent

2014: 6.3 percent

2015: 6.7 percent

2016: 7.3 percent

As this figure continues to trend up, it won’t be very long until 10 percent of all Millennials openly identify as LGBT.  And already, Millennials are about twice as likely as the rest of the population to consider themselves to be gay.  The following comes from Gallup…

Millennials are more than twice as likely as any other generation to identify as LGBT. In 2012, they accounted for 43% of LGBT-identified adults. As a result of their disproportionate increases in identification since then, they now account for 58%. Millennials comprise 32% of the general adult population.

But these days, it isn’t just a choice between “gay” or “straight” that we are talking about.  In fact, Time Magazine reported on a survey that found that approximately one-third of all Millennials consider themselves to be somewhere between “exclusively homosexual” and “exclusively heterosexual”…

When pollsters asked Americans last year how they would identify on the Kinsey Scale—a six point rating spanning from “exclusively homosexual” to “exclusively heterosexual”—about a third of millennials pointed somewhere in the “non-binary” middle, compared to about 8% of people over the age of 45.

So the findings of that survey would suggest that there is a whole lot more same-sex attraction going on among Millennials than many of the “experts” had been thinking.

Another survey of all age groups in America discovered that “about 20 percent of the population is attracted to their own gender.”  So it is important to remember that people can experience same-sex attraction and yet not identify as LGBT.

No matter what side of the debate you are on, everybody should be able to agree that more people are “coming out of the closet” than every before.  And there are still many that are “in the closet”, and so a lot of surveys still typically understate the true number of gay people in society.  The following comes from the Daily Beast…

As the Pew Research Center notes, conventional surveys may underestimate the size of the LGBT population due to unreliable self-reporting. A team of researchers from Ohio State University and Boston University found that survey respondents were far more likely to report a non-heterosexual identity when assured of absolute anonymity than they were when interviewed using a standard public opinion method in which respondents can still be connected to their answers.

Meanwhile, the percentage of evangelical Christians in America continues to decline.  Just recently I published an entire article on this phenomenon entitled “America Became A Lot Less Christian During The Presidency Of Barack Obama“, and I encourage everyone that has not seen it yet to go back and read it.

In that article, you will see that an astounding 35 percent of all Millennials now have no religious affiliation whatsoever, and only 27 percent of them attend religious services on a weekly basis.

And Millennials are much less likely to call themselves “evangelical” than the rest of the population.  At this point, only 21 percent of all Millennials identify as evangelical Protestants.  For older Millennials the figure is 22 percent, and for younger Millennials the figure is just 19 percent.

This is where America is heading.  If current trends hold up, in the not too distant future less than a fifth of the country will be evangelical Christians.

Also, nearly 3 out of every 4 Millennials in America support gay marriage, and that is the highest percentage by far for any age group.

Of course societal trends can change.  And we better hope that they change, because if they don’t a lot of the things that I talk about in my latest book will start happening very quickly.

We are in a battle for the mind, and the average American spends about five hours a day watching television.  Virtually all of that “programming” is controlled by just six gigantic media corporations, and they are continuously pushing a worldview that promotes “progressive” values.

The same thing is true for our so-called “education system”.  The next generations of Americans are being systematically conditioned to think and feel certain ways, and most parents have no idea what really goes on behind those classroom doors.

So even if we can get our kids to sit in church for an hour each week, how could that possibly compete with the thousands upon thousands of hours of “conditioning” that they are constantly being exposed to the rest of the time?

Much of Europe is already considered to be “post-Christian”, and if something is not done the United States will suffer the same fate.

It won’t happen immediately, but if current trends persist it is just a matter of time before the gay population in this country is larger than the evangelical Christian population.

Political change does not equal spiritual change, and spiritual change is what America desperately needs.

CBS Poll: Two-Thirds of Democrats Say Islam, Christianity Equally Violent

Almost seven out 10 Democrats believe Islam “encourages violence… about the same as other religions,” according to a new CBS poll.

The trusting attitude towards Islam is revealed in the February 2017 poll follows 17 tumultuous years of attacks against Americans motivated or shaped by Islamic ideology throughout the United States—from the 9/11 atrocity to the Pulse nightclub attack in Florida committed by an observant, orthodox Muslim man from a Muslim family.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Global elites put Christianity in the crosshairs

global-public-domain

The term global governance refers to the political dimension of globalization. Here the question is to what degree governance will be centralized and controlled by international institutions in ways that threaten to diminish national and local governmental capacity. Global governance advocates tend to prefer both transnational regulation of markets and the creation of new human rights norms marked by increased centralization.

In the latter sense, global governance can imply much more than simple international coordination and cooperation, which has existed throughout modern international relations. Now it is also a deeply and widely embedded ideology that seeks global centralization and regulation of wide-reaching areas of international interaction. It is believed and advanced by its devotees with an almost religious zeal. Among these devotees are (1) university professors and teachers at all levels, (2) nongovernmental organization professionals, (3) international lawyers, (4) journalists, (5) increasingly large numbers of elected and appointed governmental leaders and officials, (6) international civil servants, (7) celebrities and cultural elites, and (8) experts in the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations. If this growing and increasingly influential body of believers simply wanted to resolve pressing international problems, its effects would be largely unobjectionable. International cooperation is needed to prevent, control, and resolve conflicts; provide much-needed humanitarian emergency assistance; and promote increasing prosperity among nations.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Appeals Court Upholds School District’s Order for Teacher to Cleanse Christianity From Classroom

classroom-public-domain

An appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling siding with a New York school district that instructed a teacher to cleanse Christianity from her classroom under threat of termination.

The Buffalo News reports that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals this month rejected the arguments of high school biology and anatomy teacher Joelle Silver that the Cheektowaga Central School District violated her rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

As previously reported, several years ago, Silver, who identifies as a Christian, had displayed several inspirational posters and artworks in her classroom, including a number of Scripture references and Christian materials.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Why More Churches Are Suddenly Affirming Same-Sex Marriage

church-in-america

Unsurprisingly, the move to affirm same-sex marriage is affecting churches. For instance, First Baptist Church of Austin has adopted a “diversity statement” that welcomes members regardless of sexual orientation into “the full life of our community.”

Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas announced last Monday that a majority of its members voted to open weddings, baby dedications, ordination and leadership positions to people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

With more and more Christian churches and public figures endorsing same-sex marriage, it might seem that those who do not go along will be left behind. But popularity must never be a test for truth. Conventional wisdom is often less than wise.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Muslim Leader Converts To Christianity After Being Miraculously Raised From The Dead

heaven-hell-road-sign-public-domain

A Muslim Imam was miraculously raised from the dead and converted to Christianity after having a vision of Jesus.

ChristianToday.com reports that Munaf Ali (name changed for security reasons) was an influential religious leader in the Middle East.

While he was walking home one day, he suddenly lost consciousness, fell to the ground, and was found dead by his family.

While his body remained lifeless, however, Munaf Ali had a vision of good and evil.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Witchcraft, Islam And Humanism Are Filling The Spiritual Void Left By The Dying Church

Witchcraft - Creative Commons

A dramatic spiritual paradigm shift is taking place in the western world.  At the end of last week, I discussed the fact that more Americans than ever before appear to be turning away from the Christian faith, and this is particularly true among our young people.  And while it is undeniable that atheism and agnosticism are both growing rapidly, it is also important to point out that other faiths are on the rise in the western world at the exact same time that Christianity is shrinking.  If you are a Christian, what you are about to read should concern you greatly.

Let’s start with witchcraft.  It has been estimated that Wicca (one very popular form of witchcraft) is now the fastest growing faith in America.  Books and movies featuring Harry Potter and others that use “magic” for good have fueled a tremendous amount of interest in the dark arts these days.  Just consider the following excerpt from a Salon article that was published earlier this month…

Stores specializing in metaphysical sundries (think ritual candles, blended oils, sacred herbs) like Spellbound Sky and House of Intuition in Los Angeles, while not brand-new, are suddenly crowded. In Brooklyn, Witches of Bushwick has evolved from a venue on the underground party circuit to a social collective that celebrates witchcraft as a feminist art and collaborates with fashion companies like Chromat. Of course, for those who prefer whipping up potions at home, several new witch- and occult-themed subscription boxes deliver the magical arts to the doorstep.

And social media has enabled young people interested in magic to connect with one another in a way that we have never seen before.  Here is more from Salon…

Check social media: A search for #witch on Instagram yields about 2,375,000 posts — whereas one for #kardashian scores only 1,630,000. Search next time at a boutique: Tarot decks are coming back in high style, thanks to retailers like the Wild Unknown — its artful cards are in stores across the country, from upscale meccas like ABC Home in New York City to indie hot spots like Skylark in Venice Beach, California. K-Hole was right, “mysticore” is the new norm.

Yes, there are still many more Christians than witches in America.

But the ranks of those that are into the occult are growing very quickly – especially among our young people – and in many churches on Sunday morning you will be fortunate to find even a handful of young adults.

Meanwhile, Islam is on the rise in the western world as well.  Much of this is due to immigration, and new mosques are springing up all over the United States and Europe.

As Islam gains ground, there has been a concerted effort in some quarters to bring Christianity and Islam together.  This movement has become known as “Chrislam”, and in recent years we have seen some things that many of us never imagined that we would ever see in the Christian world.

For example, earlier this year the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA was opened with a prayer offered to Allah…

“Allah bless us and bless our families and bless our Lord. Lead us on the straight path – the path of all prophets: Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.”

These were the words that rang out over the congregation at The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA meeting in Portland, Oregon. Wajidi Said, co-founder of the Muslim Education Trust, led the attendees in the prayer to the Islamic deity, a move arranged by the Ecumenical and Interfaith ministry staff at the assembly.

The prayer was part of the “first order of business” during the meeting’s opening session, a time dedicated to praying for those affected by the Orlando shooting that occurred just weeks before.

And of course the Presbyterian Church USA is far from alone.  As I have documented, Pope Francis has stated that Christians and Muslims both “worship the one God”, and in 2014 he authorized Islamic prayers and readings from the Quran at the Vatican for the first time ever.

But despite such efforts to “bring Christians and Muslims together”, the truth is that Islamic terrorists continue to slaughter Christians on a continual basis all over the planet.  The most recent attack on a church took place in Indonesia on Sunday…

An ISIS suicide bomber today attacked a Catholic priest with an axe as he tried to blow up hundreds of worshippers at a church during Sunday Mass.

Priest Albert Pandiangan, 60, was holding the holy ceremony at the altar when the 18-year-old fanatic rushed towards him with a backpack bomb and tried to blow himself up.

But the bomb burned without setting off the explosives, so the jihadi pulled an axe from his bag and slashed the priest’s arm at St Yoseph Church in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra in Indonesia.

So far there have been well over 1000 Islamic terror attacks in 2016, and ISIS appears to have a renewed emphasis on attacking churches and Christians wherever they can find them.

Without a doubt, we are also witnessing a huge increase in the number of atheists and agnostics in the western world.  Europe is much farther along than the United States is in this regard, and many areas of the continent are rightly regarded to be “post-Christian” at this point.

In the UK, the Christian faith has declined so dramatically that now we are seeing the rise of “humanist chaplains” that don’t hold to any sort of faith at all…

With participation in traditional faiths at near-record lows, Britain is seeing the rise of humanist chaplains providing “pastoral” support for the non-religious.

Last month the University of Westminster in London broke new ground by appointing its first official secular advisor for students.

The move followed efforts by the British Humanist Association since 2014 to train more than 100 volunteers to go into schools, hospitals and prisons in order to provide support for those who don’t believe in a deity.

Fortunately, things are much different in much of the rest of the world.  In fact, the Christian faith is currently experiencing explosive growth in China, India, South America and many portions of Africa.

But in the United States and Europe people are leaving the faith of their forefathers in astounding numbers, and that spiritual void is often being filled by other faiths such as witchcraft and Islam.

So what does this mean for the future of our society?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

*About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and End Of The American Dream. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.*

Take This Test To See If Most Americans Would Consider You To Be A ‘Religious Extremist’

Question Mark Road Sign - Public Domain

Are you a religious extremist? For years, world leaders have been endlessly proclaiming that we need to eradicate “extremism”, but what actually is “extremism”? Many would point to the ISIS jihadists over in the Middle East that are beheading people that don’t agree with them as examples of religious extremists, and I think that very few people would argue with that. But our politicians (especially the liberal ones) rarely use the term “Islamic terrorists” anymore. Instead, they tend to use the term “religious extremists”, and that has a much, much broader connotation. In fact, if you are a Bible-believing Christian, you are probably included in that category.

Most Bible-believing Christians would never think of themselves as being similar to radical jihadists in the Middle East, but that is precisely how many of their fellow Americans very them. The Barna Group has just released a shocking new study which found that 45 percent of all “non-religious” Americans believe that “Christianity is extremist”…

The perception that the Christian faith is extreme is now firmly entrenched among the nation’s non-Christians. A full forty-five percent of atheists, agnostics, and religiously unaffiliated in America agree with the statement “Christianity is extremist.” Almost as troubling is the fact that only 14 percent of atheists and agnostics strongly disagree that Christianity is extremist. The remaining four in ten (41%) disagree only somewhat. So even non-Christians who are reluctant to fully label Christianity as extremist, still harbor some hesitations and negative perceptions toward the religion.

Even more troubling is what the study discovered about how the general population views specific religious activities. There has been a tremendous shift in society, and behaviors that were considered to be completely mainstream a few decades ago are now considered to be “extremism”.

Are you ready to take a test? Look over the Barna infographic that I have shared below very carefully. Have you ever participated in any of these “extremist activities”?…

What Makes Someone A Religious Extremist - Barna Infographic

If you have ever participated in any of the activities listed in category 1 or category 2, you are a “religious extremist” according to most Americans.

Of course every single one of the behaviors in category 2 would potentially apply to me, so I guess that would make me an “extremist” according to this definition.

This is where our society is heading. Of course “Christian extremists” are not normally put into prison in the United States quite yet, but hatred toward our faith in rapidly rising in society. Church attendance is dropping like a rock, the Christian faith is relentlessly mocked in movies and on television, and incidents of hostility toward Christians have doubled over the past three years.

And the truth is that even the federal government and the military are rapidly turning against Bible-believing Christians. For example, the slide that I have posted below comes from a U.S. Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief that described “Evangelical Christianity” and “Catholicism” as examples of “religious extremism”…

Religious Extremism - U.S. Army Training Materials

Once this came out, there was a huge uproar and some people got into trouble over this. But it should be exceedingly alarming to people of faith that U.S. military personnel were being trained that evangelical Christians are on the same level as the Ku Klux Klan.

And of course this is far from the only example of this phenomenon. In fact, Christians have regularly been described as “extremists” and “potential terrorists” in official U.S. government documents since the day that Barack Obama first stepped into the White House.

The following is an extended excerpt from my previous article entitled “72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered ‘Potential Terrorists’ In Official Government Documents“…

*****

Below is a list of 72 types of Americans that are considered to be “extremists” and “potential terrorists” in official U.S. government documents. To see the original source document for each point, just click on the link. As you can see, this list covers most of the country…

1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”

2. Those that advocate for states’ rights

3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”

4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”

5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”

6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”

7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful,or undesirable”

8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”

9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”

10. “Anti-Gay”

11. “Anti-Immigrant”

12. “Anti-Muslim”

13. “The Patriot Movement”

14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”

15. Members of the Family Research Council

16. Members of the American Family Association

17. Those that believe that Mexico, Canada and the United States “are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the ‘North American Union’”

18. Members of the American Border Patrol/American Patrol

19. Members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform

20. Members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition

21. Members of the Christian Action Network

22. Anyone that is “opposed to the New World Order”

23. Anyone that is engaged in “conspiracy theorizing”

24. Anyone that is opposed to Agenda 21

25. Anyone that is concerned about FEMA camps

26. Anyone that “fears impending gun control or weapons confiscations”

27. The militia movement

28. The sovereign citizen movement

29. Those that “don’t think they should have to pay taxes”

30. Anyone that “complains about bias”

31. Anyone that “believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia”

32. Anyone that “is frustrated with mainstream ideologies”

33. Anyone that “visits extremist websites/blogs”

34. Anyone that “establishes website/blog to display extremist views”

35. Anyone that “attends rallies for extremist causes”

36. Anyone that “exhibits extreme religious intolerance”

37. Anyone that “is personally connected with a grievance”

38. Anyone that “suddenly acquires weapons”

39. Anyone that “organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology”

40. “Militia or unorganized militia”

41. “General right-wing extremist”

42. Citizens that have “bumper stickers” that are patriotic or anti-U.N.

43. Those that refer to an “Army of God”

44. Those that are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”

45. Those that are “anti-global”

46. Those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”

47. Those that are “reverent of individual liberty”

48. Those that “believe in conspiracy theories”

49. Those that have “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”

50. Those that possess “a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”

51. Those that would “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”

52. Those that would “insert religion into the political sphere”

53. Anyone that would “seek to politicize religion”

54. Those that have “supported political movements for autonomy”

55. Anyone that is “anti-abortion”

56. Anyone that is “anti-Catholic”

57. Anyone that is “anti-nuclear”

58. “Rightwing extremists”

59. “Returning veterans”

60. Those concerned about “illegal immigration”

61. Those that “believe in the right to bear arms”

62. Anyone that is engaged in “ammunition stockpiling”

63. Anyone that exhibits “fear of Communist regimes”

64. “Anti-abortion activists”

65. Those that are against illegal immigration

66. Those that talk about “the New World Order” in a “derogatory” manner

67. Those that have a negative view of the United Nations

68. Those that are opposed “to the collection of federal income taxes”

69. Those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr

70. Those that display the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”)

71. Those that believe in “end times” prophecies

72. Evangelical Christians

*****

Are you starting to get the picture?

There is a systematic attempt by the radical leftists that dominate our society to demonize Bible-believing Christians. They want to portray us as “religious extremists” that are just as dangerous as ISIS is.

Given enough time, they would not just come after us with words. Throughout history, we have seen the same thing happen with so many other groups. First they were marginalized, then they were demonized, then they were criminalized, and then ultimately they were marked for elimination.

If you are a Bible-believing Christian, you need to get ready for intense persecution, because it is most definitely heading our way.

ISIS Plot To Shoot Up A Detroit Megachurch Revealed As ‘Christianophobia’ Spreads Across America

Aggression - Public Domain

If you are a Christian, you better brace yourself for great persecution. It has gotten very little attention from the mainstream media, but federal authorities have uncovered an ISIS plot to “shoot up” a Detroit megachurch. 21-year-old Khalil Abu-Rayyan of Dearborn Heights, Michigan told authorities that he actually intended to take a gun into a very large church in Detroit that can seat up to 6,000 people and start killing Christians. He has been charged with supporting the Islamic States and with “illegally having a firearm while using a controlled substance”. Abu-Rayyan actually admitted that since he can’t be part of the jihad in the Middle East, that he would “do my jihad over here”. As I have warned so many times before, ISIS terrorists are already here, and what we have seen so far is just the beginning.

I can’t understand why this story is not headlines news all over America. If Khalil Abu-Rayyan had succeeded in conducting the megachurch attack that he was planning, hundreds of Christians could have potentially been killed. The people that go to that church might not ever know just how close they actually came to being slaughtered…

“I tried to shoot up a church one day,” Abu-Rayyan is quoted as saying in court records. “I don’t know the name of it, but it’s close to my job. It’s one of the biggest ones in Detroit. Ya, I had it planned out. I bought a bunch of bullets. I practiced a lot with it. I practiced reloading and unloading. But my dad searched my car one day, and he found everything. He found the gun and the bullets and a mask I was going to wear.”

Investigators didn’t name the church Abu-Rayyan allegedly eyed, but claim the property covers about two blocks less than half a mile from his work and can accommodate up to 6,000 members. He allegedly purchased a gun and told an undercover FBI employee that attacking a church would be “easy.”

“A lot of people go there. Plus people are not allowed to carry guns in church,” the affidavit quotes him as saying. “Plus it would make the news. Everybody would’ve heard. Honestly I regret not doing it. (If I) can’t go do jihad at the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here.”

These comments show us precisely what these terrorists want.

They want to create fear, and they want to get as much media attention as possible.

Terrorists like Khalil Abu-Rayyan do not fear death, because they have been promised that they will go to a wonderful paradise where they will be showered with attention by virgins when they die. In fact, many of them seem quite eager to receive a one-way ticket to their sex-fueled religious fantasy.

Unfortunately, mainstream media outlets in both the United States and Europe purposely downplay the hatred that these Islamic radicals have for ordinary Christians, because they don’t want to make Muslim immigrants look bad. That is why the mainstream media almost entirely ignored the fact that the main target of the San Bernardino shootings was a Messianic Christian, and that is why the mainstream media is burying this current story about Khalil Abu-Rayyan.

If a Christian baker refuses to bake a cake for a gay wedding, that is front page news, but if a Muslim admits to planning to shoot up a church of several thousand people that is a non-event according to the media.

This anti-Christian bias is growing stronger with each passing year, and it has now become institutionalized in our society in so many ways. A recent article by Selwyn Duke highlighted some examples of this phenomenon that we have recently witnessed…

A student is punished for refusing to “stomp on Jesus,” a Christian baker faces a year in jail for refusing to cater faux marriages, two men are arrested for reading the Bible aloud near a government building, a school “purges” Christian works from its library. Critics asserting the existence of an institutional anti-Christian bias, and a resultant war on the faith, have often been labeled paranoid. But now two University of North Texas sociologists have produced research showing that just such an agenda exists — among America’s most powerful people.

The two sociologists that he was referring to are Professor George Yancey and Professor David Williamson, and they shared their research in a newly published book entitled “So Many Christians, So Few Lions: Is There Christianophobia in the United States?” The Christian Post interviewed Yancey about this new book and the following is an excerpt from that interview…

In the minds of many of the respondents Christians are ignorant, intolerant and stupid individuals who are unable to think for themselves. The general image they have of Christians is that they are a backward, non-critical thinking, child-like people who do not like science and want to interfere with the lives of everyone else.

But even worse, they see ordinary Christians as having been manipulated by evil Christian leaders and will vote in whatever way those leaders want. They believe that those leaders are trying to set up a theocracy to force everybody to accept their Christian beliefs. So, for some with Christianophobia, this is a struggle for our society and our ability to move toward a progressive society. Christians are often seen as the great evil force that blocks our society from achieving this progressive paradise.

If you are a “liberal”, it is quite likely that this is how you view Christians.

Many non-religious liberals consider evangelical Christianity to be the biggest “problem” that America is facing today, and some of the potential solutions that liberal activists are advocating for this “problem” are quite chilling.

During their research, Yancey and Williamson personally interviewed a number of “cultural progressive activists”, and the following are a few examples of what some of them said should be done to “the Christian right”…

“I want them all to die in a fire.” (Male, aged 26-35 with Doctorate).

“They should be eradicated without hesitation or remorse. Their only purpose is to damage and inflict their fundamentalist virus onto everyone they come in contact with.” (Female, aged 66-75 with Master’s degree).

“They make me a believer in eugenics…. They pollute good air…. I would be in favor of establishing a state for them…. If not, then sterilize them so they can’t breed more.” (Male, aged 46-55 with Master’s degree).

So what makes a liberal activist that wants to “eradicate” Christians that much different from an Islamic terrorist that wants to achieve the same goal?

Of course radical Islamic terrorists are probably more likely to use violent means to achieve their goal right now, but what would happen if our government became dominated by people that think like the liberal activists quoted above?

And don’t think that it can’t happen. When radical leftists took power in the Soviet Union, they killed countless numbers of Christians. When radical leftists took power in China, they killed countless numbers of Christians. And when radical leftists took power in Nazi Germany, they intended to completely eradicate Biblical Christianity.

On December 15th, 1941 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt made the following statement: “To Hitler, the church…is a monstrosity to be destroyed by every means.”

Most Christians today don’t realize just how much Hitler hated our faith. But if you do the deep research, you will find some absolutely incredible things. In a previous article, I included the following information which was originally uncovered by author Bruce Walker, the author of “The Swastika Against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity“…

The Nazi tract Gott und Volk was distributed in 1941, and it describes the life cycle of German youth in the future, who would: “With parties and gifts the youth will be led painlessly from one faith to the other and will grow up without ever having heard of the Sermon on the Mount or the Golden Rule, to say nothing of the Ten Commandments… The education of the youth is to be confined primarily by the teacher, the officer, and the leaders of the party. The priests will die out. They have estranged the youth from the Volk. Into their places will step the leaders. Not deputies of God. But anyway the best Germans. And how shall we train our children? Thus, as though they had never heard of Christianity!”

We like to think that we are so much better than Nazi Germany, but the truth is that the exact same spirit is at work today.

Americans have been trained to want a society that has completely sanitized all references to the Bible and to the Christian faith from the public arena.

Our children are being raised in public schools that are specifically modeled after the German system. If you doubt this, just look it up. Prayer has been banned, and if you try to read a Bible during school hours it can get you suspended.

We may not call ourselves Nazis, but in so many ways we are just like them.

And the hatred toward Christianity in this country just continues to grow every time a comedian makes jokes about our faith and every time Christians are portrayed as stupid, evil or crazy in our movies and television shows.

Christians over in the Middle East are being crucified and are having their heads cut off, and of course the persecution of Christians in the western world is not even worth comparing to that at this point.

But all over the world hatred for Biblical Christianity is on the rise, and great persecution is coming.

The half-hearted, lukewarm religion that passes for Christianity in so many of our churches today has got to go, because that kind of faith is simply not going to cut it during the times that we are moving into.

It has already got to be settled in our hearts that we are willing to lay down our lives for what we believe, because someday that is precisely the choice that many of us may be forced to make.

Christians Are At War With One Another As Americans Leave The Church In Droves

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Christianity is under attack from a thousand different directions all at once, and yet many believers have turned their guns on one another. This war among Christians seems to intensify with each passing year, and believers are often fighting for some of the stupidest reasons you can possibly imagine. Meanwhile, people are leaving our churches in droves and church attendance is way down. This is especially true of younger Americans. According to an incredible new report that was just released by the Pew Research Center, only 27 percent of all Millennials (U.S. adults born since 1990) attend religious services on a weekly basis. When you go into many churches in America on Sunday mornings, all you see are “the greys”, and I am not talking about space aliens. But instead of focusing on fixing what has gone wrong, many Christians (including a number of very prominent ministers) spend most of their energy savagely attacking their brothers and sisters in Christ. This is absolutely disgraceful and it needs to stop.

America is on the exact same path to secularization that Europe has already gone down. The Pew Research Center discovered that the percentage of Americans who are “absolutely certain” that God exists declined from 71 percent in 2007 to 63 percent in 2014. Meanwhile, the percentage of those that are “religiously unaffiliated” rose from 16 percent in 2007 to 23 percent today.

Atheism, agnosticism and other religions are on the rise in America, and Christianity is in decline. And as I noted above, this is particularly true among our young people. Here are some more numbers from an excerpt that I pulled directly out of the Pew report…

Millennials – especially the youngest Millennials, who have entered adulthood since the first Landscape Study was conducted – are far less religious than their elders. For example, only 27% of Millennials say they attend religious services on a weekly basis, compared with 51% of adults in the Silent generation. Four-in-ten of the youngest Millennials say they pray every day, compared with six-in-ten Baby Boomers and two-thirds of members of the Silent generation. Only about half of Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty, compared with seven-in-ten Americans in the Silent and Baby Boom cohorts. And only about four-in-ten Millennials say religion is very important in their lives, compared with more than half in the older generational cohorts.

It has been projected that if current trends continue, the percentage of Americans attending church in 2050 will be about half of what it is today.

So those that are supposedly “leading the church” in America today need to wake up. What you are doing is not working. This nation is falling away from God, but many of you are spending much of your time and energy attacking one another.

Another thing that should deeply, deeply alarm Christian leaders is the fact that a large percentage of “believers” do not even seem to grasp the essential basics of the Christian faith. I am talking about things like who God is, the plan of salvation and the authority of the Bible. Here is more from Pew’s new report…

Among Christians, two-thirds say many religions can lead to eternal life, and most of them (50% of all Christians) say some non-Christian religions can lead to life everlasting. The view that some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life is held by roughly two-thirds of Catholics (68%) and mainline Protestants (65%), as well as 59% of Orthodox Christians. Fewer members of the historically black Protestant tradition (38%), evangelical Protestants (31%) and Mormons (31%) say some non-Christian religions can lead to salvation. Just 5% of Jehovah’s Witnesses say some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life.

If other religions can lead to eternal life, then why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Why couldn’t He have just come down and pointed us in the direction of all those other faiths? Many Christians don’t seem to understand that Jesus had to die for us on the cross because there is no other payment for our sins. He took the penalty that we deserved, and now He offers us a new life as a free gift.

Without Him, we would have absolutely no hope and no future. But because of Him, our sins are forgiven and we have been given eternal life.

But a very large percentage of believers does not understand this. Sadly, many Christians seem to think that you can believe whatever you want and it will all be okay in the end.

So as you can see, the church in America today is a mess. As a Christian myself, this pains me greatly.

But instead of working to fix the problems and praying for revival, many believers seem to take glee in tearing down their fellow Christians.

One of the bad things about the anonymity of the Internet is that it gives people an opportunity to show what is really in their hearts. And in many cases, what comes out of the hearts of many supposed “Christians” is absolutely frightening.

If you venture into places where believers hang out on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube and on various Christian websites all over the Internet, you will find some of the most vile things imaginable being said about specific individuals.

I have seen Christians use curse words to describe one another, and good, solid believers that I know personally have been called “whores”, “heretics” and “scumbags” just to give you a few examples. There are even some “Christians” that publicly wish for their brothers and sisters in Christ to die and go to hell.

This kind of thing should not be happening. In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus gave us instructions about how we are to treat one another…

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

On my websites I talk about some very hard things, but you will notice that I don’t attack specific individuals that are on the same side as me. In this day and age, it is imperative that we all figure out who our friends are. None of us are ever going to agree 100 percent on everything, and that is okay.

Yes, sometimes there are things that need to be addressed, but the vast majority of times they can be taken care of privately. I have had some very honest discussions with people that are on the same side as me in private, but I would never air that stuff publicly.

If we are going to make it through what is coming, we have got to learn how to love one another. And we have got to stop viciously attacking one another over stupid stuff. Yes, there are some things that are so important that they must never be compromised on, but most of the attacks that I see happening are over very petty things.

And without a doubt, there are times when it become necessary to rebuke someone. But when at all possible it should be done in private, and it should always be done in a spirit of love.

Because in the end, if we do not have love, we are nothing. You can have all of the “knowledge” in the world, and you can go around correcting everyone else, but if you are lacking in love you are just a baby.

This is a hard lesson that I had to learn, and hopefully what I have written here will be helpful for someone.

This war among Christians needs to stop. Our faith is under attack like never before, and we desperately need to learn how to start working together.

At some point, hopefully we will begin to actually live the words of our Savior in John chapter 13…

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

(Originally posted on End of the American Dream)

The Persecution Of Christians Is Intensifying As Anti-Christian Hatred Sweeps The Entire World

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There is very little that the entire world seems to agree upon, but there is one very frightening trend that is now taking hold literally all over the globe. A passionate hatred of Christianity is sweeping across the planet, and very few global leaders have been willing to step forward and speak out against this rising persecution of Christians. In many parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, believers are being relentlessly attacked by extremists, churches are being destroyed, and laws are being passed to try to prevent the spread of the Christian faith. In some areas, the violence has become so extreme that Christians knowingly risk their own lives just to go to church services each week. Would you risk your life to go to church? In North America and Europe, the persecution is often more subtle. Even though violent attacks are still fairly rare, Christian beliefs are being undermined by new laws, comedians and television shows regularly mock the Christian faith, and many employers will immediately mentally disqualify a potential candidate for a job if they discover that an individual is a Bible-believing Christian. Sadly, this is just the beginning. In the years ahead, those that choose to be followers of Jesus Christ will face even greater persecution than we have seen already.

When most people think of “Christian persecution”, they immediately think of what is happening in the Middle East. And without a doubt, what ISIS is doing to Christians in Iraq and Syria is beyond horrifying. But that is only part of the story. In this article, I am going to share with you 10 examples that show how the persecution of Christians is intensifying as anti-Christian hatred sweeps the world, and most of them are from outside the Middle East. I have specifically done this to show that this is truly a global phenomenon.

But to start off this list, let’s begin with how ISIS has been treating Christians in areas that they have conquered…

#1 Iraq

Eliza Griswold is the author of “The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam“, and he has spent a great deal of time examining the demise of the Christian faith in the heart of the Middle East. The following is an excerpt from a recent piece that he did for the New York Times…

Recently, ISIS posted videos delineating the second-class status of Christians in the caliphate. Those unwilling to pay the jizya tax or to convert would be destroyed, the narrator warned, as the videos culminated in the now-­infamous scenes of Egyptian and Ethiopian Christians in Libya being marched onto the beach and beheaded, their blood running into the surf.

The future of Christianity in the region of its birth is now uncertain. ‘‘How much longer can we flee before we and other minorities become a story in a history book?’’ says Nuri Kino, a journalist and founder of the advocacy group Demand for Action. According to a Pew study, more Christians are now faced with religious persecution than at any time since their early history. ‘‘ISIL has put a spotlight on the issue,’’ says Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, whose parents are from the region and who advocates on behalf of Eastern Christians. ‘‘Christianity is under an existential threat.’’

#2 Kenya

As I discussed above, the persecution of Christians in the Middle East is only part of the story. What is getting much less coverage is the horrific persecution that is going on in many parts of Africa. The following is from a recent CNN piece about the ongoing persecution of Christians in Kenya…

In April this year, hundreds of students at Garissa University in northern Kenya came under attack when Al-Shabaab militants from across the border in Somalia raided dormitories at the college. Separating Christian students from their Muslim classmates, the raiders killed 147 and wounded dozens more. Today, the university stands empty.

Christians in North Eastern Kenya have come under repeated attacks by Al-Shabaab militants.

At Sunday Mass in Garissa’s Cathedral, Our Lady of Consolation, the benches are full. The congregation is praying under armed guard but they’re praying nonetheless.

Each Sunday brings with it new threats from Al-Shabaab. Garissa’s Christians are told that if you worship here, you’ll die. One of those attending Sunday Mass, Patrick Gitau tell us that despite the risks: “Every Sunday I’m here it’s my cathedral. Yeah I’m here I was baptized in this church.”

#3 India

It isn’t just Muslims that are viciously persecuting Christians. In India, radical Hindus are regularly conducting violent attacks against Christians and churches. The following is just one recent example…

The Evangelical Fellowship of India has reported a violent attack against Christians in the country that was committed earlier this month when over 200 Hindu radicals stormed a Protestant church in the town of Attingal, Kerela, beating up the pastor and some of the worshipers, and breaking the altar.

EFI shared the news with Fides News Agency, reporting that the attack took place on June 14. The radicals apparently shouted slogans like “Bharat Mathaki Jai” (“Hail Mother India”) during the attack, which was broken up after police arrived.

#4 Pakistan

Some of the most vicious attacks against Christians in recent years have happened in Pakistan. Sadly, the authorities often willingly ignore these attacks. The following are just a few of the incidents that have happened recently…

On Sunday, May 24, a Christian man in the Sanda neighborhood of Lahore was accused of blasphemy when some Muslims saw him burning newspapers that reportedly contained Arabic verses from the Koran. After the accusation, a Muslim mob caught the Christian, severely beat him, and even attempted to set him on fire. A few months earlier, another Muslim mob burned a Christian couple alive inside a kiln after they, too, were accused of insulting Islam. The Christian youth — named Humayun Masih, said to be “mentally unstable” — was imprisoned and charged under section 295-B of Pakistan’s penal code, which prohibits the desecration of the Koran. After the attack on the Christian youth, the Muslim mob, reportedly thousands, rampaged through the neighborhood and set fire to Christian homes and a church. Christians in the region were attacked, and most fled the region; some of the mob was armed and gunshots were heard.

#5 Nigeria

Did you know that Islamic terrorists in Nigeria have killed more than 2,000 people (most of them Christians) so far in 2015? Why isn’t this getting much more attention from the global media?…

Since its formation in 2009, Boko Haram has perpetrated the killing of over over 10,000 Nigerians, including thousands of Christians. This year alone, over 2,000 people have been killed as a result of the group’s attacks and an estimated 750,000 have fled their homes. While most of the attacks have taken place in northern Nigeria, they have extended to Cameroon and Chad in recent months.

Earlier in July, Muslim extremists ravaged northeastern Nigerian villages, killing nine villagers and burning down 32 churches and about 300 homes, according to Stephen Apagu, chairman of a self-defense group in Borno state’s Askira-Uba local government area.

#6 China

The Chinese government has been brutally persecuting Bible-believing Christians for decades, but this year things have been taken to an entirely new level. The following is an excerpt from a recent Washington Free Beacon article…

The CCP considers the rising popularity of Christianity as a threat to its dominance, China Aid said, and has used aggressive measures to intimidate members.

“The Chinese government’s persecution campaign included forced demolition of churches and crosses, the detention and imprisonment of pastors and church members on criminal charges, forcing churches into bankruptcy by confiscating church property and imposing fines, and manipulating state-run media to label house churches as ‘cult’ organizations,” the report said.

A local police force—including 600 SWAT officers and government agents—demolished the cross last year at Salvation Church, a Christian house church in the eastern coastal city of Wenzhou. The officers attacked 14 church members on July 21 and seriously injured five, according to the report.

Zhang Shaojie, former pastor at the Nanle County Christian Church in central China, was sentenced to 12 years in jail and fined after being convicted of “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order” and “fraud.” Zhang mobilized his congregation to petition the government in Beijing after local authorities seized property that the church had set aside for a new building. Local officials responded by detaining some church members and barring their travel to Beijing.

#7 Nepal

In Nepal, churches cannot buy property, and the new constitution actually bans people from converting to Christianity…

The largely Hindu nation of Nepal has published a draft of a new constitution that would ban religious conversion. Father Silas Bogati, vicar general of the Apostolic Vicariate of Nepal, told Catholic News Service that “Christianity is not recognized as a religion here, unlike Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam.” “Hence, churches cannot be registered as a legal body, and we cannot buy property,” he added. “We are severely handicapped by this.”

#8 Italy

Normally you wouldn’t think of Italy as a place where Christians would be persecuted, but thanks to Islamic immigration this is rapidly changing…

Accounts of Muslim immigrants taunting and even assaulting Christians in Italy are increasing. Earlier this year, a crucifix was violently destroyed in close proximity to a populated mosque, and a statue of the Virgin Mary was destroyed and urinated on by a group of North Africans in Italy.

#9 Canada

Canada is becoming increasingly hostile to Bible-believing Christians, and attacks on churches are becoming more common. Just check out this recent example…

On May 26, a 22-year-old man of Muslim background was charged with alleged hate crimes committed against the St. Catherine of Siena Church and its neighboring elementary school in Mississauga, Ontario. Iqbal Hessan faces five counts of mischief, and over $5,000 in fines. On May 20, the Sacred Heart of Jesus statue that stands in front of the church was covered in black paint and the fingers of its outstretched arms were broken off. Behind the church, graffiti with the words “There is no Jew God” was scrawled across the brick wall along with a drawing of a face labelled “Jewsus.” That vandalism was the fourth time the church was targeted.

#10 The United States

If Christians stay in their homes and don’t say anything, normally they don’t get physically persecuted in this country. But in recent years there have been an increasing number of incidents where street preachers and others that do try to actively influence the culture have been violently assaulted. The following is one recent example that happened in Seattle…

Two street preachers were brutally beaten—punched and kicked—by a crowd at a gay pride festival in Seattle and the entire melee was captured on video.

The preachers were holding signs reading “Repent or Else” and “Jesus Saves From Sin.” The video shows a group of people initially screaming and threatening the men during Pridefest at the Seattle Space Needle.

Television station KOMO reported that some of the attackers belonged to a group called NOH8.

A group of women tried to steal their signs but were unsuccessful. The video then shows a group of men grabbing onto one of the preacher’s signs and dragging him to the ground. At some point he was punched in the back of the head a number of times while others can be seen kicking the man.

Of course all of this is just the beginning.

In the years ahead, hatred toward Christians is going to continue to increase, and many believers are going to be faced with some extremely difficult choices.

What would you do if you were forced to choose between your job and your relationship with Jesus Christ?

What would you do if you were forced to choose between your life and your relationship with Jesus Christ?

Nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus told us that his followers would be hated and persecuted. So none of this should be any surprise to us. Consider what Jesus had to say in John chapter 15…

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, the world therefore hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My words, they will keep yours also.

Just like we saw during the times of the early church, sometimes the fire of persecution provides the perfect fuel for the growth of the kingdom of God. And sometimes the persecutors end up becoming extremely radical believers themselves. The following is one particularly miraculous example…

“One of our YWAM workers in the Middle East was contacted by a friend earlier this year and they met up and he was introduced to an ISIS fighter who had killed many Christians already. I mean that’s a horrible situation, and admittedly, he was probably on guard,” Gina Fadely, director of Youth With A Mission Frontier Missions, Inc. (YWAM), said during a recent appearance on The Voice of the Martyrs Radio Network.

YWAM, a nonprofit missionary organization active since 1960, describes itself as “a global movement of Christians from many cultures, age groups, and Christian traditions, dedicated to serving Jesus throughout the world.” The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) is another nonprofit that draws attention to Christians facing persecution around the world.

Fadely, who appeared on the VOM radio program along with Kevin Sutter, another YWAM leader, went on to share that this Islamic State jihadi confessed not only to killing Christians but “that he had actually enjoyed doing so.”

“He told this YWAM leader that he had begun having dreams of this man in white who came to him and said, ‘You are killing my people.’ And he started to feel really sick and uneasy about what he was doing,” Fadely continued. “The fighter said just before he killed one Christian, the man said, ‘I know you will kill me, but I give to you my Bible.’ The Christian was killed and this ISIS fighter actually took the Bible and began to read it. In another dream, Jesus asked him to follow him and he was now asking to become a follower of Christ and to be discipled.”

So what do you think about all of this?

Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…

(Originally published on The American Dream)

Christianity Is Exploding In China And The Communist Party Isn’t Happy

China - Public Domain

Western visitors used to seeing empty sanctuaries in the United States or Europe can be dumbfounded by the Sunday gatherings held in convention center-size buildings where people line up for blocks to get in – one service after another. In Wenzhou, not far from Hangzhou, an estimated 1.2 million Protestants now exist in a city of 9 million people alone. (It is called “China’s Jerusalem.”) By one estimate, China will become the world’s largest Christian nation, at its current rate of growth, by 2030.

Indeed, an acute problem facing urban churches in China is a lack of space. Chongyi Church is building a million-dollar underground parking lot to replace one that worshipers under age 30 have taken over as a meeting place.

“I come because I found a love here that isn’t dependent on a person,” says Du Wang, a young businesswoman in Hangzhou. “It is like a river that doesn’t go away.”

Yet there is also trouble brewing for China’s faithful. As evangelical Christianity grows sharply, officials fear it could undermine their authority.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Religious People Much Happier Than Others, New Study Shows

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A strong correlation exists between religiosity and personal happiness, according to a new study by the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture.

The study found that people who attend religious services on a weekly basis are nearly twice as likely to describe themselves as “very happy” (45%) than people who never attend (28%). Conversely, those who never worship are twice as likely to say they are “very unhappy” (4%) as those who attend services weekly (2%).

Building on prior research, this broad survey of American adults comprised a representative sample of 15,738 Americans between the ages of 18 and 60.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Did Jesus preach at this synagogue? Archaeologists excavate 2,000-year-old ruins in ancient town of Magdala where Christ is thought to have taught disciples

Magdala Center Project

An ancient synagogue unearthed on the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee may have been a temple where Jesus preached, according to the Christian organisation that owns the site.

Archaeologists have been excavating the 2,000-year-old ruins, which date from the 1st century, in the town of Migdal in northern Israel.

The town is thought to sit on top of what was the ancient town of Magdala, the birth place of Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ most devoted followers.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Presbyteries vote to appoint gay ministers in Scotland

Scotland Church - Public Domain

The Church of Scotland has moved another step closer to allowing congregations to appoint gay ministers.

A majority of the Kirk’s presbyteries have now voted in favour of change.

The final decision will be taken at next year’s General Assembly.

The issue has been a consistently controversial one for the church, prompting what Kirk leaders insist is a relatively small number of ministers to quit.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

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