Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news and prophecy.
The Israeli Messianic community website and news portal Kehila News Israel (KNI) has published a survey showing that not only do young Messianic Jews serving in the Israeli army boldly share their faith, but they generally receive positive reactions when doing so.
KNI conducted the survey in cooperation with the various local ministries that host events for young soldiers.
A whopping 96 percent of respondents said their fellow soldiers know they are followers of Yeshua. Perhaps even more encouraging is that 65 percent said reactions to their faith have been positive, even inquisitive.
Israeli Messianic Jews proudly serve in the IDF just like everyone else, and the growing number of believers in the military was demonstrated by the fact that 30 percent of survey respondents said there is at least one more fellow believer in their unit.
Christians drop, 'nones' soar in new religion portrait
Cathy Lynn Grossman, Religion News ServiceMay 12, 2015 USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The United States is a significantly less Christian country than it was seven years ago.
That's the top finding — one that will ricochet through American faith, culture and politics — in the Pew Research Center's newest report, "America's Changing Religious Landscape," released Tuesday.
This trend "is big, it's broad and it's everywhere," said Alan Cooperman, Pew's director of religion research.
Christianity still dominates American religious identity (70%), but the survey shows dramatic shifts as more people move out the doors of denominations, shedding spiritual connections along the way.
Atheists and agnostics have nearly doubled their share of the religious marketplace, and overall indifference to religion of any sort is rising as well. Only the historically black Protestant churches have held a steady grip through the years of change.
Remember the familiar map of American religion? The South: A bastion of white evangelicals. The Northeast: Cradle of Catholics. The Midwest: Nest of Mainline Protestants. The West: Incubator of "nones" — people who claim no religious brand label.
Well, scratch all that in the new topography.
The shrinking numbers of Christians and their loss of market share is the most significant change since 2007 (when Pew did its first U.S. Religious Landscape survey) and the new, equally massive survey of 35,000 U.S. adults.
The percentage of people who describe themselves as Christians fell about 8 points — from 78.4% to 70.6%. This includes people in virtually all demographic groups, whether they are "nearing retirement or just entering adulthood, married or single, living in the West or the Bible Belt," according to the survey report.
State by state and regional data show:
Massachusetts is down on Catholics by 10 percentage points. South Carolina is down the same degree on evangelicals. Mainline Protestants, already sliding for 40 years or more, declined all over the Midwest by 3 to 4 percentage points.The Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church, the country's two largest Protestant denominations, are each down roughly the same 1.4 to 1.5 percentage points.Every tradition took a hit in in the West as the number of people who claim no religious brand continues to climb.
Christian faiths are troubled by generational change — each successive group is less connected than their parents — and by "switching" at all ages, the report shows. While nearly 86% of Americans say they grew up as Christians, nearly one in five (19%) say they aren't so anymore.
"Overall, there are more than four former Christians for every convert to Christianity," said Cooperman.
Although evangelicals are part of the decline, their slide has been less steep. They benefit from more people joining evangelical traditions, but they're hurt by generational change and by America's increased diversity.
According to the survey, white "born-again or evangelical" Protestants — closely watched for their political clout within the GOP — now account for 19% of American adults, down slightly from 21% in 2007.
Politicians should take note, said Mike Hout, a sociologist and demographer at New York University who is also a co-director of the General Social Survey.
"Traditionally, we thought religion was the mover and politics were the consequence," he said. Today, it's the opposite.
Many of today's formerly faithful left conservative evangelical or Catholic denominations because "they saw them align with a conservative political agenda and they don't want to be identified with that," Hout said.
Catholics dropped both in market share and in real numbers. Despite their high retention rate for people reared in the faith, they have a low conversion rate. Today, Cooperman said, 13% of U.S. adults are former Catholics, up from 10% in 2007.
Generational shifts are also hurting Catholic numbers. Greg Smith, Pew's associate director of research, said "just 16% of the 18-to-24-year-olds today are Catholic, and that is not enough to offset the numbers lost to the aging and switching."
Where are they going? To religious nowhere.
The "nones" — Americans who are unaffiliated with brand-name religion — are the new major force in American faith. And they are more secular in outlook — and "more comfortable admitting it" than ever before, said John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.
Their growth spans the generations, as well as racial and ethnic groups, said Green, a senior fellow in religion and American politics for the Pew Research Center.
"Nones," at 22.8% of the U.S. (up from 16% just eight years ago) run second only to evangelicals (25.4%) and ahead of Catholics (20.8%) in religious market share.
The "nones" numbers are now big enough to show noteworthy diversity:
Atheists rose from 1.6% to 3.1%, and agnostics from 2.4% to 4%. Combined, there are more "nones" than Evangelical Lutherans, United Methodists and Episcopalians all together.
"It's because we're right," crowed David Silverman, president of American Atheists. He hadn't yet seen the Pew findings, but commented based on other surveys he said showed nones rising numbers. Indeed, it's the public attention given to "nones" in the last decade, combined with the wide-open access to anti-religious discussion on the Internet, that drives the change, Silverman said.
"More people know the facts, and more people realize they are not alone," Silverman said. And with these shifts, the stigma of coming out as an atheist is lessening.
"It's now impossible for an atheist to think he is alone in this world. They are automatically empowered," said Silverman.
The bulk of the "nones" (15.8%, up from 12.1% in 2007) don't even commit to any view on God. Instead, they say they believe "nothing in particular."
But among the "nothings," there's a distinct split between "spiritual" and totally indifferent "nones."
Thirty percent of all "nones" still showed "a sort of religious pulse" by saying that religion is still at least somewhat important to them, said Cooperman.
However, the bulk of this group (39%) are not agnostic, atheist or vaguely spiritual — they're just not interested. Religion is not even somewhat important to them.
That same level of disinterest cuts into their social and political clout, said Hout.
The nothing-in-particular folks "don't vote, don't marry and don't have kids," at the same rate as other Americans, said Hout. "They are allergic to large, organized institutions — mass media, religions, big corporations, and political parties."
"None" is the winning category for religious switchers across society, particularly among gay and lesbians — 41% of gay or lesbian Americans say they have no religion. Cooperman said. "This suggests the degree of alienation and discomfort and sense of being unwelcome that they may have felt in traditional religious groups."
Other trends of note:
Intermarriage is rising with each generation. Among Americans who have gotten married since 2010, nearly four-in-ten (39%) report that they are in religiously mixed marriages, compared with 19% among those who got married before 1960, according to the report.
There's an identity gender gap. Most Christians are women (55%) and most "nones" are men (57%). However, women's unbelief numbers are growing: nearly one in five (19%) now say they have no religious identity.Diversity makes a difference. Racial and ethnic minorities now make up 41% of Catholics (up from 35% in 2007), 24% of evangelicals (up from 19%) and 14% of mainline Protestants (up from 9%). "The share of Americans who identify with non-Christian faiths also has inched up, rising 1.2 percentage points, from 4.7% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014. Growth has been especially great among Muslims and Hindus," the report said.
The latest survey was conducted among a nationally representative sample of 35,071 adults interviewed by telephone, on both cellphones and landlines, from June 4-Sept. 30, 2014. The margin of error on overall findings is plus or minus 0.6 percentage points.
A new poll from Lifeway Research reveals that evangelicals have a significant level of theological confusion.
The survey, commissioned by Ligonier Ministries, shows a lack of orthodox views about God, salvation, and the Holy Spirit.
The good news is that nearly all evangelicals, about 96 percent, believe that Jesus rose from the dead. And 92 percent believe that salvation comes from Him alone.
Also, close to 90 percent believe that God is sovereign over all people and that the Bible is the word of God.
What are some of the most concerning heretical views some evangelicals hold? For more on this, CBN News spoke with Dr. Stephen Nichols, president of Reformation Bible College and a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow.
Love For His People Editor's Note: My most recent NOW THINK ON THIS message asked the question, "No More Retraints?" As has been found in the survey above, American Christians in particular no longer know/believe what is black and white and Scripturally based, and thus cannot stand for what is right and wrong. Read below. Steve Martin Love For His People, Inc. President
No More Restraints? - Now Think On This by Steve Martin
“And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.” 2 Thess. 2:6-8 NASU
The walls are falling down. Many of the restraints we formerly could count on, which have been holding back the onslaught of the evil one as they had been in place over the centuries, are no longer there.
Almost anything is allowed now, as people and governments are using all excuses to serve their own purposes. Often it is heard, “We must be sensitive to others”, or “stop pushing your own agenda or beliefs on us.” It would seem that all situations are ok, as there is no longer any fear of paying a price for sin, no matter how large or small. After all, some would think, no longer is there a need for accountability to anyone or anything having rules, regulations or set guidelines. We are “free to let it all go and do our own thing.”
According to many, there are no longer any restraints that would or should guide us anymore. The concept of sin went out the door decades ago. With a common misconception that one can be called a Christian by just saying you are one, the thought of a God who would judge people is labeled as old school. Why therefore need we adhere to the Ten Commandments or any Scripture? We took those down off the court room walls decades ago, after all.
There used to be a time when at least you could hear, even in mainline churches, good, solid teaching on standards, as they held the ground on what was permissible and what wasn’t. Now, due to the fear of political correctness or attacks from the other side, speaking Bible truth has been so watered down that young kids have no idea what really is right or wrong. The standards have been so lowered that what we once upheld and stood strong on have now been tossed aside, replaced by ungodly standards and immoral judgments. Deception abounds.
Even certain nationally observed days, with foundations from evil origins themselves, have become some of the most celebrated in our countries. Indeed, the ever increasing temperature rise in the frog’s captive water has gone up so high, whereby the “frog” is now being boiled alive, not even realizing the impending result. But death will actually result.
Parents raising kids are confronted daily with sound waves of how all the others are doing it, how it will be alright to give in a little, and why not to be so tough on allowing your kids to explore and try new ways. Weariness takes its toll on those attempting to hold the line, while struggling to stop the onslaught from coming into the home daily from every which way.
So what do we do? Give up and give in? Tell ourselves that the world is going to hell anyway, so just let it happen?
In speaking to those of us who are of the current parental generation, we are called upon by our Lord to stand, even as others around us would give in. We are the ones who must be the lighthouse to those who have lost their way. We must be the “Bible” to those who have never been instructed in the Way, or shown the Truth, or heard of the Life in Jesus Christ.
“Refuse to follow the devil. Stand strong in your faith. You know that your brothers and sisters all over the world are having the same sufferings that you have. 1 Peter 5:9
“So, brothers and sisters, stand strong and continue to believe the teachings we gave you when we were there and by letter.” 2 Thess. 2:15
I know I grow weary at times, with the frequent temptations, the short term victories of the ungodly, and the continuing battle to keep my mind on the Lord and His ways. But I know for the sake of my family, my grandkids, and others who are watching and listening, I, along with you, must hold the line. We must stand for truth, righteousness and accountability.
Be encouraged in the Lord’s strength. Spend the time daily to be uplifted by His Word, His answers to prayers, and His light that does shine in the darkness. Our promised reward awaits us in the end.
Now think on this,
Steve Martin Love For His People. Inc.
Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA humanitarian organization started in 2010 to share the love of the Father in the nations.
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