#this works for nondenominational christian schools too

[kippah-for-lemon]

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO,

a neighborhood science teacher asked if I believed that the Genesis account of creation was true. I answered, yes. Great, he said. Would I like to speak to his class about my understanding of creation? This modern-day John Scopes thought he was inviting a modern-day William Jennings Bryan to reenact the classic duel.

However, I told the class that while I believed the Genesis account of creation to be true, I also believed the scientific theory of evolution to be true. My response was greeted by puzzlement on the part of twenty-five eighth graders and disappointment on the part of their teacher. I went on to explain that science is one of humanity's great truth traditions, and religion is another. The two have threatened each other since well before the theories of Charles Darwin were formulated. But they needn't be engaged in such a heated rivalry because their goals are so different.

Science can help us understand how the world was created, but it can't tell us why it was created. And religion has no business telling us how the world was created, but we desperately need it to help us under- stand why we're here.

Genesis doesn't discuss the survival of the fittest, but, as you well know, Darwin's scientific creation story does. That story's operativeprinciple of the survival of the fittest became known as Social Darwinism, which taught that only the truly gifted deserve to survive. It is unfortunate that this teaching has become an axiom of modern life. In contrast, our Jewish tradition has always taught that we are responsible for the survival of the least fit: the orphan, the poor, the lonely, and the stranger, to name just a few. And in Genesis 1:27 we are told that every single human being is divinely gifted and deserving of dignity. The opening of Genesis tells about the creation by God of a universe of harmony, balance, and beauty, formed from soupy chaos, tohu vavohu. It is the most profound story we know, and it reminds us why we are here. It sets forth our work, and our challenge. But is the story true?

Regretfully I must admit that the story is not true, or at least not yet. When will it be true? When we accept our responsibility as God's partners in creating the world described in Genesis.

-Rabbi Rick Jacobs (b. 1955)

An excerpt from my Temple's Rosh Hashanah prayer book. Under the cut is just a testimony from me but feel free to reblog for the quote alone.

It really stuck with me because I was raised Protestant. I even attended a private Christian (nondenominational) school for three years. Sixth through 8th grade (for non-Americans, I was the ages of 11-14 give or take).

I was taught that evolution wasn't real. I wrote an 8 page essay on why Charles Darwin was wrong and that The Bible was correct. Little did I know I actually did believe in evolution, and so did most of my peers as I reasoned that over a long time of adaptations maybe there could be a different species

I was shell shocked when I switched to a public high school (14 years old) and flat out told evolution was true (or well as true as a scientific theory can get). I lost my trust for authority, and I realized how damaging my education had been.

I'm AFAB, and so I was taught my responsibility was to be quiet and to please my husband. I often asked far too many questions, especially when it came to the teachings of the Bible, to the extent my own teachers, men and women who were supposed to nurture my curiosity and be my guide into the world, shunned me.

Starting my Jewish journey, I sobbed. I sobbed after the first service I went to. It's so different from what I had been through before. I'm so glad I'm allowed to ask questions and it's even encouraged. I'm glad the Torah is scrutinized and we are encouraged to study the book and even admit when G-d has done wrong.

My partner, knowing my past, pointed this specific excerpt out to me. I had to fight back tears. I feel so loved and welcomed in Judaism.

"...Jewish tradition has always taught that we are responsible for the survival of the least fit: the orphan, the poor, the lonely, and the stranger, to name just a few. And in Genesis 1:27 we are told that every single human being is divinely gifted and deserving of dignity."

#jumblr #jew #jewish #rosh hashanah #Rabbi Rick Jacobs #jewish tumblr #jew convert #jewish convert #jewish pride #jewish joy

[nerdexer]

hello!! this is my blog! i'm kinda new to tumblr so i'm just going to start typing about myself!!

i like to write and draw and compose music and worldbuild so all that is probably going to be happening on this blog when i get the chance!

i'm currently a high school student and i try my best! i think it's going pretty well! (:

also a US Army JROTC LET 2 Cadet Captain, S6 Staff Officer, Color Guard Officer, and JLAB Team Leader (God knows how all that happened)

future US Navy probably. if i get lucky i'll do well on the ASVAB and get to be an Intelligence Analyst (:

i love to work on stuff. my work defines me (:

am i adding too many smiley faces? i'm going to keep adding them (:

uhhhh my favorite number is blue and my favorite color is 42.

uhhhhhhh yeah i think that's about it! (:

OH YEAH i am he/him and nondenominational christian and panromantic homosexual but closeted at home and uhhh yeah now that should be everything

bye bye i hope i'm appealing enough to let you enjoy my work (:

#tumblr said i need to add some of these #can i just type whatever i want? #i guess i can #clueless #how do i use this app #omg thats a tag that exists already im gonna check that out

[cptsdstudyblr]

Cults & Religious Abuse PART 2: So you’re in a cult?

If you don’t want to see this series, you can block #cptsdstudyblrreligion

tw// cults, religion, religious abuse, religious trauma, mentions of other types of abuse

PART 1: Q & A

In this post I will be speaking somewhat specifically about my experiences that led to religious trauma, so please be cautious when reading this post. The tips and resources are at the bottom and are bullet points, so feel free to skip to there if you aren’t comfy with the post itself.

Maybe you were raised in a religion, maybe you or your family joined a religion later in your life, or maybe you’ve gotten involved in a cult in some other way. But one day you wake up and you realize that you need to get out. But how? In this I’ll be sharing the basics of my experiences in a cult-like fundamentalist religion, how I got out, and some resources I think are helpful for people in similar situations.

Before I get into the details, I want to make one thing clear: I am not a woman. I am non-binary. However, I was raised a woman and that was a huge part of the way these experiences affected me, so I will be including that perspective in this post.

I also want to make it clear that I am not against religion in general or against people practicing religion. This post is not intended to attack religion as a concept, but to shed light on specific extremely harmful religious practices.

My family’s relationship with religion is on the complicated side, but I’ll briefly explain it for context. Both of my parents were raised fairly generically Catholic. My grandparents on my dad’s side are now loosely Catholic, but don’t explicitly practice religion. My grandmother on my mom’s side has since converted to protestant Christianity at my mom’s suggestion. My dad has been either apathetic or even hostile towards religion for as long as I can remember and rarely attended church with me and my mom, but my mom has always been religious. These are the primary influences in my life, as I’m not close enough to any other family members for their religious beliefs to have had significant impact on me. 

My mom is where it gets complicated. Although she was raised Catholic, she explored protestant Christianity starting a few years before my birth and quickly converted. For most of my actual childhood my mom was a pretty average protestant Christian. We moved a lot, so we attended churches in a variety of denominations, including several more charismatic and prosperity-gospel based megachurches, but when I was around 9 years old, my mom fell down a rabbit hole of Messianic Christianity through one of these churches, which I believe is where it all started to fall apart. Just to clarify, although this group of beliefs is technically referred to as Messianic Judaism, I refer to my experience with it as Messianic Christianity as I am in no way Jewish (and thus feel uncomfortable calling my religious experiences Judaism) and the messianic movement is harmful to actual Jewish people.

This move into Messianic Christianity pushed my mom to start rereading and reinterpreting the Bible and she consequently decided that she was not enamored with the teachings of the church we attended at the time. I strongly believe that her understanding of that study was also heavily influenced by the domestic violence and instability going on in our home at the time, as she was unable to connect to the overwhelmingly positive messages that our church preached. So, she moved us to another church. This was a church we had attended some in the past while trying to find a home church after a move, but hadn’t really stuck with, so it wasn’t an entirely new church. Because of this, I generally say that I attended this church from the age of 9 although we did not attend this church consistently until I was around 11. This church was a nondenominational Bible church closely associated with Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, CA, which is pastored by John MacArthur. I’d encourage you to take a look at the basic teachings of John MacArthur and of this church in some depth as they are already quite problematic. The linked article is really just one example of the kind of teachings that are prevalent here, and I’d encourage you to follow this rabbit hole as far as it takes you because it’s fascinating. 

The church that we moved to was extremely fundamentalist. Unfortunately, I’m not comfortable linking the actual church for fear of doxxing myself, but the teachings of this church are pretty much exactly in line with those Grace Community Church and the other organizations I will mention soon. This church also unofficially followed the teachings of the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP). When I say unofficially, I mean that my church was not publically associated with IBLP, but they were definitely associated with IBLP in reality. And again, I’d really encourage you to browse through their website to get a feel for their teachings. However, as a basic summary, if you’re familiar with the Duggar family from the TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting, they are members of IBLP and everything they teach was taught fairly similarly at my church. I won’t go into the details of what the teachings were, but they were about as fundamentalist Christian as you could come up with. Sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, abuse, etc. but turned up to 11/10. And it was a very closed circle. So how did I get out and end up where I am now - a bi-romantic asexual non-binary university student studying STEM at an incredibly liberal university?

It wasn’t easy. But I did get somewhat lucky. Unlike 90% of the kids at my church, I was not homeschooled after 8th grade. Instead, I went to a private Christian school - this was definitely still harmful and contributed to my trauma but it did give me opportunities to be exposed to people and ideas outside my fundamentalist Christian bubble. It also encouraged me to attend university, as it was expected of all graduates from that school. My dad wasn’t religious, and he and my mom divorced right before I graduated from high school. Additionally, my mom did encourage me to continue my education despite the teachings at our church. I’m not sure why she encouraged this, but she did. So I got lucky that things in my life pointed me in a direction of further education. And I got further lucky that the main school in my state is the school it is. It’s a school that is incredibly left-leaning and secular, and ultimately it pushed me extremely far outside my comfort zone.

I am extremely grateful for the opportunities that made it easier for me to get out of this situation, but I did still have to work for it. Here are my suggestions for surviving a cult-like environment and for eventually getting out:

Do everything you can to expose yourself to other ideas and beliefs. I assume that if you recognize you’re in this type of situation and want to escape, you already know that you disagree with the beliefs that are being forced on you at some level. But it’s important to further educate yourself where possible and figure out your beliefs. Figuring out what you believe and being committed to it is key in being able to stick to leaving your environment. If you know you disagree, but you can’t articulate why you disagree or what you believe and you aren’t committed to your beliefs, you will be very easy to convince that you are wrong and you will be very easy to manipulate. 

If you’re on tumblr reading this, you probably have access to the internet, so use that to your advantage. Research things, read articles, and involve yourself in discussions. If you struggle with internet access, you can read books, magazines, and newspapers at your local library and potentially even join clubs through your library or school. Not everything you learn has to be political or about religion. Reading and learning will broaden your horizons, give you concrete interests outside religion, encourage you to learn about things that make you uncomfortable, etc. 

If you are involved in a religion that has a text, read it critically and read nonreligious analyses of it. You don’t necessarily have to agree with these analyses, but thinking critically about the text you’ve been raised to take as complete fact will help you realize what you actually believe.

Find others who agree with you. In high school, I had a couple of friends at church who were “rebels” too, and we’re still friends to this day. We moved on together, and it really helped me be able to get out because I wasn’t doing it alone.

If you have to physically leave to get away, make sure you have enough money and have a backup plan. If you leave and are forced to come back for any reason, leaving again will be infinitely harder. If you leave, make sure it can be for good. It doesn’t necessarily have to be permanent, but if you come back it has to be on your own terms and not out of necessity.

Don’t get yourself kicked out and be safe no matter what.

Some resources I think are helpful:

Find an LGBT Center (US only) - LGBT centers are incredibly helpful for issues that go beyond being LGBT+, and if you’re eligible to use them they can be a great resource

The Trevor Project - LGBT+ resources and crisis lines

Tumblr post describing what to do if you’re homeless - It’s from Tumblr, so take it with a grain of salt, but it seems like pretty solid advice.

How to leave a cult - Very basic guide, but has some good advice.

Quiz to help you figure out your political beliefs (US based, but has some other countries as well) - I’d suggest taking this a few times as you develop your beliefs, and I’d also suggest clicking “more questions” as many times as possible in every category to ensure that you cover a broad range of topics.

How Ideology Colors Morality - about how morality frames US politics

Ethics - a good place to start when looking at different ways of analyzing ethics. My high school ethics class is a huge component in why I questioned my own beliefs. Ethics is an eye-opening topic.

List of all the religions - exploring different religions and belief systems helped open my mind to new ideas and ways of thinking about the world

If you want me to help you research something or find resources for a specific situation, feel free to message me or send me an ask and I’m happy to help (you can also ask me other questions, my asks and DMs are always open!)

And as always, if I made a mistake or linked a bad resource, please feel free to let me know so that I can correct the issue ASAP. I always try to do my research thoroughly, but things can slip by since I am but a human. Thank you!

#cptsdstudyblrreligion #cptsd #ptsd #trauma #religious trauma #religious abuse #religion #christianity #fundamentalism #ex fundamentalist #cult #ex cult #fundie #ex fundie #ex christian #christian

[startwithbrooklyn]

THE GREAT ND REWATCH OF 2021 / SEPTEMBER 30, 2019 // larkspur lane/the whisper box

this post is a double whammy cause they have 2 eps happen in the same day if u can believe it (thats how awful judging timelines in this show is!!)

-"hi josh..." LMAOOOOOOO

-BESS just breaking in lmaooo how many god damn times does bess just shit the bed in this show

-LOVE her frowny face at nancys closet ("my expectations are low" lmfaoooo but this would totally be me)

-"bet she meant it metaphorically" okayyy but then why did lucy say that at all? i feel like theres defo more to this story, combined with josh's cagey behavior (part of which is to get nancy to stop looking into shit d/t him and karen but still)

-"they dont accept visitors unless they're family" .....🙂

-ace "youre really good at that" to bess i fuckin love this friendship with all my heart (also love their talk at the claw mirroring nick & nancys talk in the last ep)

-also PINK AND ORANGE BESS ARE U BLIND (also 1) why tf would nancy own this and 2) where would she wear it??)

-okay wtf is vampire dip

-"boss??" see this is what i meant yesterday about nancy ruining everything for nick/george

-god DAMN she sucks at dealing with this news lmaooo that emotional competency babey + love george literally agrees to help bc she feels bad (AND nicks immediate look of "you just reprimanded me for helping her last ep and i know why youre doing this rn" lmaoooo)

-LOVE george noticing nick "shout out to jean valjean" lmaooo once again nancy would never have noticed/commented on something like that

-"get the hell out of here" was this foreshadowing for an epic dad joke for these two eps? "how do you make holy water? you boil the hell out of it" 😂😂😂😂

-so what i dont get about the whole haunting is the ball + kids' laughter but its all the emphasis on "mr roper" the adult? wtf like what kind of entity is this

-"how did you ever have a solo career??" 😂

-okay amaya's hair is gorgeous here (also "you feel like a snack" ....👀) *ahhh so the reason bess feels so off balance is bc its like a top vs a top scenario

-has anyone who's ever been to prison confirmed this is what it looks like?

-love how ace is the only employee there when they all leave so he had to fucking close the place when he goes

-why does she take the whole file? time constraints? it'd be smarter to take pics + replace it (better sleuthing) but this place is clearly not well run anyway 😂

-so this is a pretty decent cover she invents but theres no way she would get away with it so easily for a real guard

-love how ace recognizes ryan's car (+ is able to find it by driving around)

-"my father wouldnt do anything like that" LMFAOOOOOO SIS WHY ARE U DEFENDING HIM ironically, ace is actually the best person suited to engage w ryan here d/t the car accident + connection with laura being ryans SIL. its a unique set up

-i am fascinated by the concept of priests + holy water being so effective here combined with mcginnis' beliefs and basically nondenominational ghosts/seances etc after that. the show is very clearly big on diversity but definitely steers clear from too much WASP stuff yk? wonder if other stuff from christianity works against the ghosts/demons like taking refuge in a church "holy ground" or using silver etc

-"did this start after the night of sept 10?" *this is where you get the time line for the seance if you didnt know

-this is so fucking funny when u realize that patient sal talks to is actually a ghost so sal really is psycho i guess 😂

-bitchsplain/tall jar of mayonnaise 🙏🏻😌 2gether 4ever

-how did ace get this van? also heart attack when he yells at carson (but then grins at him like a goofball lmaooo)

-"for nancys sake and yours" damn she owes ace big time for all this shit

-"what do we do for 7 minutes?" ...ummm play 7 minutes in heaven lmaooo 👀🥵

-was not expecting ace to look this sexy holding an axe but okay (*ah, its his short sleeve shirt showing his arms. usually hes a sleeves guy)

-"desperate for attention" nancy (from gomber) vs "bc she's starved for attention" patrice --> lucy (and candace also...) we know nancys detective work makes her seem like an attention seeker, but what was lucy doing to make them all think that? she was trying to hide her relationship with ryan, not expose it. unless they just mean the rumors about her?

-so is patrice hiding lucy's "truth" talking about lucy being a whore or lucy being a ghost? what is lucy's secret? did patrice guess she was pregnant or did patrice's somehow garbled mind remember tiffany trying to show patrice the video with lucy on it?

-wonder what captain thom thinks of this stand off w ace lmaooo

-"like you do?" top v top shenanigans

-how awko for carson to talk to karen again like this

-"oh no" ACE 😂

-love how amaya says "be a human" like shes kind of admitting people in rich circles typically arent (^this is an interesting focus in s2 when bess's rich family rejects her, thus making her human again, but nancy embraces her rich fam and experiences subsequent moral struggle which is predicted with the wraith)

-wonder what ryan thinks he could get from the marvins (which he cant get now lmaooo)

-this damn whisper box. so many questions. who named it the whisper box? why are the ropers' old possessions still there? who decided to build a mental hospital on top of it? and patrice! she "hid lucy's secrets" hannah gruen thinks tiffany tried to show patrice video w lucy on it, which patrice then specifically says she hid in the thin mans book. so patrice knows of the thin man? can she see him? does she know he was a ghost/supernatural? she must have a supernatural sense to know about him (unless sal told or some shit) so then when tiffany shows up w/ lucy being supernatural in it patrice hides it to protect her? is this why she is "crazy" kinda like victoria? supernatural elements or ability to sense ghosts makes her unstable? this is why lucy being a ghost/nursery rhyme that she repeats makes patrice worse/"stroke"? how did patrice even get into the whisper box to put the key in the bible and get out without getting trapped? also, her dementia --> lucidity is really fucking off, some people mildly switch like that but usually with dementia they cant even register new shit anymore

-...so did bess take the ride? 👀

-interesting how celia says "your father will be disappointed" but nothing of her own opinion. wonder how much celia truly puts up with to keep everett calm and nonhomicidal

-like george asking nick follow up questions that nancy never really would have asked

🥞🥞🥞(ep13)🥞🥞🥞

-is this bitch just eating a plain pancake with her bare hand?

-"extra case load and excessive volunteering" ugh. nancy's family here are like, gross in how "good" of people they are // unrealistic, trying to paint carson in the best light/ no way ryan could ever compare (but the reality is theyre not that good of people for lying about nancy) **and shes arrogant to think shes better than everyone else ie the only one who truly lives virtuously, thinks she can do no wrong sometimes even tho using sex to cope, breaking and entering, etc is not morally "good" stuff she still thinks she is the only one who doesnt lie and plays fair (like in the pilot she lists everyone else as a suspect but herself- obviously we know she isnt guilty but no one else does. (i mean in theory we really dont, what if nancy was an unreliable narrator and was actually guilty, that would be a hella cool show)its reactions like that where she cant understand why others like the chief suspect her

-ooooh ironic that in the Good Place carson readily agrees to pay her for helping with cases as opposed to s2 in reality

-nick's house has "problems" so why does he need a lawyer? as opposed to an interior designer, plumber, or realtor?

-in the Good Place nick and george realize they are not going to work out after one date. does this failure in the Good Place predict failure in reality, or merely an easier way of figuring out the truth? does this mean that the "opposite" of the Good Place is reality, or only an opinion of what is better? (nancy says "you all like me" as her opinion of them liking her is skewed; does this then only reflect nancys version for what is the "perfect life"?)

-why is bess a hippie??? and love how george curls her hair and wears pink lipstick here

-if this dream is so realistic then why is the one thing it cant conjure smoke? like how random

-love the locket being a key realization bc with things like jewelry you dont notice the weight of them until theyre gone

-"you all like me" in her perfect life nancy means they "like" her objectively/regardless of circumstance even though liking her is still an objective choice (like they "like" her because of other reasons instead of her working at the claw? (like how you make friends with coworkers/people at school every day but after you leave the job/graduate you never speak to them again) and her "thanks for showing up!" as if theyre not doing exactly that in reality 😐like where is she getting this shit? she sort of acknowledges in earlier eps she is hard to like/that she puts mysteries before friends, but also pushing them away to avoid danger like the previous ep "why do u show up" etc

-is it just me or does the inside of nicks "house" look like the drews'?

-nick has a dick scar lmaooooo (or more likely was hit in the balls or smth)

-love how nick + george match their anger in confronting sal 100% on the same level

-so when did ace go back to work after having such a busy day earlier?? lmaooo

-damn father shane is a creep (casting defo hired him for his voice) and how tf did he just poof + escape? and what did he request???

-love bess's white hair bow here 😌+ her jacket, whole outfit on point as usual

-like how bess is right that nancy has to find her way out but thats kind of a nonstarter for a room full of panicked people wanting to help

-in the Good Place theres no bad blood between drews + hudsons bc nancy is really theirs

-"the only one who has the key is you" in the Good Place nancy has the key (smaller picture, to finding out what happened to lucy but bigger picture, post-reveal) but ryan has the clues nancy needs- following the Good Place's mirroring, this just means that in reality ryan will either be completely useless or an active hindrance (but you KNOW this is a dream bc in what universe would ryan remember clues like that 😂)

-so in a perfect universe ryan acknowledges his family's "criminal empire" as opposed to reality where he only makes under cover jabs about disengaging with being an "entitled corrupt legacy criminal" ie finding the bonny scot relics but does nothing about them, etc

-"strippers" 😂

-okay what is nancys obsession w her beanie?? bc her mom made it? "wear beanies do crimes?" idk

-making the call: nancy -unable to make up for lost time/both her mothers had to find out/suffer alone / in the Good Place nancy was able to be with kate while she called, and in reality she had carson; somethig about seeing the mother looking to the daughter for strength in the Good Place instead of the reverse (which is what reality sounded like, kate being strong for nancy through the illness despite the struggle)

-concept: nancy & nick "let's wait out the storm"

-"i believe that you believe it" nick in the Good Place + owen in reality both trust nancy when she says she's seen things (owen's is the teeth) but nick in reality (and not really knowing details) doesnt think much of their "moment" bc it wasnt real (so she had to leave the Good Place to save carson- but if she had known then he wasnt her real dad, would she have stayed to be w nick?)

-stranger - suede james 💙👌🏻

-"really anxious as a kid" v telling bc of her desire to know everything to remain in control of situations like she always does now

-"the medicine or the metaphysics?"/"you cannot beat supernatural with science"

-i love nancy playing with her pinky while saying goodbye 🥺

-"always seek out the truth even if it hurts" this is straight irony bc kate never told nancy anything. like does that include the truth about nancys parentage? they taught her to seek out the truth, but who taught her that the truth is the only thing to live by? ie things dont count anymore like carson and kate straight up raising her is tossed out bc she finds out its not "the truth" like all that work/stress to protect carson + she just drops him? with kate maybe shes just upset thst she spent all that time mourning for someone who lied. and would she do the same to ryan if needed? probably

-bess and ace head tilt 💙

-like how for all the time she spent there nancy only has a subconscious memory of blue curtains

-YESSSSS i LOVEthese beautiful overhead shots of hannah's hands. so out of character for the show lmao but so gorgeous

-i feel like future eps/grand future will be nancy going through the lock boxes to help people who asked hannah for help

-the video is officially dated Aug 22, 2019

-soooooo in the first ep nancy breaks into the hudsons house and finds tiffanys secret drawer w the nail polish and finds the amulet with a note that says "for your protection HG" yet on this video tiffany says she talked to a medium who gave her the amulet sooooo am i just confused? HG is hannah gruen obvi so is the address for the medium what hannah gave her? or was the address on the amulet which nancy dissolved in salt water to see? so how would tiffany know where to go? its chicken and the egg which came first hannah or the medium?

and lastly:

i close these two eps with a thought that everything in this show is sealed in death. all the lies, the imagery, the fake constructs people put up to get by all crumple the second someone dies- all the secrets come clean just like these doors have been unsealed.

#brooklyn's ND primer #nancy drew cw #the Great Rewatch of 2021 #you best start believing in ghost stories miss drew - you're in one

[ironwoman359]

Can you explain the different beliefs of the different dominations of Christians? Like, the big differences I mean.

Well, I can’t accurately tell you what denomination neccessarily believes what, as I only really have first hand experience with two, but I can tell you what those different beliefs would be. A good way to find out what a specific denomination believes about an issue is ot look at their official website, but also, individual churches and congregations may hold different views than the official stance of the denomination they’re a part of, as many Methodist (i think it was) churches did when the Methodist leadership doubled down on their anti-LGBT stance. With that being said, here are some of the different teachings you may find across denominations:

Catholic vs. Protestant: 

While all Christians believe God to be Sovreign, the Catholic church tends to take reverence for God to the point of nigh unapproachability. When Catholics pray to saints, they are asking the saint to take their petitions before God in their stead, while a Protestant would just ask God directly. When Catholics go to confessional, they are confessing their sins to a priest and asking him to present them before God and ask forgiveness, while a Protestant would confess to God and ask for forgiveness directly. In general, Catholic churches tend to be more ritualistic (though there are protestant churches like that too, lutherans, for instance) and approach God with less familiarity than Protestant Churches. 

Calvinist vs. Wesleyan: 

In Protestant belief, there are two main schools of thought you’re likely to find, Calvinism and Wesleyanism. The differences between them get into very academic langauge that’s sometimes hard to explain, but I’ll do my best to explain. The big stickler of disagreement comes in the ideas of “Unconditional Election ” and “Irresistable Grace.” 

Undoncitional Election refers to the teaching that before God created the world, He in His infinite knowledge pre-selceted those who would be saved from sin and who would be condemed to the just punishment for their sins. 

Wesleyans, on the other hand, believe that Jesus’s atonement was for all people. Yes, God in His omnipotence knows who will and will not accpet His grace, but He still leaves it to the individual’s free will to make that decision. 

Irresistable Grace teaches that to those God has pre-selected for salvation, there is no resisting the call of the Holy Spirit. 

Wesleyans, since they believe that anybody could be saved, that the pull of the Holy Spirit is not irresistable, as humanity has been given the free will to accept or reject salvation. 

Another more minor disagreement between Calvinsim and Wesleyanism is the “once saved, always saved” argument. 

Since Cavlinists believe in Unconditional Election, they also believe in “Perseverance of the Saints,” which is the belief that if you are Saved you cannot ever lose your faith (you also don’t necessarily have to be a Calvinist to believe that once you are saved you can’t ever lose that salvation). 

Wesleyan teachings, on the other hand, state that Salvation can be lost, as continued salvation is conditional upon continued faith. Aka, someone who once had a strong and steadfast faith would have been saved at that point in their life, but if they lose their faith or walk away from it at some point, they have lost that salvation (though the arms of God are always open to welcome them back). 

The other points of Calvinism and Wesleyanism don’t necessarily contradict each other, and so aren’t worth pointing out, but as you can see the differences are pretty drastic, and it’s easy to see how these different ideas could have sparked different sects of churches.

Communion/The Eucharist: 

There are esentially two views on Holy Communion: that Jesus’s presence in the bread and wine is literal, or that His presence is symbolic. 

For Catholics, they take it to the literal extreme: Transubstantiation, which is the act of changing the substances of bread and wine into the substances of the Body and Blood of Christ. 

Most Protestants who believe in Jesus’s literal presence in the elements do not take it that literally, believing more along the lines of, just as the Holy Spirit is present in the waters of baptism and the water itself is not what’s special, Jesus is present in the elements of communion and it is not the bread/wine itself that is special. 

Then, there is the belief that communion is more a ceremonial remembrance of Jesus’s last supper and a communal declaration of faith.

While I personally don’t believe in Transubstantiation, I think that any of these interpretations of Jesus’s words at the last supper are valid, and that God cares more that the community of believers celebrate the Eucharist together than He does about the minutia of it.

Also some churches practice “open communion” meaning that any believer in Christ regardless of views on the meal may take communion at their church, while others practice “closed communion,” meaning you must either be a member of their denomination or have spoken with the pastor before the sacrament to confirm that your beliefs line up with the church’s before taking communion with the congregation.

Also also most churches have different ages they start children taking communion at, Catholics it’s around 6 years old I think, while I as a Lutheran had to take half a year of catechism classes and be Confirmed before I could start taking it, those classes begin around age 12.  

The Means of Grace

The Means of Grace refers to how salvation is achieved. In this, Calvinists and Wesleyans agree: there is nothing humanity can do to achieve salvation, it is solely through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that humanity is granted Salvation. This belief is often referred to as “By Grace Alone,” or “Saved by Grace,” as their is nothing that a person could do to achieve Salvation, it’s all through God’s gift of Grace. 

The other view of Salvation is that it is achieved through Good Works, aka, what most non-christians probably think all Christians believe: If you are a Good Person and do Good Things you will go to heaven, but if you do Bad Things and don’t repent, you’ll go to hell. Most Christian theologians will tell you that this is False Doctrine, but there are some who insist that Good Works are a part of Salvation. Most, however, say that this does not line up with the Bible’s teachings.

The counter to Salvation by Works is that Good Works are not a means of Salvation, but rather evidence of it. Yes, a Christain should strive to do good works, because Jesus commanded us to love one another and to help each other, but if you’re doing these things because you think they will save you, you are missing the point. I personally really like the way a VeggieTales cartoon about St. Nicholas put it once, actually. Nick to a nun feeding the poor: “Do you do that to feel happy?” The nun: “Oh, no. I do it because I am happy.”

Other Differences

Baptism: Namely, should you baptize babies? Catholics and Lutherans and others say yes, Nazarenes and Baptists and others say no!

Biblical Inspiration: was the Bible 100% dictated to man by God and thus absolutely flawless (ie, all of the bible is what God said word for word), 100% inspired by God and thus flawless but not dictated directly (ie, the different writers used their own words and voices to write what was inspired to them), Inspired by God but written by man and thus subject to the trappings of humanity and possibly flawed in places? Vote now on your phones. 

Ordination: Who gets to be a pastor? Can women be pastors? Are youth ministers, worship ministers, and other types of minsiters called pastors or are they called something different? 

The End Times: Is the Rapture a thing, or what?

Creation: How literal is genesis exactly?

Queer Issues: A lovely can of worms that no one seems to be able to agree on and which is sometimes the sole reason for a denominational split (The Evangelical Lutheran Chruch of America split into two factions when they disagreed on whether or not gay people should be allowed to be ordained ministers. There’s now one faction of that church that does ordain gay people and one that doesn’t). 

Nondenominational Churches

Some bodies of believers have said “screw that” to all the crazy infinitesimal differences in theology between all the denominatons and said “We are simply Christains.” Now, each nondenominational church will likely have its own stance on each of the issues I’ve mentioned here, they just have chosen not to identify with any larger denomination, and if you’re church hunting and go to a nondenominational church, you’ll probably have to talk to hte pastor/look at their website to find out what they say about all these things. 

Again, for me at the end of the day, I hold my own beliefs about these issues, but concede that for about 95% of them, where you fall doesn’t matter (for me, the lines that I draw are the means of grace and unconditional election; I believe that anyone can be saved and that we are saved by grace alone), what matters is that if you believe in God and have accepted Jesus into your life, you are a Christian, and my sibling in Christ. Hope this answered some of your questions, and again, I’m always happy to provide more clarification/talk about this stuff! (can you tell I enjoyed the theology classes I had to take in college?) 

#christianity #theology #calvinism #wesleyan #religion #god #jesus #longpost #taylor talks

[caspianhayes]

                            CASPIAN ALEXANDER LEVI HAYES.

FULL NAME:  Caspian Alexander Levi Hayes. NICKNAMES(S):  Cas. AGE:  28. DATE OF BIRTH:  November 20th, 1991. PLACE OF BIRTH:  Chicago, Illinois. CURRENT LOCATION:  Red Ridge, Nevada. ETHNICITY:  White. GENDER:  Cis male. PRONOUNS:  He/him/his. SEXUAL ORIENTATION:  Pansexual. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION:  Panromantic. RELIGION:  Atheist, raised half Jewish, half nondenominational Christian. OCCUPATION:  Bartender at Violet. EDUCATION LEVEL:  Bachelor’s Degree in business from the University of California, Los Angeles. EXTRACURRICULAR:  Swimming, baseball. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS:  Has a studio apartment near the north side of Red Ridge, lots of windows, usually relatively messy. SPEAKING VOICE AND ACCENT:  Speaks smoothly & calmly, a very standard midwestern accent that’s barely noticeable. It’s very easy to listen to him speak.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE, ETC.

FACECLAIM:  David Corenswet. HAIR COLOR AND STYLE:  Brown, curly, very well taken care of. It looks just as silky as it feels. Typically kept short, has grown out once in his life, and didn’t like the way it looked then. COMPLEXION:  Pale, warmer undertones. EYE COLOR:  Blue. EYESIGHT:  15/20 vision - what the average person sees from 15 feet away, Caspian can see from 20. He won’t be needing glasses anytime soon. HEIGHT:  6’3” WEIGHT:  174 lbs. BODY AND BUILD:  Muscular, but not as muscular as he used to be. He retains his biceps and pecs, but has given up on ab workouts, aside from the occasional one once in a blue moon. TATTOOS:   None, with no plans on getting any. PIERCINGS:  None, no plans on getting any. CLOTHING STYLE:  Cas’ wardrobe leans casual. Dark jeans and t-shirts are his everyday apparel. He only dresses more formal for work because he has to. When it’s cooler outside, he’ll go for a sweater before a sweatshirt. He still wears white Converse, has a beat up old leather jacket that he got in high school, and doesn’t like jewelry on his wrists or fingers.   DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:  Almost unnaturally blue eyes, his dark curls, and a smile that lights up a room. A sniffle that’s almost always there. SIGNATURE SCENT:  Whiskey, leather, vanilla, and cashmere.

HEALTH.

MENTAL DISORDER(S):  Anxiety. Fear of abandonment and failure. ADHD. PHYSICAL DISORDER(S):  None. ALLERGIES:  None. SLEEPING HABITS:  Caspian has nightmares most nights. He doesn’t go to sleep until the sun starts to rise most mornings, thanks to the fact that Violet doesn’t close until well into the night and he has to stay after closing to help clean up before he goes home. It takes him a while to fall asleep,  but, once he does, he usually isn’t asleep very long. His nightmares startle him awake. It’s rare that he gets a total of six hours combined any given night. EATING HABITS:  He tries to take care of himself where he can in regards to his food. His breakfast most morning is a smoothie and some eggs, he’ll spend the extra money for organic fruits and vegetables. While he does take care of himself most of the time, there are those times where he sits down with a whole pizza and a pint of ice cream and finishes it all, though. When he’s high, he rarely eats, which is why breakfast is so important to him. SOCIABILITY:  He is an extrovert through and through. That’s part of the reason he thoroughly enjoys his time at the bar - socialization. He’s a very smooth talker and a very good listener, which is likely why people typically find it easy to trust him. The cocaine makes him even more sociable. BODY TEMPERATURE:  Naturally warmer, he gets cold very easily. That’s part of the reason he likes the desert so much. ADDICTIONS:  Cocaine. DRUG USE:  Frequently. At least once a day. ALCOHOL USE:  Semi-frequently. Likely drinks one glass of whiskey whenever he’s on shift, but otherwise rarely touches alcohol. Outside of work, when he does drink, it’s likely watching a football or baseball game.

PERSONALITY.

POSITIVE TRAITS:  Loyal, hardworking, charming, resourceful, charismatic. NEGATIVE TRAITS:  Anxious, sly, liar, secretive, stubborn. LIKES:  Cocaine. The Chicago Cubs, dogs, cashmere sweaters, traveling, warm weather, swimming pools. DISLIKES:  The cold, rough textured clothing, grating voices, loneliness, the sound of someone chewing with their mouth open. FEARS: Abandonment, loneliness, never being good enough. Failure. Death. HABITS:  Cocaine, cutting his nails frequently, smoothies with breakfast, fiddling with a necklace or other small things. ASTROLOGY:  Scorpio sun, Taurus moon, Scorpio rising. PERSONALITY TYPE:  ESFP. MORAL ALIGNMENT:  Chaotic neutral. HOGWARTS HOUSE:  Slytherin. ELEMENT:  Water. PRIMARY VICE:  Lust. PRIMARY VIRTUE:  Diligence. WEATHER: Sunny day, no clouds in the sky. Somehow, still a chance of rain. COLOR:  White and red // light blue. MUSIC:  Doesn’t listen to much music. MOVIE:  Inglourious Basterds (2009, dir. Quentin Tarantino). SPORT:  Baseball. BEVERAGE:  Kale and banana smoothie / Arnold Palmer. FOOD:  Scrambled eggs with cheese, broccoli, cupcakes, raspberries, peaches. ANIMAL:  Dogs of all varieties. SEASON:  Late spring, early summer.

FAMILY, RELATIONSHIPS, ETC.

MOTHER:  Amy Hayes. FATHER:  Stephen Hayes. SIGNIFICANT OTHER:  None. SIBLING(S):  One older sibling, 33+. CHILDREN:  None. PET(S):  None.

PROMPT.

Routine.

Who would’ve thought that Cas would end up here, of all places? Certainly not his family, certainly not anyone from his past. He doubted that anyone actually needed a business degree to bartend at the Violet, or to bartend anywhere, really. He doubted that anyone would think to find him there, which was part of the reason he enjoyed being there in the first place. That was the point of running away from the past, no? To escape it? Nights at the Violet were indulgent, and that was Caspian’s favorite part of it all.

Indulgence. Sweet indulgence. To start his shift after a hit of the best coke he could get his hands on was a feeling of near-euphoria after a morning of restlessness and anxiety. He could feel that paranoia and constant worry wash away as he walked the length of the bar, ears tuned in to everything happening around him. That was the thing about Violet; people talked. And when people talked, Caspian heard. They may have thought that he wasn’t listening, that he was just there to do his job and go home. But that wasn’t the truth. He knew about the man at the third stool and how he’d been cheating on his wife for the past three months. He knew about the woman at the seventh who owed Valencia more money than she had in her bank account, and, despite that, continued to turn to Violet every night for the comfort of a glass of gin. He knew the high-rollers with their hands dirty, knew the secrets of the civilians who simply wanted to live life without Valencia’s influence, knew those who feared Rorschach and what his arrival may mean. And it was almost as euphoric to him as the coke was. Almost.

HEADCANONS.

He grew up in the shadow of his older sibling. He always hated it - always hated never feeling good enough for his parents. No matter what he did, it wasn’t enough. Not when he made the varsity swim team and baseball team as a freshman in high school, not when he was given a swim scholarship to UCLA for college, not when he worked his ass off to get good grades despite his involvement in two sports.

The Hayes family is big in the financial planning world. If you don’t know a thing about that, you probably won’t know who they are, but his mother has been on covers of industry magazines and interviewed for finance TV shows before. She and his father co-own their own company.

He started partying in high school to try to let off some steam after games and dances. He only increased his partying in college. This was when he first tried cocaine. The partying got heavier and heavier, and, eventually, he lost his scholarship. That’s when he started bartending - he didn’t want his parents to know that he lost the scholarship, so he had to pay his own way through the rest of school. This was also when he cut contact with his family.

He likes it when people talk to him as if he was a brick wall, not absorbing any of their information. But he keeps that dirt in his brain - after all, who knows when he’s going to need it?

He was a good cook, once upon a time. Now, he doesn’t really have the incentive to be one, especially since he works through what most people would consider “dinner time”.

He’s pretty good at poker, but he’d never go into the casino to play. That’s too formal for him.

He wouldn’t refer to himself as a cocaine addict - just a man who likes cocaine. He figures he could stop at any time he wants to.

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

SUPPLIER: he's got a drug addiction; he needs drugs. this is probably someone within valencia who provides him with his fix - someone he pays either with information or money.

MUTUAL DISLIKE: this person doesn't like him for whatever reason. maybe he owes them money. maybe he's made a promise he didn't keep. whatever the reason is, cas doesn't like them, either. they're greeted with distaste.

FRIENDS: obviously everyone needs friends. these people may or may not know about cas' addiction problems, and, if they do know, he still won't admit to having an addiction problem.

PAST HOOKUP: any gender ! he does have a tendency to sleep around solely for praise and validation that he feels like he's been missing in his life thus far. don't be mad if he doesn't call you back.

BOSS: this is someone in Valencia, as Violet is owned by them. Cas probably doesn't know too much about them/their involvement in the organization, they probably aren't too close because he's wary of them more than anything.

WARY: this person knows that something's going on with Cas. May or may not suspect the cocaine addiction, probably someone on the side of the law, recognizing that Caspian isn't getting by on his own.

OWED DEBT: Cas owes this person something, whether it be because they provided him with coke or because his car broke down and he needed help fixing it - whatever the reason, he's in debt, and he can't repay it yet. Valencia or not !

OLDER SIBLING: this is the big one ; see the main.

#redridgeintro #now it's on a post so i dont forget the url on my blog lmao #anyways here's my disaster

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

A central message of President Trump’s insurgent candidacy in 2016 boiled down to this: Millions of Americans are losers — economically, culturally and even demographically. Perhaps no group needed less convincing of this proposition than white evangelical Christians, who have long felt embattled. “Make America Great Again” was the perfect slogan for Americans who had already embraced the notion that the country’s culture and way of life had been deteriorating since the 1950s. Indeed, white evangelical Christians voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton in large numbers, and Trump has maintained their support to an impressive degree.

But there are increasing signs of a generational rift: Younger white evangelicals have not fully bought into Trump’s politics and are less receptive to Trump’s message of cultural decline. The age gap among white evangelicals in some ways just mirrors the age gap among the public overall with regards to Trump, but in conversations with a number of younger white evangelical Christians, many said they are reexamining the way their faith informs their politics and whether the two have become too tightly intertwined.

If you drill to the center of Trump’s political base, a big chunk of those voters are white evangelical Christians. Evangelical leaders are among the first to defend him from criticism and the most ready to forgive his personal behavior. Roughly seven in 10 white evangelical Christians approve of the job Trump is doing as president, and many have been delighted by Trump’s first term.

Younger white evangelical Christians, however, express far less enthusiasm for Trump, even if they haven’t completely abandoned him. According to the 2019 Voter Study Group survey, only six in 10 younger white evangelical Christians (between the ages of 18 and 44) view Trump favorably, whereas 80 percent of those age 45 or older have a favorable opinion of the president. The intensity gap is even more pronounced. Only one-quarter (25 percent) of younger white evangelical Christians report having a “very favorable” opinion of Trump, compared to a majority (55 percent) of older white evangelicals.

No issue exemplifies Trump’s influence among white evangelical Christians — and highlights the emerging generational divide — more than immigration. From the start, Trump has made opposition to immigration a central part of his political identity. And white evangelical Christians rallied around Trump in the 2016 election and were quick to embrace his hard-line immigration agenda. During the campaign, white evangelical Christians expressed support for preventing Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. and temporarily banning Muslims from coming to the country. After the election, they coaleseced in support of building a wall along the southern border and blocking immigration from majority Muslim countries.

Indeed, Trump has managed to push the issue of immigration to the center of the evangelical agenda. Seventy-two percent of white evangelical Christians believe immigration should be a top priority, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.1 Five years ago, in 2014, that number was 49 percent.

But, again, the broad policy support masks a growing generational divide in views on immigrants. Two-thirds (66 percent) of young white evangelical Christians (age 18 to 34) say that immigrants coming to the U.S. strengthen the country because of their hard work and talents, a view shared by only 32 percent of white evangelical seniors (age 65+). A majority (54 percent) of older white evangelical Christians believe that immigrants are a burden on American society.

So why has Trump found younger white evangelicals harder to win over? Age has a lot to do with it. The president is profoundly unpopular among all young adults. A 2019 Harvard Institute of Politics survey finds that 70 percent of young adults (age 18 to 24) disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president.

But immigration in particular points to another reason young white evangelicals have been less receptive to Trump: Their lives have been dramatically different than their parents’.

Most white evangelical Christians say that the U.S. becoming a majority nonwhite country is a negative development. However, the younger white evangelical Christians I spoke to said the immigration debate is complicated. “Immigration is not as black-and-white as abortion,” said Lauren Burns, an evangelical student enrolled at Biola University.

First, the young evangelicals told me that demographic change doesn’t register as a “threat” to them. Like young Americans more generally, racial, ethnic and religious diversity is a normal part of their everyday life. In the U.S., only half of all evangelical Christians under 30 are white according to a 2016 study. On Christian college campuses, which have seen enrollment gains in recent years, young white evangelical Christians are part of an increasingly diverse student body. White students account for 62 percent of the student body on the roughly 140 campuses affiliated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, down from 82 percent in 1999.

And there are other reasons to think younger evangelicals would be less receptive to a message of America in decline. Anecdotally, at least, it seems young white evangelical Christians are less apt to believe their faith is in imminent danger from the broader culture.

In a recent interview with Newsweek, Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, argued that the “Make America Great Again” slogan never really resonated with younger white evangelicals. “Young evangelicals do not feel as if they are losing anything in terms of American culture,” he wrote. “They came of age at a time when following Christ seemed countercultural to them anyway. They never expected a nominally Christian culture in which being a church member would be the equivalent of being a good American.”

Indeed, young adults are upending many of the religious conventions and cultural assumptions that defined American public life in the past. Young people don’t feel particularly negatively toward atheists, nor do they view Islam as incompatible with American values. They don’t feel especially confident in religious leaders and they don’t see religious commitment as synonymous with virtue. The 2018 General Social Survey found that the majority of young adults say that people with strong religious beliefs are often intolerant of others. Even back in 2015, the overwhelming majority of young adults said they do not believe America is a Christian nation — one in five said it never was — and being Christian is not an important part of being American. The Christian consensus of previous generations, such as there was, is gone.

But critically, for young white evangelical Christians, this is the way it has always been. Numerically, they are already in the minority. Only 8 percent of adults under 30 are white evangelical Protestants. The segment of that age group that’s unaffiliated with any religion is nearly five times as large. Among Americans age 65 and older, white evangelicals account for more than one quarter of the population. Not surprisingly, young adults today are actually more likely to say they know an atheist than an evangelical. Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Burns’s group of friends in high school included people of color, gay and lesbian people, and atheists. “If I limited myself to only conservative white Christians, it would be pretty lonely,” she said.

Rather than yearning for the past, many young white evangelical Christians I spoke with have learned to navigate between an increasingly secular culture and their own deeply held religious commitments. Perhaps nothing defines the experience of young white evangelical Christians more than the conflict between their peers and their faith. Aaryn Marsters, who at the time of the interview was a 33-year-old evangelical Christian living in Charlotte, North Carolina, described the experience to The New York Times: “As evangelical young people become more liberal, older evangelicals think we’ve been brainwashed by the world. And as we continue to hold onto our faith and some more conservative or traditional values, many non-Christians believe we are still brainwashed from our upbringing.”

For many older white evangelical Christians, Trump’s vigorous public defense of conservative Christians remains the most compelling reason to support his reelection. At the Road to Majority Conference, an evangelical grassroots summit, for example, Faith and Freedom Coalition chairman Ralph Reed affirmed evangelicals’ unwavering commitment to President Trump. “There has never been anyone who has defended us and fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J. Trump.” Jerry Fallwell Jr., head of Liberty University and a staunch Trump supporter, recently suggested that Christians needed to stop electing “nice guys” in favor of “street fighters” like Trump. Facing what they see as an increasingly hostile cultural climate, many older white evangelical Christians view Trump as their last and only option.

But this sentiment makes many younger evangelical Christians profoundly uncomfortable and strikes them as practically unnecessary. Aryana Petrosky, an evangelical and recent graduate from a nondenominational Christian school in California, worries about Christians aligning themselves with those in power. She also challenges the notion that conservative Christians need politicians to defend their beliefs in the public square. “We shouldn’t be looking to political leaders to defend our faith,” she said. It’s a view that is entirely consistent with the way younger white evangelicals understand politics. A 2017 Voter Study Group survey found that while nearly three-quarters of older white evangelical Christians agree that “politics is ultimately a struggle between good and evil,” younger white evangelicals are far more evenly divided on this issue.

So what about 2020? Few young white evangelical Christians who I’ve spoken with express enthusiasm about the coming election. For most, Trump is not their preferred candidate, but an increasingly secular and liberal Democratic Party does not present an attractive alternative. Given evangelicals’ strong pro-life commitment, the Democrats’ vocal support for abortion access makes the possibility of defection even less likely.

At this stage, a couple of predictions are easy. White evangelical Christians will strongly back Trump’s reelection bid, following a decades-old pattern, while young adults will rally to the Democratic nominee, as they have done in every presidential election since 2004. In a two-way contest, Trump is still likely to make off with the majority of young white evangelical votes. A tepid vote counts just as much as an enthusiastic one. Yet Trump is redefining the relationship young evangelical Christians have with the Republican Party. The long-term implications for our politics and evangelical Christianity could be profound.

Kate Stewart was raised in a very civically minded family and had been excited about the prospect of voting in the 2016 election long before her 18th birthday. But she became dismayed and disillusioned by her options. “Having to choose between these lesser of two evils was really disheartening,” she said. Looking ahead to 2020, Stewart for the first time in her voting life has started to look at candidates outside the Republican Party. “I’m cautiously optimistic that the evangelical vote, or at least my evangelical vote, might find a home outside the party of Donald Trump.”

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Daniel Cox

[ashhinojosadiaz]

*A little Narnia art from someone in Deviant art *

Today i bought four books and amongst them: "Narnia - Prince Caspian" by C.S. Lewis and "Lord of the Rings book 1" by J.R.R. Tolkien. (The other two books: "Battles in the Desert and other stories" by Jose Emilio Pacheco and "Four Quartets" by T.S. Elliot

What fascinates me about these authors and their books is their spiritual and religious inclination. But more importantly the messages that they had to share with us.

To be honest, I dont know how many of you know this about me, but I am a philosophy major.

With that being said, in the classroom theres no room for what my personal beliefs may be. Atheism seems to be the norm nowadays between academics. Most of the instructors have a desire to communicate the many alternatives to religion and spirituality as a whole. Ive taken courses in Buddhism and Asian philosophies. And in my personal library theres over 10 books in Buddhism alone.

To tell you the truth, I was born and baptized Catholic. In my preteen years, I even took sunday classes for my first communion. But somewhere along the line i lost touch with church. And when i turned 19, I came back to God with a fire that burned deep in my heart but it was through a different channel. This time around i began attending a nondenominational Christian church in which I began to immerse myself further in Scripture.

But I abandoned that too when i entered university. My time split between work and school. However as of late theres been this unstoppable itch in the back of my mind that is drawing me back to my roots and i have even been contemplating to do my confirmation.

Its true that nowadays theres many stories beong told through movies, tv, social media and the internet at large. But most juat serve to numb our mind from our daily struggles. What inspires me of these two great writers is the fact that they shared messages in their books that help light the hearts of those who read them. In turn making them hopeful, strong, courageous, brave, kind, warm amongst many other attributes.

And it is my hope that i may too one day get to write stories that cultivate others souls.

#words #writer #fiction

#narnia #CSLewis #jrr tolkien #LOTR #Lord of the Rings #The Hobbit #cs lewis #prince caspian #writing #journal #journalist #article #fiction #religion #God #Faith

[krarupvestergaard1]

First Christian Church Of Plano, Tx

Nondenominational, multicultural church with stadium seating, plus social & non secular occasions. Wilshire Baptist Church was based in 1951 and is Christian by conviction, ecumenical in spirit, and Baptist by tradition. They promote inclusivity in the Christian group of believers. Furthermore, they cater to all forms of people from younger to old. Fellowship Church is by far the most important Baptist church in the Dallas/Fort Worth space and one of the largest mega churches in the nation. The church features up to date worship that appeals to vast audiences such as the “Walking Dead — Life Is Too Good Not To Live” sermon collection. Visit the website of Commission Church, where you will find all particulars about our church and tips on how to visit our church. Commission church is predicated on a USA nation based in 2018. Our imaginative and prescient at Lighthouse is to see the gospel of Jesus Christ ignite private and cultural transformation, starting domestically and reaching globally. non denominational churches in plano Here’s every thing you should learn about your first visit, from parking and Kids’ Ministry to accessibility for guests with special needs and what to put on. The school's doorways were closed within the spring of 2010. Heritage Grace is a Christian Reformed church, fabulous pastor Emilio Ramos if you need to google. They meet every Sunday at 130pm at Waters Edge church 5470 Coit Frisco 130pm. Thank you I will certainly check all of them out whereas in my pursuit for a church home. Due to building and safety considerations, our columbarium is currently closed to guests. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Lakewood Church in Houston has about 43,500 weekly guests. You can still search for folks on yellowpages.com since Yellow Pages and Superpages are part of one firm. If you attend certainly one of our providers, you'll hear about Jesus. Whether you might be trying to find Protestant, Catholic, Non Denominational, Anglican, Bible, or many others these listings might help you find what you want. You’ll really feel welcome from the very starting of your go to to Prestonwood. We have something for everyone in your liked ones so let us allow you to plan your first go to. Click here to see previous recorded providers at Prestonwood. Search for titles, filter by speaker or collection, or browse by dates. We’re all about folks as a outcome of God is all about individuals. One of the methods we specific our love for Him is thru our love for folks, and we do that by serving to people who come to Gateway grow in their relationship with the Lord. If you consider our view of your activity is unwarranted, please Contact our customer service staff. Dallas Chinese Fellowship Church is a non-denominational, multi-generational and multi-language church. We are a various church represented by people from all over the world. We are so glad you’re planning to hitch us at Watermark Dallas. Parents are positive to find that our LIFE Groups and providers go nicely with their stroll as properly. We are a household pleasant, fast growing church centrally located within the metropolis of Plano. We would like to have you and your family be a part of us in our energy packed, excitement stuffed, worship providers. You could have a worship experience like no other, in a friendly environment. Church is the final word place to experience the existence of God. In many churches there are holy spirits who helps people to experience the positive vibe of life and vitality. To know extra about our church please be at liberty to verify our web site by clicking the link beneath. I second Cottonwood Creek Baptist Church in Allen on Stacy Rd and 121. My husband grew up in the church and I formally joined last December. It is growing but it still holds the "small church" really feel to it. We did go to Stonebriar for a number of weeks to see if it will work for our church residence. It is also one of the most historic churches on the town, as this was the primary Catholic group fashioned in the area. It can be the Mother Church for the native diocese. Many of us love touring on the Wanderlog team, so naturally we’re all the time on the hunt discover the most well-liked spots anytime we travel somewhere new.

#non denominational churches in plano #non denominational church plano tx #non denominational baptism near me #plano non denominational churches #non denominational churches in plano tx #non denominational church plano

[wutbju]

BJU Statement of Christian Education

Dr. Ron Horton, department head, Department of Philosophy, prepared the following statement which, I think, represents the heartbeat and mindset of all the BJU faculty toward the educational purpose of this institution. – Dr. Bob Jones III

Christian Education at Bob Jones University

by Dr. Ron Horton

Our concept of Christian education grows out of our identity. Our sense of who we are determines what we do and why we do it. Let us take these subjects in order.

Who we are

We have, of course, a Christian religious identity. This identity gives us a supernaturalist view of the world. We believe that naturalism is a way of viewing the world, but not the way—that scientific materialism is a greatly limited and false way to see ourselves and the universe. We therefore have no difficulty in accepting the miracles of Scripture and the supernatural inspiration of the original writings of Scripture. We hold to the power of God to create a world and to re-create a human soul in salvation—that He has done the one and continues to do the other. Hence our anti-secularism.

We have a historical Protestant identity. Our defining beliefs are the shared core of the great historical creedal statements of Protestant Christianity. If one were to superimpose the Augsburg and Westminster Confessions, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Anglicanism, the Twenty-Five Articles of Methodism, and the Baptist London Confessions of 1644 and 1689, the overlap would be roughly distilled in what we formally affirm in our daily Chapel service. Hence our historical essentialism. (Protestant is used here in a broad sense and inclusive of Baptists, though the stricter sort of Baptists would reject this classification. Bob Jones University is a nondenominational institution, though Independent Baptists make up by far the greater number of students and faculty.)

We have an American evangelical identity. We continue in the spirit of the Great Awakening of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield and subsequent revival movements, which laid an evangelical base for American Protestantism and exalted the preaching of the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ as the church's primary duty in the world.

We are not liturgical or sacramentalist in our approach to worship. Though something of the dignity of traditional Protestantism remains in the formal order of our Sunday morning service, the selection of the music, and the recitation of the University creed, it is tempered by an evangelical concern for the spiritual state of the persons present and an invitation to those with spiritual needs to come forward for counseling at the end of the service. The evangelist founder had a quaint way of expressing this paradoxical coupling of dignity and fervency. He said that in founding such a university as this, he was "putting a red carpet on the sawdust trail," referring to the sawdust that kept down the dust of the aisles in his tent campaigns. We are very much in the populist tradition of American evangelicalism. Hence, our fervent evangelism.

We have an American Fundamentalist identity. We are not in agreement with sweeping changes occurring in American Evangelicalism. We are the heirs of an interdenominational movement of American conservative evangelicals, who published a set of doctrinal statements in the early twentieth century in a series of pamphlets titled The Fundamentals. These statements expounded doctrinal essentials rather than denominational distinctives. They defined the theological common ground of Protestant orthodoxy, raising a bulwark against the tide of modernism in the denominational churches and seminaries. Specifically they stood against the twin threats of Darwinian scientism and historical biblical criticism, which they rightly saw as directed at the heart of their faith. They drew battle lines and committed themselves to an aggressive separatist theological stance. Hence, our anti-ecumenicism.

We have an American Fundamentalist practical identity. Our common-sense realism encourages a balanced approach in peripheral theological matters that have divided orthodox Protestantism as well as a down-to-earth approach to the Christian life. Certain features of our Puritan heritage and of European pietism in general have given an introverted, mystical character to some Evangelicalism. Oddly coupled with this subjective "deeper life" inwardness is the emotional exuberance of Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on the experiential validation of truth. These intuitional tendencies, too easily disregardful of doctrine, have merged in leftward evangelicalism with an intellectualism anxious to establish rational bases for faith and eager for the respect of liberal scholarship. Intuitionism and intellectualism have not been characteristic of historic American Fundamentalism, nor are they part of our defining identity. For our founder, Dr. Bob Jones Sr., success in the Christian life was largely a matter of obedience and good sense. Hence, our anti-rationalism and anti-charismaticism.

We have a liberal arts educational identity. After the turn of the last century, evangelicals began to found liberal arts colleges to provide a breadth of education comparable to what was available in secular institutions. They wanted a broader education for their young people than the Bible colleges could provide. Especially, they wanted an educational environment for their children where their faith would not come under attack. The denominational liberal arts colleges had relaxed their founding beliefs and were embracing modernism. Our University charter reflects these concerns.

The general nature and object of the corporation shall be to conduct an institution of learning for the general education of youth in the essentials of culture and in the arts and sciences, giving special emphasis to the Christian religion and the ethics revealed in the Holy  Scriptures. . . .

The governing assumptions of this opening statement are two. The first is that all truth is God's truth and therefore that the pursuit of knowledge can be conducted in a way that honors the God of all truth. The second is that an acquaintance with a broad range of standard subject matters, including the most enduring of human intellectual and artistic achievements, makes the Christian more richly developed as a human being and therefore more attractive and valuable in the service of God. Adverse to these values is the postmodern counterculture. Hence, our committed cultural traditionalism.

What we do because of who we are

These identities have raised a concern among people like us about the direction of public education. This direction is pervasively hostile to conservative Christian belief. It has borne fruit in the failing moral standards and general disorder in the public schools. The grip of secular educational authorities on the content and purpose of state-run education has prompted Christians to educate their own young people in the lower grades and also in colleges and universities committed to their beliefs. Their purpose is not just the negative one of sheltering the students from spiritually destructive influences but also and more basically the positive one of forming their characters and lives after the example of Christ.

This concern sets us apart from the concerns of secular education, which tends to associate personal maturity with the disposition to question received ideas and to deny the possibility of certainty in the great questions of life. Our educational purpose is to nurture belief, not unbelief. The belief we desire to instill is not a naive untested credulity toward the truths of our faith but settled convictions justified by knowledge and experience as well as by the authority of Scripture. The contents of this belief are those age-old, simple but profound truths that have been the mainstay of Christians through the ages. The fountainhead of these convictions is an experiential knowledge of God from personal faith in the Savior. We may turn now to the biblical basis of our position.

Why we do what we do

Our concept of our educational mission is not new. It is rooted in the divine plan of human redemption that overarches Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. This connection of education with biblical redemption has, in fact, been well recognized in the past. The seventeenth-century Puritan poet and controversialist John Milton stated it as follows in his treatise Of Education.

The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love Him, to imitate Him, to be like Him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection. (John Milton, Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes [New York: Odyssey, 1957], p. 631).

The Reformers held a view of education that put spiritual and moral development to the fore, tying it to the purpose of God to recreate in the believer the person He had in mind from the first before the corruption of His creation by original sin. They believed that a biblically centered, reverently guided student experience in the liberal arts was valuable, indeed little short of necessary, for the perfecting of Christian youth in the will of God. We are their descendants in this regard.

Accordingly we draw from Scripture our sense of what we must do in our ministry to our students. We share responsibility with the Christian home and church in the general purpose of Christian education: the directing of the process of human development toward God's objective for man, godliness of character and action. To develop our students in the image of God, we must teach them to know God and to imitate Him in His character and in His works.

This commitment embraces all we do in our educational endeavor. Knowledge of the written revelation of God, the Bible, remains at the center. The disciplinary studies radiate from this center as studies of God's works. Biblical truth is not confined to the required courses in the Bible but is diffused throughout the curriculum.

Yet to know God implies more than just knowledge about God. The knowledge of God that is unique to Christian education is a personal knowledge that begins with repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and develops through obedience to and communion with God. To know God is to be born into the family of God and to live in fellowship with Him. With this knowledge as the starting point of Christian education, the student's attention is directed outward to the full range of natural facts and human experience, and formulations of that experience in history and philosophy and literature and art—all as reflective of the work of God intersecting with the work of man. The student develops a worldview coherent with the work of God in his life.

The work of God in the life of our students is a process of their imitating God in their character and service. It is our business as participants with God to urge them onward in this process and to provide an environment structured toward this purpose. As in secular education, the environment of Christian education is artificially selective, including elements favorable to its purpose and suppressing those unfavorable to it. We do not apologize for the prescriptiveness of the educational experience here.

It is our business also as educators to provide opportunities of ministry to the students, so it feels natural to them to live out their beliefs in service to God and to others. And so it is that hundreds of students have weekend ministries of various sorts, not only in the immediate area but also in surrounding states as well. We keep before all our students their responsibility to God in this matter and to a spiritually needy world.

Clearly our educational effort at Bob Jones University is a highly focused, energetic, disciplined endeavor. Because of our status as a private institution, we can operate without many of the constraints of a publicly funded institution and design policies suited to our goals without governmental interference. Students come who want what we have to give them and leave convinced that they are the better for it. We who serve here do so with great satisfaction, surrounded by human evidence that our efforts are wonderfully blessed of God.

#Bob Jones University #Ron Horton #2005 #Christian Education

[norihisahyuga-archived]

tagged by @chlance for this 10 + 1 facts about me thing. i’m not entirely sure i’ve seen that floating around before now. also, i’m incredibly boring.

click the read more at your own risk.

i’ve been writing for 11 years. it’s weird to think about it in terms of time now because i used to talk about it in high school, joking i’d have been writing for a whole decade soon. but nonetheless, it’s true. i started writing when i was very young because state standardized testing is terribly boring, takes too little time, and i needed to fill in the huge empty gaps of waiting with something. i’m still not entirely sure what drove me to write in the first place, but that’s what i did. and i’ve almost always been exclusively fascinated by stories about lgbt people and lgbt relationships even before i knew i was lgbt.

i like shitty movies and hate good movies. that’s only half a joke. there are plenty of movies that are considered “good” that i like, but when i actually tried watching a lot of classic movies that people have raved about, i ended up not liking a lot of them or just being terribly bored. it’s not even just a matter of not appreciating the themes present, but more that the films just don’t hold my interest for very long. in contrast, i can binge watch shitty horror films until i pass out in the middle of them. creature feature weekends on syfy used to be my favorite parts of the month for a reason.

i have a fear of ghosts and demons. i’m not entirely sure what caused it or why it’s become such a part of my life, maybe it’s just too many possession/demonic horror films at the wrong point in my life. maybe it’s just that i was raised religious and though i’m not religious anymore, i still can’t shake the fact that i believe these things do exist and can be malevolent. maybe it’s too much reading too late at night. i don’t really know why, to be honest. it’s ironic, because i’ll purposefully seek out movies and books that feature ghosts and demons. the grudge came out in 2004, and to this day i still have a paranoid and irrational fear of stairs late at night and can’t shake the creepy feeling that something is in the dark. might sound crazy, but it’s true.

i suffer from mental illness and personality disorders. and they all most likely result from the abuse i suffered at the hands of my mother for most of my life. i have very high key anxiety, which makes it difficult for me to initiate conversations with people and make decisions that are risky in nature. it also makes walking my dog at night very difficult. there is also depression mixed in there, which makes me very tired and decreases my motivation significantly. i have bpd and avpd, as well. bpd makes it very difficult for me to manage my emotions, as everything feels very intense or very numb, and contributes significantly to my self-loathing as there’s a constant stream of uncertainty in my head. avpd makes it very difficult to talk to outside sources about my issues, which makes therapy at the moment an absolute impossibility. i’m finding my own ways to cope as i can, and i think it’s starting to work.

tadanobu asano is my favorite actor. and he has been since i watched ichi the killer when i was in sixth grade. that was a very pivotal point in my life for several reasons, and he’s very important to me. believe me when i say that silence might have been a shitty movie, but i really enjoyed everything he did in it. i’ve been steadily tracking down and watching his films ever since. he’s the real reason that i started watching j-horror in the first place, which is pretty much what led me to the place i’m at right now and led me to the fandoms that would become the most important to me and the most important in my life. there’s a LOT i would like to thank him for, tbh. he means a lot to me.

i love animals, and they love me. and i’m not exaggerating when i say that. i’ve encountered animals and been told that they’re dangerous, but they liked me just fine. i’ve had stray animals grow warmer towards me and allow me to pick them up and hold them. my grandmother had kittens in the barn next to her house and i was the one who made it possible for my cousins to touch them since they trusted humans by trusting me first. i’ve had people’s dogs who usually bite approach me and let me pet them. and i really love animals. i don’t kill bugs if i don’t have to, i used to play with the daddy long leg spiders that showed up in my veterinary science room in high school, and i raised praying mantises as a kid and kept a pet frog for just over a year.

i have a natural talent for academic writing. when i was in my last two years of high school, my grades absolutely tanked and a large part of that had to do with returning to an abusive environment and being so isolated from everyone that i had no way to cope. my grades suffered heavily, except for my grades in english. my senior year, i was taking a college freshman level class through a university and i was able to get great grades in it even when i often scrambled to complete assignments or worried i didn’t understand the material. i had a teacher comment he never understood how much english meant to me until he saw a test score of mine that was incredibly high when most people hadn’t scored that high. had i kept my shit together and gone to college, i probably would have studied it. i might still some day if i ever get my shit together enough to consider attempting anything academic.

i have a sleep disorder. it’s largely caused by working the night shift and developed the longer i worked there. while left to my own devices, i usually develop a nocturnal sleep schedule and spent an entire summer sleeping during the day and staying up all night several times. that didn’t really translate well to working for some reason. as time passed, it became more and more difficult to sleep during the day to the point where i now have to take sleep medication to ensure i sleep for more than three to four hours before i go to work. during my days off, my sleep schedule almost always tries to revert to me staying up during the day and sleeping at night, and it’s an active issue trying to resolve it. i’m strongly considering changing what hours i work as a result.

i’m agnostic. i was raised in a nondenominational christian church and ended up not going back once i entered public school. when i lived with my grandmother, i encountered several denominations, which were apostolic, baptist, and pentecostal. needless to say, i’m very apathetic at best to religion. that doesn’t stop me from watching movies that include religion or make me automatically dislike media with religious themes. i’ve also retained a lot of information about christianity from my time in the church and my own studies which makes me very critical toward people misusing the faith. i don’t mind people who are religious! i just merely ask that you don’t approach me about the topic unless you’ve asked first.

i’m gay and trans. it’s in my about and my description and if you somehow missed both of those, i talk about it a fair lot. my identity is very important to me. i knew for the vast majority of my life that i was not straight or cis, but i didn’t have the terms i needed to really describe how i felt and wasn’t really able to admit it to myself until recently. however, that’s who i am. being lgbt is very important to me and is a very important part of my life.

i’m a restless perfectionist. it’s why you’ll see my theme change often (though this one is lasting well). it’s why my icon and mobile banner change. on my old tumblr account and on twitter, my @ changed very often, as did my entire layout + color scheme. i want things to be perfect, and that often means changing them. that also means i pretty much bust my own ass on my writing and my gifs and edits, and it also means i hate a whole hell of a lot of what i create because it’s never up to scratch and never what i envisioned it to be.

since i’m supposed to tag 11 followers, i’ll tag @halfpastmonsoon @yoshimiyahagi @hironoshimizu @sparktaekwoon @complicatedmerary @chatcsantana @underjacksumbrella

look that’s enough anyway if you actually read this... i’m so sorry

#txt

[ibilenews]

Life after death row: The pastor praying for Nigeria's prisoners

Enugu, Nigeria - Each morning, 56-year-old Clinton Kanu wakes up on a thin mattress laid on the tiled floor of his tiny flat.

He lives on the third floor of a modest apartment building in the southeastern Nigerian city of Enugu, in a flat not much bigger than a walk-in closet.

He takes a moment to look around the room. There is not much to see. A battered, rust-coloured armchair sags in the corner beside a barred window that overlooks the neighbourhood's red dirt roads. Sunlight filters through a lace curtain, exposing the dirt caked into the textured pattern painted on the pale yellow and grey walls.

Kanu is not quite six feet (1.83 metres) tall, but when he stands, his head almost scrapes the ceiling.

He goes through his plans for the day, trying to figure out where he will get something to eat. On this particular Saturday, he decides to go down the road to the home of his sister, Victoria Okoroji.

There, she dishes out scrambled eggs and shares a loaf of bread. Kanu, his sister and her husband eat together at the dining table. After that, she brings out a family photo album.

Kanu smiles at the old pictures of his nieces and nephews. Pictures taken of them when Kanu was not around. Pictures taken during the 27 years Kanu spent in prison for a murder he did not commit.

He has been trying to make up for lost time since he was released last April and trying to get his life back - but neither are easy to do.

Back at his apartment, Kanu brings out a Bible and flips through the pages to one of his favourite passages.

"And the Lord said, 'I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt,'" he recites in a gentle voice, eyes moving over the words. In the room's stuffy heat, beads of sweat settle in the dip above his lip. "'I have heard their cry.'"

A mild, easy-going man, Kanu says his faith saved him in prison and continues to inspire him, despite his present struggles.

"Look at me, just look at me," he says. "I have nothing."

Kanu was an ambitious, charismatic 27-year-old who owned two residential buildings and had a good job and government connections when he was arrested. Today, he has no job, no car, not even a refrigerator. He has no wife, no children. He does not have many friends. There is no land, no valuable jewellery, no retirement account, no stocks or bonds in his name.

Although he is no longer behind the bars of a maximum-security prison, he is without a job in a country where poverty is rapidly rising and finding employment often depends on who you know. His frustrations are mounting.

'The height of wickedness'

Born in the Nigerian oil hub of Port Harcourt, Kanu was raised in a middle-class family with a high regard for education. His father grew up poor but educated; he built himself up professionally and managed to earn a good income from a stable government job as a director at the national postal service. He made sure his children got the best schooling his money could buy. Kanu's mother, a teacher, also pushed her children to focus on academics.

Kanu worked hard in school. He was studious and liked to read. He collected young-adult crime novels and went on to study law and criminology at a nearby university. He became a consultant criminologist and an aide to government officials.

His problems began when he tried to help solve a case involving theft and a dispute over family land. When a man connected to the dispute died, someone accused Kanu of murdering him, even though he was more than 100km from the scene of the crime.

In 1992, he was arrested. He maintains that his arrest was politically motivated; that he was framed by people who were envious of his connections to government officials.

He was detained in a small prison in the southeastern city of Owerri to await trial. He waited for several years.

Looking back at it all, he believes he was a victim of the corruption in Nigeria's criminal justice system.

"The height of wickedness," he says, his face twisted into a scowl. "The height of crudeness, the height of treachery, the height of judicial murder."

Sentenced to death

Nigeria's criminal justice system is rife with corruption. In the past, judges have been suspended for misconduct and caught accepting bribes.

Excessive delays compound the problems, with enormous backlogs of stagnant legal cases. Nearly 70 percent of the country's approximately 74,000 prison inmates are awaiting trial. The long waits contribute to overcrowded prisons.

The maximum-security prison in Port Harcourt where Kanu was transferred after he was sentenced in 2005, held more than 4,000 inmates last year, although it was built for 804, according to figures from the federal government.

"Certainly overcrowding is the biggest problem caused by over-arrest, indiscriminate and unlawful arrest of citizens, some of whom are innocent," explains Sylvester Uhaa, director of International Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE), a Nigerian prison reform organisation.

"This has caused a lot of congestion in the courts and results in congestion in the prison system. That is the biggest problem - the visible problem that we see. The invisible ones are the corruption, abuse of power, disregard for the rule of law and human rights."

Kanu was sentenced to death by hanging or by firing squad, a common sentence in the country.

Nigeria has the highest death row population - 2,000 people - in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Amnesty International.

The 621 death sentences the country imposed in 2017 accounted for 71 percent of all confirmed death sentences ordered in sub-Saharan Africa that year.

In 2016, Nigerian courts carried out three executions and handed out 527 death sentences - three times more than in 2015. Death sentences are typically given for armed robbery, murder and involvement with militia groups.

'Like a thorn in my flesh'

The confinement and death sentence took a heavy toll on Kanu. He suffered physically, as well as emotionally, having to receive treatment in the prison's health ward for high blood pressure, insomnia, complications arising from diabetes, depression and stress.

"I was frustrated, and I was tired," he recalls.

In 2008, he tried to commit suicide, swallowing 10 tablets of diazepam he had managed to get smuggled into the prison to help with his insomnia. But it did not kill him.

Kanu missed his relatives and spent hours thinking about his siblings - Kingsley, Uzoamaka, Chikezie, Ginika and Victoria. Although they would visit him in prison, seeing them leave was hard.

His family suffered, too.

"It was like a thorn in my flesh," Victoria explains. "Anytime I woke up, I remembered my brother is in the prison. That would be a sad day to me."

She waves her hand in the air, as though pushing the memories from her mind. She avoids talking and even thinking about those years now, she says.

While he was incarcerated, Kanu's father, his brother Kingsley, his uncle and several of his cousins died. But it was his mother's death in 2014 that hurt most deeply.

"It's painful," he says.

People told him his mother died of a broken heart.

"I loved my mother so much. I'm the first [child]. My mother loved me so; it's painful. I don't know how to express it … a lot of times we [sons] live for our mothers."

His mother's death pushed him over the edge. He tried, again, to end his life, this time overdosing on dialine - a medication used to treat diabetes. But a prison nurse rushed him to the medical unit where he was stabilised. He was closely monitored but, the following year, managed to get hold of a sharp tool from the prison workshop. He used it to stab himself but stopped when another inmate pleaded with him.

"I realised God wanted me alive," Kanu explains.

He decided to try to make something of his time in prison.

He turned to counselling other inmates, helping them to cope with the woes of confinement and, having persuaded the African College of Christian Education and Seminary to run classes in the prison, he enrolled to study theology along with 50 other inmates.

Each week, he looked forward to his classes in philosophy, religion, interfaith studies, world conflict and psychology. His studies gave him solace, and he earned a bachelor's degree in guidance counselling in 2009 and went on to get a master's in education management and another in guidance counselling. But Kanu did not stop there. After seven years of studying in the prison's college, he was awarded, in 2014, two doctorate degrees in missions ministry and counselling.

That same year, he was ordained as a nondenominational reverend.

"It was one of the best things that ever happened to me," he reflects. "I've always wanted to be a reverend."

Ten other inmates were also ordained as reverends, but they all referred to him, affectionately, as "The Bishop".

He would hold prayer sessions with the inmates, encouraging them to stay calm and manage their anger. He spoke passionately about religious tolerance.

As the years passed, he waited for word on his appeal - a process he began shortly after the 2005 pronouncement of his death sentence.

"2005 was when the battle was set," he says. He ended up selling his four cars, the two residential buildings he owned, his stereo system, air conditioners, beds, and his refrigerator to pay the legal fees. He had nothing left.

Then, in 2015, his case went to Nigeria's supreme court, which reviewed the scant details of the original trial. It had been a skeletal case: only one witness - the brother of the complainant - claimed he saw Kanu at the scene of the crime, whereas two witnesses were called to testify that Kanu had not been there.

In April 2019, the supreme court ruled that there was no evidence against Kanu. He was discharged and acquitted. About two weeks later, he walked out of prison carrying his educational certificates in a bag packed with clothes donated by Christian organisations.

"I didn't know I was going to walk into unemployment and hunger," he recalls. "I was thrown into the cold wind."

Praying for a miracle

On a Saturday evening in November, the sound of people singing and clapping drifts from a church on the upper level of an industrial-looking commercial building along a bustling thoroughfare in Enugu.

Inside, a young woman grasps a microphone and leads about 40 people - mostly women and some restless children - in devotional songs as they sway with their eyes closed. Their voices fill the small space.

As Kanu walks in, she says: "Hello, we've missed you."

He takes a seat in the front row.

The church is makeshift, the room packed with plastic lawn chairs. Ceiling fans circulate stale air while purple, green and pink lights flash from tiny bulbs hung high on the walls. The back wall is covered in a colourful banner with the church's name printed on it: Days of His Awesome Power Ministries.

Tonight, Kanu is a guest speaker. He has led services here in the past, but cannot attend as often as he would like because the church is nearly 30 minutes from his home and he has to beg to put together the bus fare. Still, the head pastor at the church, Mike Okey Agu, refers to him as "Pastor Clinton".

The church is the only place, Kanu says, where he actually feels wanted. People there value and respect him.

Pastor Agu is an energetic man, shouting into the microphone as he paces up and down the aisle, laying his hands on people's heads while repeating, "take it, take it, take the anointing", and "blood of Jesus".

When he sees Kanu, he smiles. He believes Kanu's spirituality helped him gain his freedom.

Up at the podium, Agu leads the church in prayer. Kanu bows his head. Like everyone else in the dimly lit space, he believes he has a lot to pray for. The yearly rent on his apartment is due in January - N200,000 ($550) and he has no idea how he is going to find the money. He is leaning on his faith to take care of it.

Dreaming of prison reform

Kanu knows exactly what he wants to do with his life now that he is out of prison: He wants to advocate for prison reform and be what he calls "a voice for the people".

The nearly three decades he spent behind bars gave him insights into the country's prison system, where he says he witnessed corruption, torture and extortion.

Money allocated to prisons and detention centres is sometimes siphoned off elsewhere. "Prison officials routinely stole money provided for prisoners' food," a 2015 United States government report read.

Many facilities lack basic amenities like clean toilets and a constant supply of drinking water. Prisoners are dying from treatable illnesses like malaria and tuberculosis. Cells, sometimes rat-infested, are cramped, with little to no ventilation.

"I was boxed up in a cell that could have killed me," Kanu says.

He would like to see inmates have opportunities to study and learn trades that could help them when they are released.

Back in his apartment, he sits in his armchair, thinking aloud. The more he thinks, the more frustrated he grows.

"Nothing is happening in the prisons," he says, slamming his hand down and leaning forward in his chair. "You dump people there and ... [they] develop ideas about how to come back and get revenge."

Kanu wants to change that. He has big dreams. He wants to sit down with Nigerian officials to devise policies that would improve life for inmates, to establish a nonprofit organisation that will help people to transition to life on the outside after incarceration and to visit correctional facilities in other countries to see how they are run there.

He is full of ideas, but with no money, no connections and no job, he does not know how to get started. He has knocked on doors, visited government agency offices and filled out job applications. He has made phone calls and pleaded for help. But he has been away for so long and cannot trace any of his old contacts and friends.

"Everyone has moved on with their lives, as they should. It's been 27 years," he says, looking pensively up at the ceiling.

He believes he has marketable skills and a solid education, but he has become a beggar, living off handouts and free food.

It has been about four months since the church service.

March is coming to an end, and he still has not paid the rent. It is a quiet Wednesday night in Enugu and in his apartment, Kanu is holding in his hand a notice from the landlord. It reads: "Your rent has expired since the end of January and you have been instructed to evacuate the premises."

Kanu sighs and sets the paper aside. Then, he closes his eyes. As he does several times a day, he bows his head in prayer, hoping his faith will lead the way.

[rethinkingthefaith]

Christian Boldness Inferior to Christian Meekness

There is a class of people whom Jesus said would inherit the earth. Against all odds, the meek and humble souls are destined to triumph. But for some segments of Christendom, places where uncompromising zeal is deemed the loftiest of graces, Christ's words on the mount should read, "Blessed are the bold."

But nothing can alter the fact that Jesus exalted meekness as a crowning virtue. That may not always be evident, however, when we listen to some impassioned sermons. "What we need today among God's people," many a pulpit thunders, "is boldness. More flat-out zeal in evangelism. More tell-it-like-it-is-without-apology testimony." This is a distant echo of Spurgeon. He sometimes lamented the departure of fire-breathing orators like John Knox, who roused men to a holy violence. From the Metropolitan Tabernacle onward, preachers have chastised us for not adopting boldness as our defining trait. For not being consistently in-your-face about God. For failing to denounce sin and hammer home the gospel with force.

And the verdict on this sentiment? I say, without hesitation, that such emphasis is wrong and out of step with the New Testament record. It does not represent the truth as it is in Jesus, nor is it consistent with his own example.

But first, a disclaimer: I am not denying a place for boldness in the Christian life. When the apostles were filled with the Spirit, they "spoke the word of God boldly." There is a season for everything. There is a time and place for prophetic passion. By definition, this is a relatively infrequent and circumstance-specific phenomenon. And there are appropriate objects against which the prophet bears witness. In the Bible, these are most often power structures, particularly religious. Jesus boldly dressed down the Scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites. Paul condemned the Judaizing troublemakers among the Galatians. Peter withstood the Sanhedrin and said that he must obey God, not them.

Under the unction of heaven, people spoke with fire and conviction. They preached to the masses and sometimes rebuked blatant evil. But surely there is a vast difference between speaking boldly under a divine anointing and having boldness as the defining quality of one's spiritual temperament.

The "boldness" temperament that preachers tell us to adopt is not the imitation of Christ. Paul did not write of "faith, hope and boldness – but the greatest of these is boldness." The reverse is true: He told us that we can be singularly zealous, moving mountains with faith and giving ourselves up for martyrdom. Despite all of that, we can still lack agape and be nothing. We can be "on fire" for God and remain non-entities in His Kingdom.

It is easy to contrast the boldness-oriented temperament with the meekness-oriented. My daughter, a Roman Catholic, saw this firsthand recently. She attends a Franciscan parish where the priests are clothed in humility and sweetness, following the rule of St. Francis. One Sunday, while traveling with a friend, she ended up attending a large nondenominational church instead. There the preacher boomed out a sermon entitled "Bulldogs for Jesus" (two of the most incompatible nouns imaginable). At the end was an altar call for those willing to commit to zealous witnessing. And so, my daughter spent one Sunday morning listening to a gentle soul and another listening to a "bulldog" — the starkest of contrasts.  

The boldness-oriented temperament sees evangelism, no-holds-barred evangelism, as a primary New Testament mandate. But such an idea is biblically obscure. The canon contains few commands to evangelize. There is the Great Commission, of course. This is an order given to the Twelve specifically, and the church by extension. But each individual is not called to be an evangelist. If each were, there would not be a specific gift of evangelism (Eph. 4:11) given only to some.

Besides, the Great Commission is not just preaching or soliciting a "decision for Christ." It entails teaching people "to observe everything I (Jesus) have commanded you" (Matt. 28: 20). It is showing people how to love God and neighbor, to turn the other cheek, to reach out to the suffering, to forgive endlessly. This calls for a gentle spirit, not bombast. "Bulldogs" need not apply for such work.

The boldness-oriented temperament appears often in young converts. Their experience with God, in all its newness, kindles an inner blaze. This is positive. But it must be shaped and directed. Like a spirited horse, a young firebrand must learn to bring zeal under control. Too often, well-meaning people congratulate him for being hard, overly frank, insensitive. It's gospel boldness, they tell him. But this boldness is like a rifle given to a boy who lives on a farm. It has a valid use and helps the boy learn responsibility. But unless a wise father instructs him on proper use, songbirds will begin dropping from the sky and stop signs will end up riddled with holes.

The boldness-oriented temperament is often drawn to "apologetics," disputations with nonbelievers and doctrinal red-herrings. The meekness-oriented temperament finds less flamboyant service. Such a person knows that anyone who gives a child a cup of water in Jesus' name will be recompensed.

The bold can come off sanctimonious and intimidating. The meek are approachable. Sinners know that, like Jesus, these Christians will not excoriate them for their faults. And so the gentle saint makes inroads that the loud herald seldom travels.

Zeal, passion, boldness—unchecked by Christ-like agape—are the most overrated of virtues. Paul fails to enumerate them among the fruits of the Spirit, which are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23).

Boldness can prompt foolish acts, like Peter's wild sword-swipe. It can exalt machismo and aggressiveness. But love never fails. For every soul drawn to Christ via the hot eloquence of an evangelist are scores drawn by the character of a meek spirit. The sweetness of a grandmother, Sunday school teacher, youth leader, friend, spouse, co-worker – these virtues shape destinies. All too often, the thrust-out tract only annoys.

Isaiah said this of the coming Messiah: "He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench" (Isa. 42:2-3). Of himself, Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart" (Matt. 11:29). The meek temperament is the temperament of our Lord.

Zeal has its role in the walk of faith. But gentleness must pervade our essence if we wish to be like the Lamb of God. "Let your gentleness," wrote Paul, "be evident to everyone" (Phil. 4:5).

[celebritylive]

Dozens of Taylor University faculty members and graduating students walked out of Mike Pence’s commencement speech on Saturday morning.

The group quietly exited the auditorium in protest of the appropriateness of Pence’s presence at the graduation ceremony in Upland, Indiana. Shortly before the vice president delivered the nondenominational Christian liberal arts school’s commencement speech, many were seen leaving their seats.

The protest had been planned beforehand, as controversy surrounded his invitation to speak at the commencement ceremony when it was announced earlier this month, according to the Indianapolis Star.

RELATED: Openly Gay Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Challenges Mike Pence’s Anti-LGBTQ History — and Pence’s Team Responds

Pence, 59, has remained a controversial figure in an already controversial Trump administration, with the former Indiana governor having a history of anti-LGBTQ political positions.

During his commencement address, he took the opportunity to express his religious beliefs in front of the 494 graduates

“Throughout most of our American history it’s been pretty easy to call yourself a Christian, but things are different now,” Pence said during his speech, according to the Star. “Lately, it’s become acceptable, even fashionable, to malign traditional Christian beliefs.”

Not everyone shared the protestors opinion of the Vice President, as Pence received a standing ovation after the walkout.

But for the dozens of graduates and faculty members who left in protest of Pence’s speech, the walkout made the statement that his presence was not entirely welcomed by the Taylor University student body.

“I thought it was a really inappropriate decision,” graduate Laura Rathburn, who joined protestors in walking out on Pence’s commencement address, told the Star. “I think his presence makes it difficult for everyone at Taylor to feel welcomed.”

Stickers created by the school’s social work department and distributed to the protestors read, “We are Taylor too,” in protest of the Vice President’s speech.

RELATED: Pence Slammed for Comparing Trump’s Border Wall Speech to Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’

Pence is the first official from the U.S. executive branch to speak at the Christian university of about 2,500 students.

Protesters cited the lack of input from students and faculty regarding the choice of Pence for the ceremony’s commencement speech.

Pence spoke last Saturday at Liberty University’s commencement ceremony in Lynchburg, Virginia, and is scheduled to speak to U.S. Army cadet graduates at West Point next Saturday.

from PEOPLE.com http://bit.ly/2JPw8Fh

#Celebrity

[hottytoddynews]

Packing shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child brings volunteers of all ages together.

Since 2001, the Wesley Foundation, First Baptist Church of Oxford and other local ministries have been making a collaborative effort in the gift of giving with Operation Christmas Child.

OCC, which was established 24 years ago by Rev. Billy Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse ministry, is a nonprofit that will reach 12 million less fortunate children in more than 100 countries this holiday season. Each kid will receive a shoebox filled with items such as clothing, toiletries, toys, school supplies, and pictures or personal notes from the donor, often with words of encouragement or Bible verses etched onto them.

Oxford has seen the popularity of and involvement with the cause grow notably in the past three years. Just this year in Oxford, there were 6,141 boxes submitted to local drop-off locations.

“We’re not able to travel overseas as missionaries, but we can be missionaries by filling these boxes,” said Mae Stone, who has been the Relay Center Coordinator of North Mississippi for OCC since the beginning.

Stone belongs to a nondenominational house church, where there is no space to collect shoeboxes. Instead, she has used various locations as drop-off sites, including the Wesley Foundation and First Baptist Church in Oxford.

She emphasized the help and encouragement she’s received, noting that at the Wesley Foundation alone, she had over 25 volunteers, who ranged from teens to retirees, dedicating their time to the cause.

Rev. Eddie Willis, the campus minister at the Wesley Foundation, said he and those around him have been honored to experience the blessing of working for such a powerful cause.

“It not only helps the community come together, but it also is helping children around the world with gifts at Christmas. This is also a great way for the people of Oxford to know a little bit more about the Wesley Foundation,” said Willis.

The Wesley Foundation alone collected 3,797 boxes.

Beth McCullen poses with a man from the African nation of Chad who helps distribute shoeboxes in his country.

Beth McCullen works as the project leader for OCC at First Baptist Church, where over 1,000 boxes were donated.

“Oxford and surrounding areas have embraced OCC in a huge way and collectively sent almost 18,000 shoeboxes to Atlanta to be processed this year,” McCullen said.

Before shipping overseas, shoeboxes collected for Operation Christmas Child are inspected and sorted at a processing center in Atlanta.

The cause runs deeper than a church donation for McCullen and her family, as her daughter went to the Philippines to distribute shoeboxes and even worked at the Samaritan’s Purse headquarters in North Carolina.

McCullen believes participation in Operation Christmas Child brings its own spiritual rewards. “My favorite thing about OCC is that ‘salvation is possible on both ends of the box,’” she said, using a quote associated with the project.

Since National Collection Week, which took place last week, Stone has been at the OCC Processing Center in Atlanta, inspecting the 1.6 million shoeboxes that have been transported in before they start their journey to children in areas of poverty, war and disasters around the world.

Stone has experienced many heartfelt responses to her efforts, but she found one instance particularly moving.

“One time I received a letter from a young boy addressed to ‘Dear Aunt Mae,’ and it was the most touching experience,” Stone said. “It’s not about what goes into the box, but what comes out: the eternal gift of Jesus Christ.”

This theme of Christian love is taught to—and well-received by—kids around the world.

“It’s easier for us to tell children that God loves them because they’ve already seen the love, practically, in a shoebox,” said Mutambo Phillip, a Zambian pastor who has witnessed how OCC has benefited members of his own congregation.

If you want to donate a shoebox but missed National Collection Week, it isn’t too late. For $25, Samaritan’s Purse will pack and send a shoebox for you. They are also encouraging donors to buy an OCC gift card for friends so that they, too, can build a shoebox online themselves.

For more information, visit samaritanspurse.org.

Olivia Wells is a freelance writer based in Oxford.

The post Oxonians Donate Thousands of Shoeboxes to Operation Christmas Child appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

#hottytoddy #olemiss #oxfordms #oxford ms #mississippi #university of mississippi #the grove

[pastorhogg]

1 in 3 Protestant Churchgoers Personally Affected by Suicide

Suicide remains a taboo subject in many Protestant churches, despite the best efforts of pastors, according to a new study from LifeWay Research.

Eight in 10 Protestant senior pastors believe their church is equipped to intervene with someone who is threatening suicide.

Yet few people turn to the church for help before taking their own lives, according to their churchgoing friends and family. Only 4 percent of churchgoers who have lost a close friend or family member to suicide say church leaders were aware of their loved one’s struggles.

“Despite their best intentions, churches don’t always know how to help those facing mental health struggles,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research.

A common tragedy

Suicide remains a commonplace tragedy, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 44,000 Americans took their own lives in 2015, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Americans ages 15 to 34, and the fourth leading cause of death for those 35 to 44.

LifeWay Research found suicide often affects churches. Researchers surveyed 1,000 Protestant senior pastors and 1,000 Protestant and nondenominational churchgoers who attend services at least once a month, in a study sponsored by the American Association of Christian Counselors, Liberty University Graduate Counseling program, the Liberty University School of Medicine, and the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.

LifeWay’s study found three-quarters (76 percent) of churchgoers say suicide is a problem that needs to be addressed in their community. About a third (32 percent) say a close acquaintance or family member has died by suicide.

Those churchgoers personally affected by suicide were asked questions about the most recent person they know who has died by suicide. Researchers found that 42 percent said they lost a family member, and 37 percent lost a friend. Others lost a coworker (6%), social acquaintance (5%), fellow church member (2%) or other loved one (8%).

About a third of these suicide victims (35%) attended church at least monthly during the months prior to death, according to their friends and family. Yet few of those friends and family say church members (4%) or church leaders (4%) knew of their loved one’s struggles.

Caring responses

When a suicide occurs, churches often respond with care and concern to survivors. About half of churchgoers affected by suicide (49%) say their church prayed with the family afterward; 43 percent say church members attended their loved one’s visitation or funeral; 41 percent say someone from the church visited their family; and 32 percent received a card. Churches also provide financial help (11%), referral to a counselor (11%) and help with logistics like cleaning and childcare (10%) or planning for the funeral (22%).

Still, churchgoers have mixed responses to suicide. Overall, 67 percent of churchgoers say the loved ones of a suicide victim are treated the same as any other grieving family. And 84 percent say churches should provide resources to people who struggle with mental illness and their families. Also, 86 percent say their church would be a safe, confidential place to disclose a suicide attempt or suicidal thoughts.

Yet churchgoers are aware that friends and family of a person who dies by suicide can be isolated from the help they need because of the stigma of suicide. That can be true inside and outside the church, according to the survey.

More than half (55%) of churchgoers say people in their community are more likely to gossip about a suicide than to help a victim’s family. And few churchgoers say their church takes specific steps to address suicide or has resources to assist those experiencing a mental health crisis.

A quarter (24%) of churchgoers say their church has shared a testimony in the past year of someone who has struggled with mental illness or thoughts of suicide. Fewer (22%) say the church has used sermons in the past year to discuss issues that increase the risk of suicide. Meanwhile, 13 percent say their church has taught what the church believes about suicide; 14 percent say the church trained leaders to identify suicide risk factors; and 13 percent say their church shared reminders about national resources for suicide prevention.

Churches are most likely to offer prayer support (57%) or small group ministry (41%), according to churchgoers.

Few churchgoers say their church is hostile to mental health concerns. More than half (54%) say their church encourages counseling, while only 2 percent say their church discourages counseling. The remaining 21 percent say their church has no opinion about counseling, while 23 percent aren’t sure of their church’s stance.

Researchers also found that 26 percent of churchgoers say their churches encourage the use of medications in treating mental illness, while 6 percent say their church discourages the use of prescription medications. Most say their church has no opinion about medications (37%) or are not sure what their church’s stance is (31%).

Pastors want to help

Most Protestant pastors believe their church is taking a proactive role in preventing suicide and ministering to those affected by mental illness, according to LifeWay Research.

While 80 percent say their church is equipped to assist someone who is threatening suicide, only 30 percent strongly agree—meaning more than 2 in 3 pastors acknowledge they could be better equipped.

“Suicide in our culture has for too long been a topic we are afraid to discuss,” said Tim Clinton, president of the American Association of Christian Counselors. “Our prayer is that this research will start a national conversation on addressing the suicide pandemic in our nation, and we started by assessing the church’s perspective on and response to the issue. We need a clinically responsive approach that gives the gift of life back to those who feel filled with emptiness.”

Pastors say they are aware when suicides happen in their community. Sixty-nine percent say they know of at least one suicide in their community over the past year. And of those suicides, about 4 in 10 (39%) affected church members or their friends and families.

Ninety-two percent say their church is equipped to help family members when a suicide occurs. Pastors say their church springs into action, offering prayer (86%), calling (84%) or visiting with the victim’s family (80%) and providing meals (68%). Churches also connect families with professional counseling (53%), help plan funerals (48%), connect the family with someone else who’s experienced a suicide in the family (44%) or provide other assistance.

A number of pastors also say they’ve been proactive in preparing to minister to those at risk of suicide. Forty-one percent say they have received formal training in suicide prevention, while 46 percent have a procedure to follow when they learn someone is at risk. Fifty percent say they have posted the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number, 1-800-273-8255, where staff can find it.

Still, pastors are more likely to say their churches take a proactive role in preventing suicide than churchgoers are.

51% of pastors vs. 16% of churchgoers say their church has a list of mental health professionals who can treat those considering suicide.

46% of pastors vs. 12% of churchgoers say their church regularly addresses mental illness.

36% of pastors vs. 22% of churchgoers say their church has a lay counseling ministry.

29% of pastors vs. 23% of churchgoers say their church has a trained counselor on staff.

18% of pastors vs. 12% of churchgoers say their church has a crisis response team.

McConnell says it is clear churches want to be proactive in suicide prevention. They’re also quick to respond to grieving families. Still, there’s much work to be done to reduce the stigma of mental illness and suicide, he said.

Ronald Hawkins, provost and founding dean of the School of Behavioral Sciences at Liberty University, said churches aren’t always a safe place for people to be vulnerable. According to the research, that seems especially true when someone is at risk for suicide.

He hopes the recent study will prompt churches to do more to prevent suicides.

“I and others in ministry have too often looked into the grief-stricken faces of those whose loved ones have taken their own lives,” said Hawkins. “If you have been there, your heart cry is, ‘Please, Lord no more.’ Yet it seems there are always more.

“Our research suggests that Christ followers need to work harder at providing safe places, so filled with love and grace that trust can flourish,” he said. “In such a place, those who have come to believe that suicide may be their only option may dare to open up their inner world and experience a reawakening of hope.”

Methodology:

The Suicide and the Church Research Study was sponsored by the American Association of Christian Counselors, Liberty University Graduate Counseling program, the Liberty University School of Medicine, and the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. A demographically balanced online panel was used for interviewing American adults. Respondents were screened to include only Protestant and nondenominational Christians who attend worship services at a Christian church once a month or more. A thousand surveys were completed Sept. 15-19, 2017. Slight weights were used to balance gender, age, ethnicity, education and region. Those who had a close family member or close acquaintance die by suicide were oversampled (500 completed surveys) and subsequently weighted to be proportionate in questions applicable to all respondents. The sample provides 95 percent confidence that the sampling error from the online panel does not exceed plus or minus 3.4 percent (this margin of error accounts for the effect of weighting). Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

The phone survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors was conducted Aug. 30 to Sept. 18, 2017. The calling list was a stratified random sample, drawn from a list of all Protestant churches. Quotas were used for church size. Each interview was conducted with the senior pastor, minister or priest of the church called. Responses were weighted by region to more accurately reflect the population. The completed sample is 1,000 surveys. The sample provides 95 percent confidence that the sampling error does not exceed plus or minus 3.2 percent. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

LifeWay Research is a Nashville-based, evangelical research firm that specializes in surveys about faith in culture and matters that affect churches.

from News and Reporting http://ift.tt/2fEfeMX via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Feedly