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WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?
6 out of 10 Americans believe Satan is only a symbol and not real
47 % of Christians believe the same thing
1 out of 4 Christians believe it doesn’t matter what religion you are because all of them are the same and they all lead to God
31% of Christians believe Heaven can be earned
Daily horoscope reading is equal among Christians and non-Christians
Only 51% of Christians would make it illegal to distribute pornographic material
35% of Christians believe it is ok to bend the rules to get what you want
SOURCE: www.barna.org
RELIGIOUS MERGER CREATES 900 MILLION HINJEWS
New Delhi, India (SatireWire.com) — Hinjew leaders today conceded the merger of Hinduism and Judaism has not worked out as planned, as instead of forming a super-religion to fight off the common Islamic enemy, they have instead created a race of 900 million people who, no matter how many times they are reincarnated, can never please their mothers.
SOURCE: Beliefnet.com. Reprinted with permission from SatireWire.com.
http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?
pageLoc=/story/108/story_10857_1.html&boardID=42057
THE FASHION OF PLURALISM
While religious pluralism may be a novel experience for us, it is putting us in touch with the world that surrounded the biblical authors.
The pluralism and the paganism of Our Time were the common experience of the prophets and apostles. In Mesopotamia, there were thousands of gods and goddesses, many of which were known to the Israelites--indeed, sometimes known too well...
Nothing, therefore, could be more remarkable than to hear the contention, even from those within the Church, that the existence of religious pluralism today makes belief in the uniqueness of Christianity quite impossible. Had this been the necessary consequence of encountering a multitude of other religions, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul would have given up biblical faith long before it became fashionable ... to do so.
SOURCE: Pluralism Is Not New, Citation: David Wells in No Place for Truth, or, Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? Christianity Today, Vol. 38, no. 8. Contributed by A. Todd Coget.
JESUS- NOT HATE BUT HOPE
"Jesus.
It’s a little name.
A small word.
Say this little name in public, however, in a way other than an obscenity, and stand back and watch the fireworks.
This little name is like a tiny detonator that triggers a nuclear warhead.
You can say "God," and you won’t get a squeak.
You can say "Our Father/Mother in Heaven," and few will flinch.
You can say "Great Spirit," and people will nod in approval.
You can say "Allah" and you will be deemed tolerant.
But say "Jesus" and just wait for the sonic boom.
Articles will appear in the paper. Reprimands will be posted from the home office. Suits will be threatened by the civil liberties block.
So don’t say Jesus.
Jesus is divisive, and now is a time for unity.
Jesus is an extremist, and that must mean right wing.
Jesus is exclusive, so His name amounts to hate speech.
Keep His name to yourself. Cloister it in your church. Lock it in your prayer closet. Close it between the covers of your Bible. But for God’s sake, don’t voice it in the public square!
It’s immodest. It’s immoral. It’s unloving.
Only one problem.
Jesus is God.
Only one problem.
Jesus alone brings salvation.
Only one problem.
All other gods are nothing.
So speak Hi...
A former Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, W R Inge, famously observed that any church which enters into a marriage with the spirit of the age "will soon find itself a widow in the next".
Evie Megginson
The doubleheader train was bucking a heavy snowstorm as its steam engines pulled it west.
A woman with a baby wanted to leave the train at one of the little stations along the route.
She repeatedly called, “Don’t forget me!” to the brakeman responsible to call out the stations they approached. Her husband was to meet her.
The train slowed to a stop, and a fellow traveler said, “Here’s your station.” She hopped from the train into the storm. The train moved on again.
Forty-five minutes later, the brakeman came in. “Where’s the woman?”
“She got off at the last stop,” the traveler said.
“Then she got off to her death,” the brakeman responded. “We stopped only because there was something the matter with the engine.”
They called for volunteers to go back and search for the woman and child. When they found her hours later, not far from the track where they stopped, she was covered with ice and snow. The little boy was protected on her breast. She had followed the man’s directions, but they were wrong—dead wrong.
Paul declares Christ is the one Mediator between man and God. Peter emphasizes there is no other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved.
PICK A SIDE
There's a fictional story of the soldier in the American Civil War who did not want to fight with anyone. In an attempt to remain NEUTRAL, he dressed in Union pants and a Confederate jacket. Unfortunately BOTH SIDES shot at him.
Another of her like would be Ophrah – not a witch, but described by Christianity Today as one of the most influential spiritual leaders in America today – perhaps even all over the western world where her program is shown. This ex baptist now espouses the view that “one of the biggest mistakes we make is to believe there is only one way. There are many diverse paths leading to God.” She is described as a ‘postmodern priestes...
In our Southern Baptist Convention we pass resolutions every year. A resolution is a position statement, on certain moral and ethical issues that arise. One of the things that the Southern Baptist Convention did a few years ago was to pass a resolution about Jesus being the only way to salvation. Listen to what one pastor said:
“In regard to the resolution, I understand God to be a gracious, life-giving mystery who, for me, is most clearly encountered in the human Jesus, the Christ. Therefore, I am Christian. I assume that there are other lights, other understandings of God’s movement of love and justice in our world. To judge with certainty another person’s relationship to God is for me the height of arrogance.” (SBC Annual Meeting June, 1994)
SINCERELY WRONG
In November, 1987, a large group of anti-government rebels in Soroti, Uganda, had targeted a rural army post and airstrip for take over. A company numbering in the hundreds gathered in the dense surrounding brush for the attack. But this was to be no ordinary invasion. The task force would use some strikingly unconventional tactics.
According to the Associated Press, the rebels attacked half naked. A few wore old army trousers, a few more army boots, and all of them had their pants rolled up above their knees. Curiously, all of the attackers were smeared with oil. As they advanced on the air strip, they marched boldly, even fearlessly toward government defending forces. In unison they chanted, "God is there! God is there!"
When the hour-long attack was over, the rebels were routed. Out of seven hundred men, two hundred were killed, many more were taken prisoner. One of the prisoners, a man named Obone, explained the bizarre event. The rebels were members of a disgruntled religious/political group called the "Holy Spirit Movement." The founder of the movement, a witch doctor named Alice Lakwena, convinced her forces that she had concocted magic oil that would protect them from bullets. She instructed them to take off their shirts, roll up their pant legs, and smear their bodies with the oil. She promised that rocks would explode like hand grenades for the faithful. The rag tag militia went then went to take the airstrip and wait for foreign assistance. The troops never took the airstrip, and foreign assistance never came. The battle was lost before it had begun.
No one could fault the "Holy Spirit Movement" for a lack of sincerity. One must be a true believer to face live bullets half naked. Sincere? Yes. But wrong, dead wrong.
SOURCE: R. Scott Richards, Myths the World Taught Me, pp. 63-64.
Contributed by: Joel Smith
