Europe’s Christian Comeback

A very interesting article by Philip Jenkins in the Foreign Policy web site...

The West is awash with fear of the Islamization of Europe. The rise of Islam, many warn, could transform the continent into “Eurabia,” a term popularized by Harvard historian Niall Ferguson and other pundits. “A youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonize—the term is not too strong—a senescent Europe,” Ferguson has predicted. Such grim prophecies may sell books, but they ignore reality. For all we hear about Islam, Europe remains a stronger Christian fortress than people realize. What’s more, it is showing little sign of giving ground to Islam or any other faith for that matter.

To be fair, the trend is counterintuitive. Europe has long been a malarial swamp for any traditional or orthodox faith. Compared with the rest of the world, religious adherence in Europe is painfully weak. And it is easy to find evidence of the decay. Any traveler to the continent has seen Christianity’s abandoned and secularized churches, many now transformed into little more than museums. But this does not mean that European Christianity is nearing extinction. Rather, among the ruins of faith, European Christianity is adapting to a world in which its convinced adherents represent a small but vigorous minority.

In fact, the rapid decline in the continent’s church attendance over the past 40 years may have done Europe a favor. It has freed churches of trying to operate as national entities that attempt to serve all members of society. Today, no church stands a realistic chance of incorporating everyone. Smaller, more focused bodies, however, can be more passionate, enthusiastic, and rigorously committed to personal holiness. To use a scientific analogy, when a star collapses, it becomes a white dwarf—smaller in size than it once was, but burning much more intensely. Across Europe, white-dwarf faith communities are growing within the remnants of the old mass church.

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than within European Catholicism, where new religious currents have become a potent force. Examples include movements such as the Focolare, the Emmanuel Community, and the Neocatechumenate Way, all of which are committed to a re-evangelization of Europe. These movements use charismatic styles of worship and devotion that would seem more at home in an American Pentecostal church, but at the same time they are thoroughly Catholic. Though most of these movements originated in Spain and Italy, they have subsequently spread throughout Europe and across the Catholic world. Their influence over the younger clergy and lay leaders who will shape the church in the next generation is surprisingly strong.

Similar trends are at work within the Protestant churches of Northern and Western Europe. The most active sections of the Church of England today are the evangelical and charismatic parishes that have, in effect, become megachurches in their own right. These parishes have been incredibly successful at reaching out to a secular society that no longer knows much of anything about the Christian faith. Holy Trinity Brompton, a megaparish in Knightsbridge, London, that is now one of Britain’s largest churches, is home to the amazingly popular “Alpha Course,” a means of recruiting potential converts through systems of informal networking aimed chiefly at young adults and professionals. As with the Catholic movements, the course works because it makes no assumptions about any prior knowledge: Everyone is assumed to be a new recruit in need of basic teaching. Nor does the recruitment technique assume that people live or work in traditional settings of family or employment. The Alpha Course is successfully geared for postmodern believers in a postindustrial economy.

Read the whole article

População ficou mais parda, velha e evangélica de 1940 a 2000

Em 60 anos, de 1940 a 2000, o Brasil quadruplicou sua população, que ficou mais parda e velha. O país deixou de ser rural, ficou mais evangélico, e reduziu em cinco vezes a taxa de analfabetismo.

Os dados constam no estudo “Tendências demográficas: uma análise da população com base nos resultados dos Censos Demográficos de 1940 e 2000”, documento divulgado no final de maio pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE).

A população do Brasil passou de 41,2 milhões de habitantes, em 1940, para 169,8 milhões em 2000. Influenciadas pelo processo de miscigenação racial, mais pessoas se declararam pardas no último Censo – 38,5% -, quando não passavam de 21,2% nos anos 40 do século passado.

Os evangélicos cresceram, no período, de 2,6% do total da população para 15,4%. O estudo mostrou uma expressiva redução de católicos romanos, de 95% para 73,6% da população. Os evangélicos se expandiram em todas as regiões do país, mas foi no Norte onde mais cresceram, sobrepujando a região Sul, que concentrava o maior rebanho, segundo o Censo de 1940.

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Is Your Gospel Robust?

Here are some of Scott McKnight's thoughts during the recent Spiritual Formation Forum as related by the editors of Leadership Journal...

He called the standard evangelical gospel, outlined below, “right, but not right enough.” Essentially, we’ve watered down the good news in a way that has marginalized the church in God’s plan of redemption.

This fact was driven home recently by a friend of mine who teaches at a Christian college. He said a hand in the class went up in the middle of his lecture about the church and culture. The student, in all sincerity, asked, “Do we really need the church?” My friend was struck by the question, and by the fact that the classroom was filled with future church leaders. Something is amiss when even Christian leaders are questioning the necessity of the church. That something, according to McKnight, is the gospel we’ve been preaching.

Scot McKnight summarized the “Standard Gospel Presentation” this way:

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
Your problem is that you are sinful; God can’t admit sinners into his presence.
Jesus died for you to deal with you “sin-problem.”
If you trust in Christ, you can be admitted into God’s presence.

He went on to say that the problems with this popular evangelical gospel include:

1. No one in the New Testament really preaches this gospel.
2. This gospel is about one thing: humans gaining access to God’s presence.
3. This gospel creates and individualist Christian life.

Read More...

A "Radical" Thought by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objectives -- education, building, missions, holding services. The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christ's. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose. It says in the Bible that the whole universe was made for Christ and that everything is to be gathered together in Him.

Ambidexterity as a Dynamic Capability: Resolving the Innovator's Dilemma

It seems to me that some of the insights of this Harvard Bussiness School paper could be useful for congregational re-development/transformation

Can organizations adapt and change—and if so, how does this occur? There are two major camps in the research on organizational change: those that argue for adaptation, and those that argue that as environments shift, inert organizations are replaced by new forms that better fit the changed context. There are data to support both arguments. This paper discusses the idea and practicality of ambidexterity and shows how the ability to simultaneously pursue emerging and mature strategies is a key element of long-term success. Key concepts include:

* Ambidexterity, the ability of a firm to simultaneously explore and exploit, is one solution to the innovator's dilemma as outlined by HBS professor Clayton Christensen.
* Under the appropriate conditions, organizations may be able to explore new avenues as well as exploit their existing capabilities.
* Strategic contradictions can be resolved by senior leaders who design and manage their own processes and, in turn, ambidextrous organizations. Leadership is therefore key.

Press here to read the paper

Evangelicals are 20% of Latin American's Population

In my lifetime I have seen the trajectory of protestants in Latin America from a persecuted minority to an increasingly influencial force in the area. I rejoice for it but along with David Martin (Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics) fear for the triumphalism that has come with the remarkable growth.

El movimiento evangélico ha provocado una "revolución religiosa" en América Latina. Se calcula que en la actualidad, el 20% de la población de la región es evangélica y su influencia sigue creciendo. Este incremento es visto con preocupación por la Iglesia Católica ya que la mitad de los más de 1.000 millones de católicos en el mundo vive en el continente.

¿Pero quiénes son los evangélicos? ¿Dónde se concentran? BBC Mundo le ofrece respuestas a éstas y otras preguntas claves sobre el movimiento evangélico en América Latina.

Lea aca el reporte de la BBC

O Papa, Chavez e a "Cristianizacao" das Tribos

Benedict XVI was the aim of heavy criticism upon declaring in Sao Paulo that "the evangelization of the American continet did not, at any moment, promote the alienation of the pre-columbian cultures and was not an imposition of a foreign culture". Upon his return to Rome he did change his discourse to recognize the "pains" and "sufferings" of the natives peoples

Bento XVI disse que aconteceram ‘sofrimentos’ e ‘injustiças’ na colonização.
Antes, Papa recebera críticas principalmente de Hugo Chávez.


O Papa Bento XVI reconheceu nesta quarta-feira (23) que durante a colonização da América e de seus habitantes aconteceram com "sofrimentos" e "injustiças", ao fazer uma referência à recente viagem ao Brasil em sua audiência geral semanal.


"Não se pode ignorar as sombras que acompanharam a colonização da América Latina, nem esquecer os sofrimentos e as injustiças sofridas por seus habitantes", disse o Papa.

o dia 13 de maio, diante dos bispos da América Latina reunidos em Aparecida (Brasil), o Sumo Pontífice afirmara que a evangelização dos indígenas da América não implicou em nenhum momento uma alienação das culturas pré-colombianas e não impôs uma cultura estrangeira.

Bento XVI não mencionou as condições da evangelização, ao contrário de seu antecessor, João Paulo II, que em 1992, em Santo Domingo, pediu perdão às populações indígenas pelos atos de violência cometidos pelos cristãos na conquista da América.


A declaração provocou reações enérgicas dos representantes dos povos nativos. O presidente da Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, afirmou que a o Papa deveria pedir desculpas daquilo que chamou de holocausto indígena.

Confira o reporte da BBC

"Minority" Report

A look at California demographics according to US Census data...

The nation's minority population topped 100 million last year, about one-third of the total, and California had roughly 20 million minority residents, more than half of its total, according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Between the rising minority population -- particularly of Latinos of any race -- and the low median age of Latinos, a new kind of generation gap is arising across the country, experts said Wednesday: Most people over 60 are non-Hispanic whites, and most under 40 are not.

California starkly reflects this new gap. Non-Hispanic white people account for 63 percent of the state's residents age 60 and older. But the population under 40 is 38 percent Latino of any race, 13 percent Asian American, 8 percent black and just 39 percent non-Hispanic white.

Some demographers suspect the new generation gap will heighten the nation's struggle to provide adequate social services and public education.

"The biggest problems will be related to language and culture," said Andrew Scharlach, a professor of aging at UC Berkeley. "The difference may make it hard for nonwhite elders to take advantage of services for English-speaking white elders. There may also be problems in caretaking of white seniors by nonwhite providers."

Mark Mather, director of the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., said researchers there found that states with the highest racial and ethnic diversity spend the least per pupil on education.

"It will be interesting to see if this new type of gap will affect funding for social programs and education spending for youth," he said.

The generation gap arises in part from a higher birth rate among Latino women, who average about three children compared to just under two children for non-Hispanic white, Asian and black people, said Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California, in San Francisco. Mather said the chasm isn't likely to grow.

"We expect the gap to decline in the next 10 or 20 years with the aging of immigrants," Mather said.

Johnson agreed, noting that the immigration rate has been steady since the 1960s.

Latinos of any race were the fastest-growing minority group nationwide, reaching 44.2 million, up 3.4 percent from 2005, according to the annual estimates, which are being released to the public today. In California, Latinos also were the largest group, numbering 13.1 million, more than one-third of the state's total population.

Press here for the complete San Francisco Chronicle report

Is the Oldest Presbyterian Congregation in the US Purpose Driven?

This post may be outrageously distateful to some while refreshing to others. Anyway, I could not help but be surprised by reading about First Presbyterian Church of Jamaica...

One way First Presbyterian [Church of Jamaica] has achieved a larger congregation in the last several years is through adopting the Purpose Driven Model, an approach popularized by Rick Warren, the author of the best-selling book, “The Purpose-Driven Life.”

O’Connor [Senior Pastor] said by preaching that every individual is designed for a specific purpose that he or she can discover, he has been able to attract more people to church services.

“All people want to know their lives are lived in significance. That was a connection that was made,” he said.

Willingness to devise new methods of bringing faith to people is essential, he said.

However, 345 years later, First Church’s message remains the same.

“It’s a place where people are loved and welcomed,” he said. “ You can come as you are.”

Press Here to read the complete Queens Tribune Report

Antelope Valley cities hot spots for 2006 growth

BY JIM SKEEN, Daily News Staff Writer

ANTELOPE VALLEY - Lancaster's population increased by 3.8 percent last year and Palmdale's by 3 percent, making them among the fastest-growing cities in Los Angeles County, according to state population statistics released this week.

Although Lancaster grew at a faster rate, Palmdale retained its position as the largest city in the Antelope Valley, growing from 141,199 people to 145, 468. Lancaster's population increased to 143,818 people, up from 138,562, according to the state Department of Finance.

"It helps out our real estate industry, because people are buying homes, and it helps out our business community," Palmdale Councilman Mike Dispenza said. "As far as services, we're not so stretched that we can't absorb 4,000 or 5,000 people."

Although housing sales have slowed from the furious pace of a year or two ago, there are still eager prospective buyers, Palmdale officials said. Palmdale is seeing interest in housing on its east side, and two large master-planned communities are under construction on the west side: the 5,000-home Anaverde and the 7,200-home Ritter Ranch.

Press here to read the whole daily news report

Hispanics Transforming Nation's Religious Landscape

By Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service

About half the nation's Hispanics -- including many who are Roman Catholic -- consider themselves to be charismatics or Pentecostals, creating a new confluence of streams in American Christianity.

"Simply put, Latinos are transforming the nation's religious landscape," said Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, one of two organizations that produced a new study.

The survey and accompanying report, released Wednesday (April 25), found that 68 percent -- or two-thirds -- of Hispanics describe themselves as Roman Catholics while 15 percent are evangelical or born-again Protestants. Eight percent do not identify with a religion.

A joint project of the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, the report details results of a bilingual telephone survey of 4,016 Hispanic adults between August and October of 2006. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

The religious practice of Hispanics -- across religious persuasions -- is a daily, active one, researchers found. Seventy percent of all Hispanics have a crucifix or other religious object in their home. And 58 percent pray to the Virgin Mary or saints at difficult times.

Among Latino Christians:

-- 75 percent believe in miracles
-- 71 percent say religion is very important
-- 70 percent pray every day
-- 53 percent believe the Bible is the literal word of God
-- 52 percent believe Jesus will return in their lifetime
-- 47 percent attend church at least weekly
-- 29 percent speak in tongues at least weekly

Hispanic Catholics are four times as likely as non-Hispanic Catholics to describe themselves as charismatic, but they do not discard traditional Catholic teaching, the report notes. Instead they incorporate charismatic practices into their religious life.

Press here for the Beliefnet report

Our Coat of Arms/ Nuestros Escudos

On our 10th wedding anniversary/En nuestro decimo aniversario de bodas

Boom in Third World Christianity transforms middle-class American church

The Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.25.2007

The United Methodist Church is the latest Protestant group caught in the shifting currents of world Christianity. While the American denomination is shrinking at home, its congregations in the developing world are growing explosively.
Over the last decade, the number of United Methodists outside the U.S. more than tripled. The denomination's largest district is now in the West African nation of Ivory Coast. At the next national church assembly, the 2008 General Conference in Texas, overseas delegates will have more say than ever in the church's future — as many as 30 percent could come from abroad.
"Trends suggest that Christianity is going to continue to grow as a global phenomenon, and denominations that have thought of themselves as being predominantly North American in character are going to have to get over that," said William Lawrence, dean of the Perkins School of Theology, a Methodist seminary in Dallas.
Nearly 8 million United Methodists are now in the U.S., with another 3.5 million church members overseas. The denomination is the third-largest in the nation behind Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists, and middle-class worshippers mostly fill the pews of its American churches.
But if current patterns continue, within decades the typical United Methodist will be from Africa. While international congregations expand, the denomination's U.S. ranks have decreased by 19 percent since the 1970s.

Press here to read the whole report

Prayer in the wake of the Virginia Tech Tragedy

I wanted to share this prayer written by Rev. Dr. Mark Roberts who is pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church and was my New Testament professor at San Francisco Theological Seminary

God of love and justice, our hearts are stunned today by the horrifying events at Virginia Tech. We struggle even to know how to pray. Yet we ask You, above all, to let Your gracious presence be known to all who suffer this day, especially the families and friends of those who have died. Grant them Your peace that passes all understanding. Help us, dear Lord, to learn what we must learn from this crisis. Give us hearts open to You. Keep us from using the pain of others to manipulate or callously advance our personal agendas. Help us to listen to each other, and most of all to You. Thank You for being a God who is not watching us from a distance. Thank You for entering into the pain and sorrow of this broken world. Thank You for being present with us when we suffer. Thank You for giving us hope when all seems hopeless, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Christianity plus drums?

Back in 2002 the Atlantic Monthly published an insightful article in which he quotes Philip Jenkins from Pennsylvania State University on the new face of Christianity...

"We need to take the new Christianity very seriously, it is not just Christianity plus drums. If we're not careful, fifty years from now we may find a largely secular North defining itself against a largely Christian South. This will have its implications."

"I think,that the big 'problem cult' of the twenty-first century will be Christianity."

Press here to read the complete article

Churches changing to keep faith alive- A Courier News Report

By CELANIE POLANICK

Today's Christian processes more information in one day than pious medieval peasants did in a lifetime. Somewhere between the new Easter outfit, the marshmallow latte and the Easter basket containing an iPod, a yoga mat and a chocolate bunny, the traditional message of Easter can get lost.

Armed with technology and multimedia and drawing from a range of world cultures and traditions, local churches are confronting postmodern life in creative ways and giving new meaning to the phrase, "If you can't beat it, join it:"

-In Hillsborough, that means a church sponsoring its first-ever Easter egg hunt, a secular tradition the church's members wanted for their own congregation.

-In Bridgewater, that means a church using slides of famous paintings in one service and incorporating the ancient tradition of hands-on healing in another service.

-In the Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen, that means playing host to theological and spiritual discussions for younger people at bars and restaurants in a program called Theology on Tap.

-In Morristown, that means the first service today of an independent, non-denominational church that formerly met in Bernards, and includes a variety of outreach efforts such as prayerfully pumping gas for strangers.

-In Somerville, that means one 89-year-old church member puts church fliers in strangers' mailboxes.

The potential pool for new congregants is vast. In February 2006, Christianity Today magazine reported that 61 percent of Americans believe in God but don't attend church.

Press here for the full article

L.A. Philharmonic gets "boy wonder" conductor

Dudamel was born in my native town of Barquisimeto- Venezuela

By Kemp Powers
Reuters
Tuesday, April 10, 2007; 1:56 AM

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The classical music world was handed a new star on Monday as charismatic 26-year-old Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel was introduced as the next music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic

Dudamel, a graduate of his country's unique youth orchestra system aimed at poor students, has been hailed as the "boy wonder" of classical music.

Press here for the entire Washington Post report

The Perfect Mission Field- Do You Feel Called?

If we were going to design the perfect mission field, here is what it might look like:

1. It would be filled with millions of unsaved and accessible youth and young adults.
2. It would be a place where people openly, regularly, and publicly share their opinions, thoughts, feelings, concerns, fears, and needs without anyone asking them to.
3. It would be a place where people connect with other people in community, and people like and expect to meet new people.
4. It would be a place where many people provide a picture and a little information about themselves so you can know a little about them before you communicate with them.
5. It would be a place where it is okay to be creative, different, and to just be you.
6. It would be a place where people openly debate, discuss, and exchange ideas including spiritual matters.
7. It would be a place where people like to go and hang out. It would be fun, sometimes silly, and people would smile and laugh.
8. It would be a place that is very close to our home so we could get there quickly when we have some time, and getting there would not require immunizations, or passports, or plane trips. And it would all be free.

This perfect mission field exists right now, down to the last detail. It exists on the Internet in public online services that connect people in community: blogs, personal webpages, and discussion groups, including social networking sites s

G.K. Chesterton on Easter as "Creation Take Two"

"On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in the semblance of a gardener, God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn." ~The Everlasting Man

A Thought by T. S. Eliot

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."