Is American Christianity Turning Charismatic?

Two new surveys from The Barna Group indicate that things are changing dramatically in the religious landscape, indicating that the number of churches and adherents to Pentecostal perspectives and practices has grown significantly in the past two decades.

A decade ago, three out of ten adults — compared with 36 percent today (80 million adults) — claimed to be charismatic or Pentecostal Christians. (For the survey, this included people who said they were a charismatic or Pentecostal Christian, that they had been “filled with the Holy Spirit” and who said they believe that “the charismatic gifts, such as tongues and healing, are still valid and active today.”) Although just eight percent of the population is evangelical, half of evangelical adults (49%) fit the charismatic definition. A slight majority of all born-again Christians (51%) is charismatic. Nearly half of all adults who attend a Protestant church (46%) are charismatic.

The survey revealed that four out of every 10 non-denominational churches are charismatic, in addition to the most well-known charismatic denominations, which include the Assemblies of God, Foursquare and Churches of God in Christ. The profile of the typical charismatic congregation is nearly identical to that of evangelical, fundamentalist and mainline Protestant churches with four out of five (80%) having a full-time, paid pastor (average age:52-years-old) in charge of the ministry. Weekly attendance is equivalent to that of other Protestant bodies (82 adults at Pentecostal gatherings compared to 85 adults among all Protestant churches).

The Barna study found that several widespread assumptions about charismatic churches are inaccurate:

• Although many people believe that charismatic Christianity is almost exclusively a Protestant phenomenon, 36 percent of all U.S. Catholics are charismatic.
• Thought to belong to a strictly defined group of denominations, the growth of Pentecostalism has recently crossed denominational boundaries with seven percent of Southern Baptist churches and six percent of mainline churches being charismatic, according to their senior pastors.
• One widespread view is that charismatic Christianity is found mostly in small, relatively unsophisticated congregations. But, charismatic congregations are about the same size as non-charismatic Protestant churches and are more likely than other Protestant churches to use five of the seven technological applications evaluated, such as the use of large-screen projection systems, etc.
• Many female pastors were thought to be welcomed into the Pentecostal community, but nine percent of both charismatic and non-charismatic Protestant churches are currently led by a female senior pastor.
• It is assumed faith trends in America are dictated by white churches, which represent about 77 percent of the nation’s Protestant congregations. However, only 16 percent of the country’s white Protestant congregations are Pentecostal, compared to 65 percent of the Protestant churches dominated by African-Americans.

The compensation of each group’s senior pastors differs some with non-charismatic church pastors receiving an average total compensation package ($47,000) annually greater than charismatic pastors ($42,000).

With regard to education, a large majority of the senior pastors of non-charismatic churches (70%) have graduated from a seminary, while not quite half of the charismatic pastors (49%) have a seminary degree.

Newsletter Link

Parents, Oh how much ought you to be continually devising for the good of your children! Often devise how to make them “wise children”; how to give them a desirable education, an education that may render them desirable; how to render them lovely and polite, and serviceable in their generation. Often devise how to enrich their minds with valuable knowledge; how to instill generous, gracious, and heavenly principles into their minds; how to restrain and rescue them from the paths of the destroyer, and fortify them against their peculiar temptations. There is a world of good that you have to do for them. You are without the natural feelings of humanity if you are not in a continual agony to do for them all the good that ever you can. It was no mistake of an ancient writer to say, “Nature teaches us to love our children as ourselves.”

Resolved —

At the birth of my children, I will resolve to do all I can that they may be the Lord’s. I will now actually give them up by faith to God; entreating that each child may be a child of God the Father, a subject of God the Son, a temple of God the Spirit-and be rescued from the condition of a child of wrath, and be possessed and employed by the Lord as an everlasting instrument of His glory. (See Newsletter Link)

REAGAN WIT AND WISDOM

Now that we’re in the thick of the political campaign season, it might be a timely moment to recall some of the insights of our 40th president, Ronald Reagan:

“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

“I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.”

“The taxpayer: That’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.”

“Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

“The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.”

“I’ve laid down the law, though, to everyone from now on about anything that happens: no matter what time it is, wake me, even if it’s in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.”

“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.”

“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving subsidize it.”

“Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.”

“No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.”

“If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

Tags: politico election cartoon

The Heresy that Wouldn’t Die – Christian History

The Heresy that Wouldn’t Die
Though Gnostic sects faded in the early church, Gnostic ideas have had a long shelf life.
by Philip Jenkins
from Issue 96: The Gnostics Hunger for Secret Knowledge

This world is not my home. As it stands, that statement reflects the views of a great many orthodox Christians, but a Gnostic would take it much further. From a Gnostic perspective, the material world is not just fallen but an utterly flawed creation, beyond redemption. God—or at least, the good, true God—certainly does not work in history. Escape is only available to the small minority who know, who recognize the need for liberation, which lies within. Wisdom, Sophia, is for the spiritual, the elite, and distinguishes them from the gullible herd of humans mired in the material, the victims of cosmic deception. They will remain asleep, while the true Gnostic is awakened.

Gnosticism has never gone away, however much some modern scholars lament the suppression of its hidden gospels in the late Roman Empire. The main themes survived, for instance, in the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah, which explains how the world was created through the fracturing of the vessels into which the divine goodness was poured. In addition to seeking their own mystic ascent to God, believers also pledge themselves to achieving tikkun olam, the restoration of the broken world.

Within Christendom too, the fact that Christian states officially suppressed heresy just drove these ideas beyond the frontiers, into regions like Mesopotamia and Armenia. Gnostic and dualist ideas thrived across large parts of Asia in movements like the Paulicians and the Manichaeans, who taught the children of light how to liberate themselves from the evil god of this world.

Occasionally, these ideas were reimported into Europe, most famously in the Cathar or Albigensian movement, which was suppressed by a near-genocidal crusade in 13th-century France. The Cathars followed the old Gnostic ideas faithfully, offering full salvation to the “perfect” who absolutely renounced the world. These old-new movements relied chiefly on the Christian gospels, interpreting the parables in their own distinctive way. Like the early Gnostics, though, they also wrote their own scriptures, such as the Book of John the Evangelist. (“Then did the Contriver of Evil devise in his mind to make Paradise, and he brought the man and woman into it.”)

Living in a Christian-ruled society, later Gnostics defined themselves against the church and its doctrines, which provided a foil for the truly spiritual. The Cathars rejected the Roman Catholic Church as, literally, the synagogue of Satan. Catholics followed the deluded God who had created the abomination of the world in which we live and whose bloody misdeeds are chronicled in the Old Testament. Ordinary Catholic believers were the sheep, in the sense of being docile, ignorant, and uncomprehending.

The Daily Download: Windows Starter Kit | Tips, news, and opinions from Download.com editors

Windows Starter Kit

Posted by Seth Rosenblatt

So whichever gift-giving deity you believe in has smiled on you this season and you’re the recipient of a brand-new machine. Or maybe the computer gods have decided that December was the time for your PC to join that great server farm in the sky.

Either way, you’re in need of some new programs. Free programs. You’re in luck: CNET Download.com has compiled a brand-new Windows Starter Kit, complete with all that your freeware-coveting heart could ever desire. This year we bring you a Web Browser, an E-mail Client, Office and Productivity tools, Image Editors, Music and Video Jukeboxes, File Compression, a PDF Reader, Chatware, a Torrent Client, and seven must-have Utilities. And you don’t even have to stress about whether that shiny wrapping paper is recyclable.

Where’s the antivirus apps? If you’re looking for programs to make your PC more secure, check out our overhauled-for-2008 Security Starter Kit.

Very sobering look at a reality of our times.

Baptist Press – Evangelists reflect on culture, integrity – News with a Christian Perspective

Evangelists reflect on culture, integrity

Posted on Jan 11, 2008 | by Michael Chute

JACKSON, Tenn. (BP)–Cultural issues facing the church, as well as lack of integrity by some evangelists, are undermining the effectiveness of Southern Baptist evangelists, participants in a Jan. 7-8 evangelism summit in Jackson, Tenn., said.

Jerry Drace of Humboldt, Tenn., called together 15 prominent Southern Baptist evangelists, representing more than 450 years of ministry, to take stock of the challenges they face and address possible solutions to diminishing opportunities among the Southern Baptist Convention’s 44,000-plus churches.

An opening question for the summit considered whether the days of mass evangelism are over in Southern Baptist life.

“The public proclamation of the Gospel always works,” said Hal Poe, Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University in Jackson. “For 2,000 years, in every time, place and culture, the public proclamation of the Gospel works. From Peter in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, to Francis of Assisi gathering a crowd in the plazas of Italy as he preached to the birds, to the Puritans ‘lecturing’ in the town halls, to [John] Wesley and [George] Whitefield preaching in the fields and coal yards, to the Methodist circuit riders at camp meetings, to D.L. Moody preaching in great urban settings, to Billy Graham preaching in stadiums, the public proclamation of the Gospel always works, because ‘the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to those that believe.’”

I am uncertain about some of this article, but a lot of is is just gold.

Contemplating Cool – 9Marks

Contemplating Cool
By Mike McKinley

Show me a grown man with a goatee and I’ll show you a major league baseball player. Show me a grown man with a goatee wearing sandals and I’ll show you a youth pastor.

When I was a kid, I remember that the youth pastor at our church was totally different than any other pastor I’d ever seen. He quoted rock bands and wore blue jeans to church. He was cool in a way that the other adults in my life were not. I was proud to invite my friends to church and see their negative stereotypes of Christians get blown up. The youth group thrived and “unchurched” kids were reached. The one thing that distinguished our group from others was that our pastor was cool.

As the youth pastors and youth of the 1990s become the head pastors and congregants of the 2000s, it seems like the phenomenon has only grown. It is now an unexamined assumption in many quarters: the best way to reach people is to be like them. In order to reach our culture, we must embody what the culture defines as acceptable and valuable. We must be as “cool” as we can possibly be while still retaining the gospel. That way, people will see us and not be turned off by us. Maybe they’ll even want to be us.

This shows up in both the private lives of pastors (you missional guys, I’m talking about you and your emo eyeglasses) and in the church’s corporate worship, where we seek to remove everything that might seem foreign to the unchurched visitor.

In some ways, I think being connected to the culture around us is helpful. But there are ways in which a commitment to being cool can ultimately conflict with the call of a pastor. As the resident cool guy on the 9Marks docket (which is roughly like being the ladies’ man at a Star Trek convention—damning with faint praise), here are a few thoughts:

Who are the influential leaders in American Christianity?

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2007/004/7.42.html — The Zoloft Dispensation

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001629.cfm -  How Should We Then Work?

Resisting Unhealthy Adoration from Those We Lead

http://preachingtoday.com/16666 – The Danger of Practical Preaching: Why people need more than the bottom line.

 Confessions of a Megachurch Pastor: Extended 

What Evangelism Isn’t

LESSONS FROM THE RICHEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED

Tags: america pastor christianity revival

SonnyRadio.com ::

Just bad, but funny

Leaders Teamed Up on Parton Deal
Leaders Teamed Up on Parton Deal
Top state leaders instrumental in moving project forward, records show

By Don Carrington

January 15, 2008

RALEIGH — State Senate leader Marc Basnight, House Speaker Jim Black, and DOT Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett helped state economic developer Rick Watson launch the Randy Parton Theatre in Roanoke Rapids, according to documents obtained by Carolina Journal.

Basnight and Black were instrumental in moving the project forward, while Gov. Mike Easley’s transportation secretary, Tippett, approved special funds for the project.

Watson was the president and CEO of the state-funded Northeast Commission, a regional economic development organization. Records show he began working on a theater concept as early as August 2004.

A Dec. 16, 2004 letter from commission attorney Ernest Pearson to Watson revealed the plan to secure support from key leaders. “Attached is a draft of a letter which can be used to evidence the commitment of senior legislative and executive branch officials to support the Parton entertainment project,” Pearson wrote.

Pearson had used this tactic before. “This is very similar to letters like I have used for previous projects that need some level of support to be shown as to a future legislative action,” he wrote. “I think it goes about as far as we can. They obviously cannot commit to what the 170 members of the legislature will do in the future. To imply otherwise, would likely not be credible to anyone and I do not think any legislative leader would sign it if we implied that they could control a future legislative action. On the other hand, everyone should know that if the officials who are indicated sign this letter, it would be highly likely that the requested assistance would be approved.”

Christian Leaders Apologize to Muslims

On October 13, 2006, 38 leading Islamic scholars, clerics and intellectuals sent an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI in response to his lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany in September of 2006 in which he addressed such topics as Holy War, forced conversion and the need for dialogue and respect between Christians and Muslims.

One year later to the day, on October 13, 2007, another open letter, this time penned by 138 major Muslim leaders, was sent, not just to the Pope, but to any and all Christian leaders around the world. The letter entitled, A Common Word Between Us and You, presents a long and detailed treatise on the common ground between Christians and Muslims, mainly as it relates to the importance of loving the one true God and loving your neighbor.

In response, a group of scholars at Yale Divinity School’s Center for Faith and Culture drafted the document, Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to a Common Word Between Us and You. The letter was then forwarded to Christian leaders and theologians around the world, encouraging them to endorse and sign the statement. The letter, which affirms the importance of loving God and loving your neighbor, as well as the need for dialogue and living in peace, has so far been signed by over 300 Christian leaders, including some prominent names:

• Leith Anderson (president) and Richard Cizik (vice president) of the National Association of Evangelicals.
• Richard Mouw (president), C. Douglas McConnell (dean) and numerous professors from Fuller Theological Seminary.
• Doug Pennoyer (dean) and Leonard Bartlotti (associate professor) of Biola University.
• David Yonggi Cho, senior pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea.
• Lynn Green, international chairman, Youth With a Mission.
• Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church.
• Stanton L. Jones (provost and professor) and Stephen B. Kellough (chaplain) of Wheaton College.
• Roy Oksnevad, director of Muslim ministry at the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton.
• Robert Schuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral.
• John Stott, rector emeritus at All Souls Church, London.
• Rick Warren, founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church.

While much of the content of both documents is positive, many Evangelicals are very concerned about certain aspects of the letter penned by the Yale scholars. For example, it seems to acknowledge Allah as the God of the Bible. A paragraph in the preamble states, “Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility. Since Jesus Christ says, ‘First take the log out your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye’ (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that, in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the ‘war on terror’), many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors. Before we ’shake your hand’ in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.”

Islam expert Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo has called it a “betrayal” and a “sellout,” and has called for Christian leaders who signed the letter to withdraw their names. He explains that the confession of guilt puts Christian communities in Muslim areas of the world at risk.

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the agreement “sends the wrong signal” and contains basic theological problems, especially in “marginalizing” Jesus Christ and offering an apology for the Crusades. “I just have to wonder how intellectually honest this is,” said Mohler. “Are these people suggesting that they wish the military conflict with Islam had ended differently — that Islam had conquered Europe?”

Some are concerned about “hidden” meanings in the document. A CitizenLink report notes that the very name of the Muslim communiqué — “A Common Word Between Us and You” — is from a verse in the Quran that condemns “people of the Scripture” (Christians) for alleged polytheism (the doctrine of the Trinity).

In a letter responding to criticism he received for signing the statement, Leith Anderson wrote, “Sometimes we all sign onto things that are not all that we would like them to be. … I sought the counsel of other evangelical leaders [who] told me that signing the statement would be especially helpful to Christians who live and minister in Muslim-majority countries and cultures. In fact, some suggested that not signing could be damaging to these Christian brothers and sisters who live among Muslims.”

The full text of the letter from the 138 Muslim leaders and the response which has been signed by over 300 Christian leaders can be found at http://www.yale.edu/faith/abou-commonword.htm. The statement by Leith Anderson explaining why he signed the document can also be found there.

A Church-Based Hope for “Adultolescents”

A Church-Based Hope for “Adultolescents”

By John Piper November 13, 2007

Christian Smith, professor of sociology at Notre Dame, wrote in the most recent Books and Culture a review of six books that deal with the new phenomenon of “adultolescence”—that is, the postponement of adulthood into the thirties. I want to relate this phenomenon to the church. But first here is a summary from Smith’s article of what it is and how it came about.

Tags: Adultolescents Piper

As always, a thought provoking article from MacDonald. Good reading for the new year on the whole.

I would suggest the Pursuit of God to help with this quest.

Take Time to Be What? – LeadershipJournal.net

Take Time to Be What?
A classic hymn shows why holiness is scarce these days.
by Gordon MacDonald

In the early 1880s, William D. Longstaff wrote a poem that later became a hymn called “Take Time to Be Holy.” In my branch of church tradition, we often sang this hymn. As a kid I considered it uninspiring (sorry, Mr. Longstaff), and I groaned whenever the song leader announced it. Today, decades later, I have taken a fresh look at the song and reconsidered my earlier appraisal. There’s substance here.

Take time to be holy,
Speak oft with thy Lord,
Abide in him always,
And feed on his word.
Make friends of God’s children;
Help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing his blessing to seek.

There are three more verses to Longstaff’s hymn, and the second verse is also worth quoting:

Take time to be holy,
The world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret
With Jesus alone;
By looking to Jesus
Like him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct his likeness shall see.

Digging through some old sites and came across this one. I marked it, but never returned. Good articles here like this one. It bears more exploring.

How I Escaped from Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck ∞ Get Rich Slowly

Monday, 2nd July 2007 (by J.D.)
This article is about Money Hacks, Basics, Budgeting

If you’re new here, you may want to learn what this site is about.

I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Many of you wrote last week to say that I was too harsh on my friend Gillian, the woman with the “I can’t” attitude. Perhaps you’re right — I may have given up too early. I used to live like she does, and if I can turn it around, anyone can.

For a decade I was a deficit spender. I spent more than I earned. I used credit cards to fund a lifestyle that was beyond my means. Eventually I wised up — I destroyed my credit cards and cancelled my accounts, but my worries weren’t over yet. I wasn’t digging any deeper, but I was still stuck at the bottom of a hole: I was living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Twice a month I would deposit my paycheck, pay my bills, and then look to see how much was left. Whether the surplus was $20 or $200, I made plans for it: comic books, video games, clothes, whatever. I used to joke that I was an expert at spending every penny I had. Except that it was no joke. Late at night, when I couldn’t sleep, I would wonder why I could never get ahead.