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Poll: Religious Devotion
High in U.S.
By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer
Mon Jun 6, 7:33 AM ET
By
WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 6,
1:56 PM ET
WASHINGTON -
Americans are far more likely to consider
religion central to their lives and to
support giving clergy a say in public policy
than people in nine countries that are close
allies, according to an AP-Ipsos poll. Yet,
the U.S. embrace of faith has its limits.
Religion and public policy often mix in the
United States. Recent examples include the
bitter fight over the appointment of judges
and the fate of Terry Schiavo, the
brain-damaged woman whose feeding tube was
removed despite efforts by the GOP-led
Congress.
When politicians in this country try to
blend religion and politics, they find a
comparatively receptive climate.
Nearly all U.S. respondents said faith was
important to them and only 2 percent said
they did not believe in God, according to
the polling conducted for the AP by Ipsos.
Almost 40 percent in this country said
religious leaders should try to sway
policymakers, notably higher than in other
countries.
"Our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian
policies and religious leaders have an
obligation to speak out on public policy,
otherwise they're wimps,"
said David Black, a retiree from Osborne,
Pa., who agreed to be interviewed after he
was polled.
Still, 61 percent said they didn't think
religious leaders should influence
government decisions...Read
More
Poll results are
also available at:
http://wid.ap.org/polls/050606religion.html
The Church of the
Latter-Day Leftists
By Jacob Laksin
January 13, 2005
No sooner was
George W. Bush declared the winner of a
hard-fought presidential election than
National Council of Churches General
Secretary, Rev. Robert Edgar, proffered the
following counsel: "This election confirmed
that we are a divided nation, not only
politically but in terms of our
interpretations of God's will."
That Edgar's
message was reminiscent of a concession
speech was no coincidence. After all, had
God's will been more congenial to the
famously left-wing NCC, John Kerry would be
president of the United States. Yet Edgar
declined to own up to the NCC's sectarian
role in the nation's political divide.
Animated by a religious ardor that takes its
cues as much from left-wing dogma as any
higher power, the NCC today finds itself
jarringly at odds not only with most
religious voters, who overwhelmingly voted
Republican, but also with the mainstream of
American political culture. To understand
this reality, one need only consider the
NCC's history.
Founded in 1950, the New York City-based NCC
has, for more than half a century, remained
faithful to the legacy of its forerunner,
the Communist front-group known as the
Federal Council of Churches. At one time an
unabashed apostle of the Communist cause,
the NCC has today recast itself as a leading
representative of the so-called religious
Left. Adhering to what it has described as
"liberation theology"-that is, Marxist
ideology disguised as Christianity-the NCC
lays claim to a membership of 36 Protestant,
Anglican and Orthodox Christian
denominations, and some 50 million members
in over 140,000 congregations...Read
More
Why are Christians losing America?
Posted: August 9, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
C 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold
or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spue
thee out of my mouth."
- Revelation 3:15-16 KJV Most Americans call themselves Christians.
Twice they chose as their supreme leader Bill Clinton - a sexual predator and
pathological liar who regarded the "religious right" as enemies and radical
homosexuals as friends, and who by any meaningful and historical measure was a
traitor.
After that, millions of Christians came within a hair's breadth of electing
Clinton's partner in crime, Al Gore - another pathological liar, a radical
environmentalist who reveres "Gaia" but believes the internal-combustion engine
should be outlawed (according to his book, "Earth in the Balance").
Christians have stood on the sidelines during the breathtaking transformation of
their once-great Judeo-Christian culture into today's neo-pagan,
Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style freak show.
Christians have lost the 30-year war to protect the unborn.
Christians have lost the war for America's schools - which have been scrubbed
antiseptically clean of the Christian principles and traditions that once guided
those institutions, and are now filled instead with every conceivable form of
propaganda and perversion.
Christians have lost their former influence in politics, in the press, in
entertainment, in literature - in virtually every major area of life.
And now, Christians are losing the war for their very own institutions - their
churches. The clergy sex scandal is the tip of the iceberg. Both the Catholic
Church and most of the major Protestant denominations are literally being ripped
apart - from within - by double agents who pretend to be "faithful" but actually
loathe Christianity's historical precepts and values.
It's a harsh indictment - but hey, the truth hurts...Read
More
GRAHAM& POPE SILENCED? NOT.
GRAHAM & POPE STILL SPEAK The Conservative Voice
- USA
Opinion : GRAHAM & POPE SILENCED? NOT. GRAHAM &
POPE STILL SPEAK
Posted by Senior Editor, J. Grant Swank, Jr.
Evangelist Billy Graham is now in his 80s,
not able to speak from his TV pulpit as he
did years ago. Yet he still conducts
crusades, though showing the debilitating
intrusions of age and illness.
Pope John Paul II is now 86 years old, not
able to speak due to a tracheotomy. Yet he
still appears in public, though showing the
debilitating intrusions of age and illness.
These two men have been the moral compasses
for untold millions of believers worldwide
over decades. Now they are both following
the course of all mortals - growing older,
nearing the time of meeting Judge Christ at
the Judgment Seat...
The Anglicans / Episcopalians are out to
sea. They are grappling. They are clawing at
one another, though in their own supposedly
sophisticated style of nicey-nicey
sweetness, which at times can be especially
repulsive to those of us who are into bold
biblical truths...
When it comes to the United Church of Christ
(Congregational), it's the same. Nothing but
endorsements for sin.
When it comes to the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of America ("Evangelical"
in that title now being nothing more than a
lie), it's the same.
When it comes to the United Methodist
Church, it's waffling as a divided
Protestant denomination still licking its
wounds from its annual conclave when the
homosexual support almost won the day for
evil. In the meantime, we wait for the
United Methodist Church. Will it return to
its holiness roots or will intruders take
over for hell?
The same can be said for the United
Presbyterian Church? It's battling over that
same damnable issue...
So where are the Grahams and Popes within
the Anglican Communion, the United Church of
Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of
America, the United Methodist Church, and
the United Presbyterian Church? They have
slid under the pews if they've lived at all
anywhere within those confines.
It's sad...Read
More
By Jeannette
Batz
Cooperman, AlterNet
Posted on October 28, 2004, Printed on March
31, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/20328/
The exuberant team, the evangelical
Christians, is growing so fast, and in such
determinedly political ways, that they've
tipped the country Republican. They're also
boosting traditionalist attitudes toward
religion within the party.
And the big loser, the team whose members
are walking off the field? Mainline
Protestantism, the calm, reasoned faith that
shaped this country from its colonial
beginnings through the 1960s. Its liberal
clergy pushed hard for social reforms,
economic equality and civil rights. Its
members, who used to be the northeastern
sort of Republicans, are increasingly
Democratic, more comfortable with John
Kerry's style than George Bush's.
But the mainliners are quiet – and their
numbers are diminishing so fast, they're not
sure they'd be heard if they screamed.
The Vanishing Protestant Majority, a
recent University of Chicago study, reports
that the overall percentage of Protestants
in the U.S. may have already fallen below 50
percent. The total started to slide
noticeably in 1993; and by 2002, it had
fallen 11 percentage points, to 52 percent.
"The change," said Tom W. Smith, director of
the General Social Survey whose data fed the
study, "is big in magnitude and rapid in
terms of demographics. The country is moving
toward becoming a nation of minorities."
Read More
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