Church Attendance in Decline
Over the past few years, I’ve spent profitable time reading theological books, each one, dealing with the decline of membership in their denomination: Methodist, Congregational. Lutheran and so on. One sample reveals the year after year descent. In 1925, the United Church of Canada was formed and its membership was 609,729. For the next 40 years, the United Church grew and grew until the membership struck its highest in 1965 at one million, sixty two thousand and six: 1,062,006. (click on the blog's bold title to read the whole. )
Are these Baptists colleagues of ours?
It’s now many years since I began receiving religious and theological articles from an email publication called simply Religion News Service. It’s very professional, arrives daily and in general it’s objective and certainly is not doing PR any more than The New York Times is. Nonetheless I was recently surprised that Southern Baptists have a senior executive, Paige Patterson, who is facing serious career problem....(click on the blog's bold title to read the whole.)
The Future of Faith
Now to the subject which I’ve been pondering in recent years – -the steady steep decline in the membership and influence of the Christian Church. To me, and many other Christians, the major reason is the ever widening and ever deepening secularism of society, which is to say, worldly. (click on the blog's bold title to read the whole.)
The Matter in the Middle East.
“Peace,” Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu once said, “is purchased from strength, not weakness.” Obviously that’s the foundation of his current attitude. It’s a real challenge. (Click on the blog's bold title to read the whole.)
The Doctors and the Discipline
ccording to a saucy story, a cynical American was visiting friends when the conversation turned to the difference in medical treatment between the US and Britain. The US man grunted that in his country “a physician is a person who kills illness with pills, then kills the patient with bills.” (I’m glad I’ve never been ill in the United States.) A couple of days ago, after I opened our daily paper, The Toronto Star, I almost lost my breath. Why? Because page after page claimed incompetence or indifference by a great many of our physicians. (click on the blog's bold title to read the whole.)
Recalling a Fine American
I doubt there’s been a finer man in the 20th century American Presidency than Jimmy Carter. His life is mostly great character, the sort of man Henry Miller had in mind when he defined the finest leader: “The great leader has no need to lead – he is content to point the way.” (Click on the blog's bold title to read the whole.)