Podcasts about pew forum

Do you believe in past lives? If so, you're not alone. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a quarter of Americans believe in reincarnation. In this episode, Jolenta and Kristen attempt to find out what the 25% might know, by following Sylvia Browne's bestseller, "Past Lives, Future Healing."Keep in touch with us! Email us at kristenandjolenta@gmail.com, or follow us on Instagram @howtobefinepod. And if you haven't already, please join our How to Be Fine (formerly By the Book) Facebook community! https://www.facebook.com/groups/kristenandjolenta

This Day in Legal History: Pledge of AllegianceOn December 28, 1945, a significant moment in American educational and legal history occurred when Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance, urging its recitation in schools nationwide. The Pledge, originally composed in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, was intended to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus Day. It underwent a critical change in 1954 when Congress added the words "under God," reflecting the era's heightened religious sentiment during the Cold War. This inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge later sparked legal challenges, notably involving Michael Newdow, who contested his daughter's school district's policy of daily Pledge recitation. Newdow argued that this practice infringed upon the separation of church and state. His case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which, in a pivotal decision, ruled that Newdow lacked standing, thereby not addressing the constitutional issue he raised.The legal journey of the Pledge of Allegiance illustrates the dynamic relationship between national identity, religion, and education in the United States. Over the years, the Pledge has been both a symbol of unity and a point of contention, reflecting the nation's evolving perspectives on patriotism and religious expression. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, among other institutions, has provided extensive resources and insights into the ongoing debates surrounding the Pledge.The recognition of the Pledge by Congress in 1945 marked a formal endorsement of a practice that had already taken root in many schools. It solidified the Pledge's role in American culture, embedding it into the daily lives of millions of students. This action by Congress highlighted the importance of patriotic rituals in fostering a sense of national unity, especially in the aftermath of World War II.Today, the Pledge remains a staple in many educational institutions, symbolizing allegiance to the nation while also serving as a reminder of the ongoing discussions about the role of religion in public life and the meaning of patriotism in a diverse society.Apple Inc. is engaged in a complex legal and technical battle following a U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling that some of its Apple Watch models infringed patents held by Masimo Corp., a medical-device maker. The ban initially led to a halt in U.S. sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2, but Apple won a temporary reprieve from a federal appeals court, allowing the sales of these models to resume.Apple's multifaceted strategy to counter the ban includes appealing the ITC decision, developing software modifications to avoid patent infringement, and submitting these changes to U.S. customs for approval. The company hopes this approach will enable it to continue selling non-infringing versions of the devices. The Federal Circuit has given the ITC until January 10 to respond to Apple's request for a stay of the ban for the duration of the appeal process.Despite the current pause in enforcement of the ITC's decision, the import ban stands. The outcome of the upcoming Customs tribunal will be crucial, as a favorable decision would reinforce the ITC's original ruling and could impact the ongoing appeal. Apple's legal efforts are accompanied by attempts to find technical workarounds, such as software updates that might modify or disable the contested pulse-oximetry feature.This situation is unusual, as large companies like Apple typically settle such disputes rather than endure prolonged legal battles and sales disruptions. The company's assertive approach may indicate a strategic decision to demonstrate its unwillingness to settle in patent disputes. Apple is also pursuing legal action against Masimo in Delaware district court, alleging infringement by Masimo's W1 watch.The appeals court's pause is expected to last around three weeks, coinciding with Customs' decision on the redesigned products. If Apple does not receive a favorable ruling from Customs, it has the option to appeal to the US Court of International Trade and potentially further to the Federal Circuit. This protracted legal battle illustrates the intricate interplay between patent law, technological innovation, and corporate strategy.Apple's ‘Unusual' Watch Fight Continues After Pause on BanIn 2023, New York's legal scene, often a trendsetter for the U.S. legal industry, experienced significant changes and challenges, raising questions for the year ahead. Two of New York's oldest law firms, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan and Shearman & Sterling, faced major transitions. Stroock is dissolving, while Shearman plans a merger with Allen & Overy, indicating a shift in the legal landscape.These developments reflect broader industry headwinds such as intense competition for talent, inconsistent client demand, and a slowdown in the global mergers-and-acquisitions market. Consolidation became a notable trend, with numerous law firm mergers throughout 2023, including high-profile combinations like Maynard Cooper & Gale with Nexsen Pruet, and Holland & Knight with Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis. A total of 41 law firm combinations were completed in the first three quarters of 2023, compared to 37 in the same period in 2022.In response to a slower growth environment and cost pressures, small and regional law firms are expected to pursue more mergers and acquisitions in 2024. Meanwhile, the end of 2023 saw major law firms, starting with New York's Milbank, raising associate salaries, with first-year associates now starting at $225,000. These salary hikes have raised concerns about whether less profitable firms can keep pace.Another significant shift is occurring in the structure of law firm partnerships. The traditional single-tier partnership model, where all partners share ownership, is dwindling. Firms like Cravath and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison are reportedly adding or considering salaried partner tiers. However, some firms, like Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, are holding onto the single-tier partnership model for now.These changes mark a transformative period for New York's legal firms, reshaping how they operate, compete, and adapt in a rapidly evolving industry.New York legal scene faces tests after tumultuous 2023 | ReutersIn 2023, lawsuits against major chemical companies for polluting U.S. drinking water with PFAS, or "forever chemicals," resulted in over $11 billion in settlements. These chemicals, used in numerous consumer and commercial products, are known for their persistence in the environment and human body. With new federal regulations and growing awareness, 2024 is expected to see an increase in litigation and settlements related to PFAS contamination.Companies like 3M, Chemours, Corteva, and DuPont de Nemours have faced thousands of lawsuits, many consolidated in multidistrict litigation (MDL) in South Carolina. These include claims by water utilities for cleanup costs and personal injury claims linked to health issues caused by PFAS exposure. A significant settlement was reached in June, with 3M and water utilities agreeing to a $10.3 billion settlement, followed by another involving DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva for $1.19 billion.U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel, overseeing the MDL, has warned that these lawsuits could pose an existential threat to companies facing PFAS claims. The litigation's potential liabilities could lead defendants to settle to avoid large verdicts or seek bankruptcy protection, as seen in the case of Carrier Global subsidiary Kidde-Fenwal Inc in May.In 2024, legal experts anticipate more PFAS-related lawsuits, including those against consumer brands and more personal injury claims. At least one trial is scheduled in August in the MDL, focusing on firefighting foam manufacturers. Additionally, the process for selecting bellwether trials for personal injury cases is underway, with trials expected for various PFAS-related health issues.Outside of South Carolina, other trials are anticipated, including one involving North Carolina residents and another by Maine homeowners against a local paper mill. More settlements between chemical firms and state attorneys general are also expected, following the trend set by New Jersey and Ohio in 2023.The number of consumer class action lawsuits against companies producing PFAS-containing products like clothing, dental floss, and food wrappers is also on the rise. With the EPA moving forward with regulations that could set enforceable limits for PFAS in drinking water and potentially designate some as hazardous under the U.S. Superfund law, a surge in litigation is likely to continue into 2024 and beyond.‘Forever chemicals' were everywhere in 2023. Expect more litigation in 2024 | ReutersThe U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against Grand Canyon University for engaging in deceptive advertising, illegal telemarketing practices, and misrepresenting itself as a nonprofit organization. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, targets Grand Canyon Education Inc (GCE), its CEO, and the university.The FTC's complaint alleges that the university misled prospective doctoral students regarding the cost and course requirements of its doctoral programs. It also accuses the university of deceptive and abusive telemarketing practices. The FTC contends that despite claims of being a nonprofit, Grand Canyon University operates for the profit of GCE and its stockholders, with GCE receiving 60% of the university's revenue.The Arizona-based university has denied these allegations, calling them unsubstantiated, and expressed confusion over the federal government's decision to target a Christian university positively addressing issues in higher education.This lawsuit follows a significant $37.7 million fine imposed on the university by the U.S. Education Department for misrepresenting the costs of its doctoral programs. According to the Education Department, fewer than 2% of the school's doctoral program graduates completed their program within the advertised cost, and almost 78% of these students took five or more continuation courses. The university has stated its intention to refute the allegations vigorously.US FTC sues Grand Canyon University for deceptive advertising, illegal telemarketing | Reuters Get full access to Minimum Competence - Daily Legal News Podcast at www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

In 2012, the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life released a report detailing the rise of the 'Nones.' The Nones are a growing number of Americans who identify with no particular religion. The data says that as America grows younger, America grows less religious. Yet in 2015, Brianne Shaw and her husband, Josh, were undaunted by those statistics. She launched Lighthouse Church in one of the most secular cities in the country: Denver.Since that time, Lighthouse Church outgrew a home, a warehouse, and a high school. Now they are a fast growing church in south Denver, a place where church attendance has declined or stagnated in recent years. Brianne studied Christian Ministry and Psychology at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas, which catapulted her into a journey of nearly 10 years serving in various ministry settings. In addition to co-planting Lighthouse Church, she currently serves as the pastor of assimilation for young adults and serves on the church's board of elders. She has a passion to see young adults fall in love with Jesus and is dedicated to empowering them and the local church to engage with one another in a way that can transform the world. 

We only see the upper 5' of the iceberg that is homelessness. Down beneath the surface is a massive soul-deadening, cold, indifferent, objectifying culture. That culture teaches us to treat the homeless like incurable objects while politicians use homelessness to score points on their largesse. What should a Christian response be? How does a Christian metaphysic view the problem? How does the book of Lamentations help frame the problem? I also note a recent Pew Forum examination of Christianity in the USA.

E28 – Sex in the Church vs Sex in the Church Announcements Show Announcements: Brad and Corrie Update Work EXPLODING again Battling through other things Next Show E29 - Corrie and Her First Lady Experience   In The News Doc Jody disengaged from the Show 2nd time in our relationship he has rejected me for not agreeing with him Liberals, just like solid conservatives, are the most judgmental, meanest people I know   Listener Questions/Comments JD from Only Fans Either way im disappointed, I saw the videos of u eating pussy and vice versa and it broke my heart. I thought u were straight. See i only support and give my money to straight queens, and “bi friendly” doesnt like a straight queen to me, sounds to me like ur a mentally ill faggot ?? U can snitch all u want, as long u realize that i fucking hate ur nasty faggot ass, dirty ass bitHow embarrassing Faggot ass bitch i feel sorry 4 u ????????????Never send this disgusting shit again JD And whoever that other bitch is tell her shes a mentally ill faggot too Imagine being attracted to ur own gender??? how embarrassing. Mentally ill faggot ?   The Show Christians and Sex Information Statistics Adultery in vs outside of the church[i] 65% of men and 40% of women have affair by age 40 23% of pastors surveyed Statistics inside church same as outside. Ashley Madison Results[ii] In fact, a quarter of the survey participants self-identify as evangelical, making it the most common faith among the unfaithful. Many of the would-be cheaters on the site are also Protestant (about 23%) or Catholic (about 23%). The study also found that 24% of the men and 32% of the women who use Ashley Madison say they pray regularly. As for Commandment number seven, only 18% of male and 11% of female participants said they consider cheating to be a sin. According to the Pew Forum, about 26% of adults are affiliated with an evangelical church, while almost 24% consider themselves Catholic. Less than 5% identify as non-Christian, which lines up with the low percentage of Jewish, Muslim and Hindu users in the survey. Ashley Madison founder Noel Biderman told the Daily News that he expected the results to stray further from the norm, but now religion can be "crossed off the list" of factors that may drive infidelity. "You can go and pray every Sunday, or Saturday, or three times a day, and it may not make a difference in how monogamous you are," he said. The survey broke down the religious preferences of more than 63,000 affair-seeking individuals in the U.S. About 57% of the respondents were male. The average age among the men surveyed was 39, while the average age of the women was 34. Participants were asked to select their religion from a list. Here are the top 10 responses: Evangelical 25.1% Catholic 22.75% Protestant 22.7% Agnostic 2% Mormon 1.6% Muslim 1.5% Jewish 1.4% Atheist 1.4% Jehovah's Witness .5% Hindu .3% [iii] Sex in the Church  - Winston 'Bello' Bell By Tony Robinson The Jamaica Observer August 20, 2006 sex in the church is a reality. Pastor power is real, church sister sex is surreal, deacons are daring, adults do adultery, and the flock do fornicate. More time. It's like this young girl who gave in to this parson then confessed to him saying, "Oh father forgive me but I have sinned twice," to which he queried, "Twice? But we only did it once." She retorted, "But aren't we going to do it again father?" In the News Catholic Church Oct 2021 Report[iv] French Clergy Reported 216,000 child sexual abuse scandals 1950-2020 Australia 4,444 child sex abuse between 1950-2010 As high as 15% of priests involved German 3,677 children between 1975-2018 Over 1670 Clergy Persons involved United States 11,000 children Hundreds of millions paid out in court settlements 300 Predator Priests Ireland 15,000 children from 1970-1990 Total 250,121 Reported Child Sexual Abuse Hillsong Church[v] Carl Lentz Covering up Child Sexual Abuse Preached Sexual Purity No kissing in 1st year No sex until marriage yet, known within the church to be a womanizer 5 month long affair with Ranin Karim 10 Sex Scandals that Rocked the Christain Church [vi] John Paulk, 2000 John Paulk, former leader of the Love Won Out conference, was also author of the autobiography “Not Afraid to Change,” his story about being delivered from homosexuality. However, in September 2000, Paulk was photographed in a Washington, D.C. gay bar flirting with male patrons. Paulk initially denied the claims, but later confessed to being in the bar, adding that he did not enter the bar for sexual pursuits. Douglas Goodman, 2004 Evangelist Douglas Goodman and his wife Erica were pastors of Victory Christian Centre, one of the largest churches in London, England, with a very popular televised ministry. After sexually assaulting four female churchgoers, Douglas Goodman was sentenced and jailed for three and a half years. VCC was closed, but after his release from prison Goodman joined his wife Erica in pastoral ministry at her newly established Victory to Victory church. Ted Haggard, 2006 Ted Haggard was the pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as the president of the National Association of Evangelicals from 2003-2006. In 2006, it was revealed that Haggard had been regularly visiting a male prostitute who also provided him with drugs. Haggard admitted to his solicitation and resigned as pastor of his church and as president of the NAE. In 2009, Haggard admitted to a second relationship with a male church member on CNN-TV. Paul Barnes, 2006 Paul Barnes, in his 28 years as a pastor, founded the Grace Chapel church in Douglas County, Colorado, with a few dozen people in his home basement. With time, the church's membership grew to 2,100 loyal followers. In 2006, Barnes confessed to homosexual activity and resigned. Many believe he was so forthright because of Ted Haggard's scandal, which happened at the same time in the same state. Lonnie Latham, 2006 The Southern Baptist Convention, or the SBC, is an extremely powerful movement not only amongst Southern Baptists but Baptists nationwide. In 2006, Lonnie Latham, member of the SBC Executive Committee and senior pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church, was arrested for allegedly inviting a male undercover Oklahoma City police officer to his hotel room for sex. Latham urged people not to believe it, and was later found not guilty in a one day trial for the misdemeanor. Earl Paulk, 2007 Earl Paulk, sometimes considered the father of the religious sex scandal, has scandals (plural) that stretch over a decade. The late Earl Paulk was the founder and head pastor of Chapel Hill Harvester Church in Decatur, Georgia, from 1960 until the late 90s. During his time as pastor, a number of women from the congregation came forward claiming that they had sexual relations with Paulk, many of which were proven true. However it was the scandal involving Donnie Earl Paulk, the current senior pastor of the church and nephew of Earl Paulk, that was the most shocking of them all in. In 2007, Paulk D.E. Paulk took a court-ordered DNA test which showed that he was Earl's son, not his nephew — sadly proving Earl and his sister-in-law had had a sexual relationship. Earl Paulk, who passed away in 2009, is said to be the longtime mentor of Bishop Eddie Long. Coy Privette, 2007 Coy Privette is one of the famous Baptist ministers in the state of North Carolina, as the longtime head of the N.C. Christian Action League. In 2007, the State Bureau of Investigation and the Kannapolis Police Department charged Coy Privette with six counts of aiding and abetting prostitution. Privette, who was 74 at the time, was the Cabarrus County Commissioner and a former N.C. State Representative. Joe Barron, 2008 Before there was “Dateline: How To Catch A Predator,” there was Joe Barron — one of the 40 ministers presiding over the 26,000 members at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. Barron, a marriage counseling pastor, was caught in the web of an internet crackdown on pedophiles when he was arrested in 2008 for solicitation of a minor. Barron made the drive from the Dallas area to Bryan, Texas, in order to allegedly engage in sexual relations with what he thought to be a 13-year-old girl he met online. The “girl” turned out to be an undercover law enforcement official. At the time of the arrest, police found found condoms, a webcam and headset in Barron's car. Tony Alamo, 2008 In September 2008, FBI agents raided the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries headquarters in a child pornography investigation, after the mayor of Fouke, Arkansas, office had received complaints from former ministry members about allegations of child abuse, sexual abuse and polygamy. In late July 2009, Alamo was convicted on ten counts of transporting young girls and boys across state lines for sexual activities and pornography. On November 13, 2009, he was sentenced to the maximum punishment of 175 years in prison. George Alan Rekers, 2010 George Alan Rekers, a far-right Christian leader was encountered and photographed at Miami International Airport returning from an extended overseas trip with a twenty-year-old gay male prostitute, known as a “rent boy.” Given Rekers' opinion on homosexuals and homosexual behavior, his decision to employ a homosexual escort as a traveling companion, stirred up a scandal. Rekers initially claimed that the escort was there to help carry luggage, but later gave a new explanation for the trip on Facebook, “I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them.” The escort claimed in subsequent interviews, that Rekers had paid him to provide nude massages daily, which included genital touching. 22 Evangelical Christian Scandals[vii] Aimee Semple McPherson, 1920s–40s One of the most famous evangelist scandals involved Canadian-born Aimee Semple McPherson in the 1920s, who allegedly had an extramarital relationship and faked her own death as a cover. She later claimed that she had been kidnapped, but a grand jury could neither prove that a kidnapping occurred, nor that she had faked it. Roberta Semple Salter, her daughter from her first marriage, became estranged from Semple McPherson and successfully sued her mother's attorney for slander during the 1930s. As a result of this she was cut out of her mother's will. Aimee Semple McPherson died in 1944 from an “accidental” overdose of barbiturates. Billy James Hargis, Early 1970s Hargis was a prolific author and radio evangelist. Hargis formed American Christian College in 1971 in order to teach fundamentalist Christian principles. However, a sex scandal erupted at the College, involving claims that Hargis had had sex with male and female students. Hargis was forced out of American Christian College's presidency as a result. Further scandals erupted when members of Hargis' youth choir, the “All American Kids”, accused Hargis of sexual misconduct as well. The college eventually closed down in the mid-1970s. Hargis denied the allegations publicly. Marjoe Gortner, Early 1970s Gortner rose to fame in the late 1940s as a child preacher, but he had simply been trained to do this by his parents and he had no personal faith. He was able to perform “miracles” and received large amounts of money in donations. After suffering a crisis of conscience, he invited a film crew to accompany him on a final preaching tour. The resulting film, Marjoe, mixes footage of revival meetings with Gortner's explanations of how evangelists manipulate their audiences. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but was never screened in the Southern United States due to fears that it would cause outrage in the Bible Belt. Jim & Tammy Bakker And Jimmy Swaggart, 1986 And 1991 Swaggart's confession where he declared to his congregation on television, “I have sinned against you, my Lord”, became an iconic image of the 1980s. In 1986, evangelist Jimmy Swaggart began on-screen attacks against fellow televangelists Marvin Gorman and Jim Bakker. He uncovered Gorman's affair with a member of Gorman's congregation, and also helped expose Bakker's infidelity (which was arranged by a colleague while on an out-of-state trip). These exposures received widespread media coverage. Gorman retaliated in kind by hiring a private investigator to uncover Swaggart's own adulterous indiscretions with a prostitute. Swaggart was subsequently forced to step down from his pulpit for a year and made a tearful televised apology in February 1988 to his congregation, saying “I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God's forgiveness.” Swaggart was caught again by California police three years later in 1991 with another prostitute, Rosemary Garcia, who was riding with him in his car when he was stopped for driving on the wrong side of the road. When asked why she was with Swaggart, she replied, “He asked me for sex. I mean, that's why he stopped me. That's what I do. I'm a prostitute.” Peter Popoff, 1987 A self-proclaimed prophet and faith healer in the 1980s, Popoff's ministry went bankrupt in 1987 after magician and skeptic James Randi and Steve Shaw debunked his methods by showing that instead of receiving information about audience members from supernatural sources, he received it through an in-ear receiver. Morris Cerullo, 1990s A number of incidents involving California-based televangelist Morris Cerullo caused outrage in the United Kingdom during the 1990s. Cerullo's claims of faith healing were the focus of particular concern. At a London crusade in 1992, he pronounced a child cancer sufferer to be healed, yet the girl died two months later. Multiple complaints were upheld against satellite television channels transmitting Cerullo's claims of faith-healing, and a panel of doctors concluded that Cerullo's claims of miraculous healing powers could not be substantiated. Cerullo also produced fund-raising material, which was condemned as unethical by a number of religious leaders, as it implied that giving money to his organization would result in family members becoming Christians. Mike Warnke, 1991 Warnke was a popular Christian evangelist and comedian during the 1970s and 1980s. He claimed in his autobiography, The Satan Seller (1973), that he had once been deeply involved in a Satanic cult and was a Satanic priest before converting to Christianity. In 1991, Cornerstone magazine launched an investigation into Warnke's life and testimony. It investigated Warnke's life, from interviews with over one hundred personal friends and acquaintances, to his ministry's tax receipts. Its investigation turned up damaging evidence of fraud and deceit. The investigation also revealed the unflattering circumstances surrounding Warnke's multiple marriages, affairs, and divorces. Most critically, however, the investigation showed how Warnke could not possibly have done the many things he claimed to have done throughout his nine-month tenure as a Satanist, much less become a drug-addicted dealer or become a Satanic high priest. Robert Tilton, 1991 Tilton is an American televangelist who achieved notoriety in the 1980s and early 1990s through his paid television program Success-N-Life. At its peak, it aired in all 235 American TV markets. In 1991, Diane Sawyer and ABC News conducted an investigation of Tilton. The investigation, broadcast on ABC's Primetime Live on November 21, 1991, found that Tilton's ministry threw away prayer requests without reading them, keeping only the money or valuables sent to them by viewers, garnering his ministry an estimated $80 million USD a year. In the original investigation, one of Tilton's former prayer hotline operators claimed that the ministry cared little for desperate followers who called for prayer, saying that Tilton had a computer installed in July 1989 to make sure that the phone operators were off the line in seven minutes. Tilton sued ABC for libel in 1992, but the case was dismissed in 1993, and Tilton's show was off the air by October 30, 1993. V. Grant, 2003 Like Peter Popoff, Grant was investigated by James Randi regarding his faith healing claims. He was then imprisoned for tax evasion in 1996. After restarting his ministry upon release, a TV investigation found that claims of healing he made at a 2003 revival in Atlanta were false. Paul Crouch, 2004 Paul Crouch is the founder and president of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, or TBN, the world's largest evangelical Christian television network, as well as the former host of TBN's flagship variety show, Praise the Lord. In September 2004, the Los Angeles Times published a series of articles raising questions about the fundraising practices and financial transparency of TBN, as well as the allegations of a former ministry employee, Enoch Lonnie Ford, that he had a homosexual affair with Crouch during the 1990s. The Times spoke with several sources that claimed that other evangelists such as Benny Hinn, Jack Hayford, and Paul's son Matthew were aware that an affair had taken place. TBN denied the allegations, claiming that Ford's claims were part of an extortion scheme and that the Times was a “left-wing and anti-Christian newspaper” for publishing the articles. In 2005, Ford submitted to and passed a lie detector test on the ION Television program Lie Detector. Douglas Goodman, 2004 Douglas Goodman, an evangelical preacher, and his wife Erica were pastors of Victory Christian Centre in London, England. The church was one of the largest in the United Kingdom. He came into notoriety when he was jailed for three and a half years for the sexual assault of four members of his congregation in 2004. VCC was closed by the Charity Commission, but his wife Erica started a new church, Victory to Victory, in Wembley. Douglas has upon his release resumed full pastoral ministry alongside his wife Kent Hovind, 2006 Kent Hovind is an American Baptist minister and Young Earth creationist. He is most famous for creation science seminars, in which he argues for Young Earth creationism, using his self-formulated “Hovind Theory.” He has been criticized by both the mainstream scientific community and other creationists. In 2006, Hovind who also has a reputation as a tax protestor had been charged with falsely declaring bankruptcy, making threats against federal officials, filing false complaints, failing to get necessary building permits, and various tax-related charges. He was convicted of 58 federal tax offenses and related charges, for which he is currently serving a ten-year sentence.[16] Ted Haggard, 2006 Ted Haggard was the pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado and was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) from 2003 until November 2006. Haggard's position allowed him occasional access to President George W. Bush. In 2006 it was alleged that Haggard had been regularly visiting a male prostitute who also provided him with methamphetamine. Haggard admitted his wrongdoing and resigned as pastor of New Life church and as president of the NAE. The high-profile case was significant also because it immediately preceded the 2006 mid-term elections and may have even affected national voting patterns[citation needed]. In January 2009, Haggard admitted to a second homosexual relationship with a male church member on CNN-TV and other national media, and when asked, would not directly answer a question about his other possible homosexual relationships. Gilbert Deya, 2006 Kenyan-born Deya moved to the United Kingdom in the 1990s and started a number of churches. He claims to have supernatural powers that allow him to make infertile women become pregnant and give birth. However, police investigations in the UK and Kenya concluded that Deya and his wife were stealing Kenyan babies. Deya was arrested in London during December 2006 and as of April 2010 he is currently fighting extradition to Kenya.[20] Richard Roberts, 2007 In October 2007, televangelist Richard Roberts (son of the late televangelist Oral Roberts), was president of Oral Roberts University until his forced resignation on November 23, 2007. Roberts was named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging improper use of university funds for political and personal purposes and improper use of university resources.[21] Earl Paulk, 2007 Earl Paulk (no relation to John Paulk) was the founder and head pastor of Chapel Hill Harvester Church in Decatur, Georgia from 1960 until the 1990s. A number of women from the congregation came forward during the 1990s claiming that Paulk had sexual relations with them. Some of these claims have subsequently been proven correct. Moreover, Donnie Earl Paulk, the current senior pastor of the church and nephew of Earl Paulk, had a court-ordered DNA test in 2007 which showed that he was Earl's son, not his nephew, which means that Earl and his sister-in-law had had a sexual relationship which led to Donnie's birth. Coy Privette, 2007 Privette is a Baptist pastor, conservative activist, and politician in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Privette was president of the Christian Action League and a prominent figure in North Carolina moral battles. In 2007, Privette resigned as president of North Carolina's Christian Action League and from the Board of Directors of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, following revelations on July 19 that he had been charged with six counts of aiding and abetting prostitution. Michael Reid, 2008 Bishop Michael Reid (born 1944) is a Christian evangelist in Essex, England and founder of Michael Reid Ministries who resigned from the role of pastor at Peniel Church in April 2008, after admitting to an eight-year extra-marital sexual relationship. The scandal was widely reported online and in UK newspapers. He has since re-developed an itinerant evangelistic ministry and has been speaking at a number of churches in the UK and overseas. Joe Barron, 2008 Joe Barron, one of the 40 ministers at Prestonwood Baptist Church, one of the largest churches in the United States with 26,000 members, was arrested on May 15, 2008 for solicitation of a minor after driving from the Dallas area to Bryan, Texas, in order to allegedly engage in sexual relations with what he thought to be a 13 year-old girl he had met online. The “girl” turned out to be an undercover law enforcement official. Todd Bentley, 2008 Canadian Todd Bentley rose to prominence as the evangelist at the Lakeland Revival in Florida, which began in April 2008. Bentley claimed that tens of thousands of people were healed at the revival, but a June 2008 investigation by ABC Nightline could not find a single confirmed case. Bentley took a short break after the program was broadcast, but returned to leading the meetings. However, in August 2008, he stepped down permanently when it was revealed he was separating from his wife, Shonnah, and was in a relationship with Jessa Hasbrook, a member of his staff. Tony Alamo, 2008 On September 20, 2008, FBI agents raided Tony Alamo Christian Ministries headquarters as part of a child pornography investigation. This investigation involved allegations of physical abuse, sexual abuse and allegations of polygamy and underage marriage. According to Terry Purvis, mayor of Fouke, Arkansas, his office has received complaints from former ministry members about allegations of child abuse, sexual abuse and polygamy since the ministry established itself in the area, and in turn, Purvis turned over information about the allegations to the FBI. Investigators at the scene plan to conduct a search of ministry headquarters and the home of Alamo and interview children present on the compound. In late July 2009, Alamo (who had a previous conviction for tax evasion in the 1990s) was convicted on ten counts of transporting minors across state lines for sexual purposes, sexual assault and other crimes. On November 13, 2009, he was sentenced to the maximum punishment of 175 years in prison.   Our Experiences in Church The Way Ladies Dress Lady spreading her legs in the tent Sexually Suggestive Hymns He touched Me. oh,he touched me He touched me. Oh, he touched me. And oh, the joy that floods my soul! Something happened, and now I know! He touched and made me whole. –He Touched Me Have Thine own way, Lord, Have thine own way Have Thine own way, Lord, Have Thine own way; Thou art the Potter; I am the clay. Mould me and make me After Thy will, While I am waiting, Yielded and still. Have Thine own way, Lord, Have Thine own way; Hold o'er my being Absolute sway. Fill with Thy Spirit Till all shall see Christ only, always, Living in me. He is Coming Again, He is coming again He is coming again, He is coming again, The very same Jesus, rejected of men; He is coming again, He is coming again, With power and great glory, He is coming again! Fill Me Up God Come on, let the sound of worship be released from your lips tonight Come on, raise it now Oh, that's good y'all, raise it, raise it You provide the fire I'll provide the sacrifice You provide the spirit And I will open up inside You provide the fire I'll provide the sacrifice You provide the spirit I will open up inside Fill me up God Fill me up God Fill me up God Fill me up Fill me up God Fill me up God Fill me up God Fill me up Oh Come, All ye faithful   Show Wrap     EndNotes   [i] https://www.todayschristianwoman.com/articles/2008/september/why-affairs-happen.html [ii] https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/survey-reveals-faiths-unfaithful-article-1.1815733 [iii] http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/html/20060819 T200000-0500_111618_OBS_SEX_IN_THE_CHURCH_.asp [iv] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/5/awful-truth-child-sex-abuse-in-the-catholic-church#:~:text=The%20Catholic%20Church%20has%20been,clergy%20between%201950%20and%202020. [v] https://nypost.com/2022/03/23/bombshell-hillsong-doc-details-carl-lentz-scandal-churchs-cover-ups/ [vi] https://www.essence.com/news/sex-scandals-christian-church-eddie-long/ [vii] http://www.back2stonewall.com/2019/07/ye-sin-22-evangelical-christian-scandals-rocked-world.html

Loyalty: The ability to remain committed to a cause and/or person regardless of the circumstances. As believers, should we be loyal to a church? Or is church hopping acceptable? Join us as we discuss what causes believers to change church's and what to consider before leaving a church. Other resources: Choosing a New Church or House of Worship via Pew Forum, 7 Bad Reasons to Leave Your Church via Christianity Today, 8 Principles to Consider Before Leaving a Church You (Used to) Love via Christianity Today, Search #LeaveLoud on Twitter Intro music by noahmakesmusic Cover art by Emaejai

Can Culture Save The Environment?© 2021 Podcast ISBN 978-976-96650-6-4 .mp3Through an interest in understanding human impacts on the environment all things being considered given the logistical specificity of this conversation I have arrived at this question Can Culture Save The Environment?© 2021ISBN                      WORKS CITED   "Cultural anthropology". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-02-24.   "Cultural anthropology". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-02-24.   "Nature Reserves, lva Forest and Ecological Parks of Madeira". Madeira Live. Retrieved 2009-07-16.   "Nature Reserves, lva Forest and Ecological Parks of Madeira". Madeira Live. Retrieved 2009-07-16.   "United Nations Population Fund moves Day of 6 Billion based on new population estimates". Population Connection. 1998-10-28. Archived from the original on 2006-02-20. Retrieved 2006-03-11.   Anholt, Robert R. H., and Trudy Mackay. 2010. Principles of behavioral genetics. Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-372575-2. Lay summary.   Boardman, Philip. The Worlds of Patrick Geddes. Routledge, 1978 (pg. 33).   David Urbinato (Summer 1994). "London's Historic 'Pea-Soupers'". United States Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved 2006-08-02.   Elizabeth A. Minton, Lynn R. Khale (2014). Belief Systems, Religion, and Behavioral Economics. New York: Business Expert Press LLC. ISBN 978-1-60649-704-3.   Gorvett, Zaria (2019). "The Norwegian art of the packed lunch". BBC News.   Kagan, Jerome, Marc H. Bornstein, and Richard M. Lerner. "Human Behaviour." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2020. Retrieved 5 June 2020.   Lizardo, Omar (27 August 2006). "the sociology of culture versus cultural sociology". orgtheory.net – via WordPress.   Lizardo, Omar (27 August 2006). "the sociology of culture versus cultural sociology". orgtheory.net – via WordPress.   Lizardo, Omar (27 August 2006). "the sociology of culture versus cultural sociology". orgtheory.net – via WordPress.   Macionis, John J; Gerber, Linda Marie (2011). Sociology. Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-13-700161-3. OCLC 652430995.   McNeill, J. R. "The Historiography of Environmental History" (PDF). World Environmental History. Re-trieved 1 February 2018.   Spilka, B., and D. N. McIntosh. 1996. The psychology of religion. Westview Press.   Tylor, Edward. (1871). Primitive Culture. Vol 1. New York: J.P. Putnam's Son  "'How religious commitment varies by country among people of all ages". Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. 13 June 2018. Retrieved 9 March 2019.  "anthropology". Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 10 August 2013.  "Career Paths and Education - Advance Your Career". www.americananthro.org. Retrieved 2017-11-29.  "Career Paths and Education - Advance Your Career". www.americananthro.org. Retrieved 2020-02-24.  "Environmental movement" article in the French Encyclopedia Universalis  "Heatwave: Is there more crime in hot weather?". BBC News. 2018.  "The fall of King Coal". BBC News. 6 December 1999. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016.  "UK's last deep coal mine Kellingley Colliery capped off". BBC. 14 March 2016.  "United Nations Population Fund moves Day of 6 Billion based on new population estimates". Population Connection. 1998-10-28. Archived from the original on 2006-02-20. Retrieved 2006-03-11.  "What Is Cultural Anthropology? - Cultural Anthropology Program (U.S. National Park Ser-vice)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved 2020-02-24.  "What Is Cultural AnthroSupport the show (http://www.buzzsprout.com/429292)

  TDAgiantslayer@gmail.com    97X     PODBEAN   Apple Podcast    webstix.com Tony Herman - the coolest cat on the net     Code: wellbuilttda 15% off   Here's a sharable link: https://wellbuiltsupplements.com/discount/wellbuilttda   Daily Greens probiotic, vegan protein, whey protein, Digestive enzymes, Omega 3's, Performance energy, Performance BCCA's, Vitamins for men, Vitamins for women and a whole lot more.  Right now I am pumping the greens and Pre-workout and loving them both… Heres a secret “I'm on them right now as I do my podcast”.    TDA Conference May 21st & 22nd at HillSpring Church BAMF Bad Action Messiah Follower  Sessions on: the 2nd amendment, Total safety in your home and person, the Homosexual agenda, Health life and fitness, The mans personality, Spiritual nuclear warfare, Making it happen! and fantastic praise and worship! AND WE ADDED A SPEAKER FROM BRIDGEWORKS… Phil Gwoke speaking on Race Relations… Starts Friday night at 7pm Saturday 8am - 4pm FREE, and a gun raffle etc… Register at TDAGiantslayer@Gmail.com     The most recent survey I could find states Pew Forum survey found that 65 percent of Americans believe many religions lead to eternal life — and that 52 percent of American Christians believe salvation can be found in at least some non-Christian religions.   Ultimately, it's not about whether we can take different paths or religions to find our way to the same God - to eternity if you will, but about the one true God taking providing only one way in Jesus Christ to come and find us.”    So lets assume I am speaking to you as a non Christian and you serve another religion.  How do you expect to please your God (force, power, being etc? (I don't ask about how to get to heaven, because that is a complex answer for many religions… I keep it simple)   Even if they have never thought of this question they usually always come down to works.    And then I slowly turn the conversation towards love.  Because Jesus is love I often wonder how other religions experience love… its abstract at best. But Jesus came down to make the abstract, the fluid if you will - well to make it tangible. To make it personal. How do other religions make love personal… what must you do to have your God love you? This starts a pretty good dialogue… and I usually end up telling them they are lucky that they can earn their Gods love… I state-  I could never earn my Gods love… That is  why he had to come down out of love for me and die on the cross. He did so, that I could know God as my fathers and know his love tangibly and personally.  Why did he do this? Because it is his nature… he simply loves us - I can't earn it.    Every religion outside of Christianity is built upon the precipice of earning Gods love… yes I said Precipice because it is that huge of an issue and all things hinge on that understanding. You must earn your standing in every religion other than Christianity.    Humility is needed to understand and accept our dependance on all he has done. To receive through faith and not works his grace and to even desperately need his grace to live for him… right down to the strength needed to serve him and become more like him… and in doing so shed our sin nature.    This is why when some people share Christ like its a taunt or a judgement on others… (without humility) or worse like We are right and you are so dumb and naive… it actually is the opposite of the Gospel. I have many times shared the gospel and started to cry again understanding how much I needed him, need him and continue to depend on him.    This is why our gospel is unique and one of a kind… this is why it is right - because it is right for our soul, spirit, mind and body.   Why is Christianity the only way? Because it is shocking and absurd.  That a God (again truly understanding the concept of what a God is) would care so much for us that he would send his son to die in our place, provide the sacrifice, the grace, the love and the wooing of the Holy Spirit to come to him - and want nothing in return except surrender.    Thats why my belief is the only way, and why I will stand on that forever. 

Steve Cable provides an overview of why young people leave the church based on Drew Dyck's book 'Generation Ex-Christian.'

On the next State of Belief Radio, A new report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life underscores how different the religious makeup of the 117th Congress is from the rest of America… Also, a look at religious equality across these United States, courtesy of the experts at American Atheists. Spoiler alert: there are some real problems here for people of faith and of no faith. And a Baptist writer who says, yes, it’s great that we have our first female Congressional chaplain… But we ought to do away with Congressional chaplains altogether.

The options for addressing ultimate concerns includes not only religious possibilities, but Atheistic ones as well. This is particularly the case with the rise of The Nones, those that the Pew Forum describe as "the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or 'nothing in particular,'" a rapidly growing segment of the population." Christians tend to have "cool" and negative feelings toward Atheists, and in this conversation with Randal Rauser we explore the reasons why. We also discuss some of the stereotypes associated with Atheism, the importance of emotions as well as rational considerations, and how Christians can engage Atheists in more neighborly ways. Rauser is Professor of Historical Theology at Taylor Seminary in Edmonton, Alberta. He is the author of many books, including Conversations with My Inner Atheist (2020), An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar (2016), Is the Atheist My Neighbor (2015), and You're Not as Crazy as I Think (2011). If you find this helpful, please consider supporting this podcast with your Patronage for just a few dollars a month.

This week Pastor James Goodlet and Pastor Jan Tolbert discuss a little bit about what Lewis and Broad is and how the idea came to be. A lot has happened in the year 2020. Change is overflowing everywhere, forcing people to think differently. Everyone wants to hear good news and we are here to deliver it. Lewis and Broad is more than just a media; it is a storyteller that good things are here, and good things are coming. We may come off a little "churchy", but we promise to leave theology at the door. James mentioned the Pew Forum and Barna. Below are links to check those out. https://www.pewforum.org/https://www.barna.com/LaGrange Symphony Orchestra is one of the smallest cities with an orchestra in the US. The Street Beat is a brochure that lists non-profits here in LaGrange. https://afe0c0fb-511b-4e2e-9b88-3ef3ab595ed9.filesusr.com/ugd/635f0f_7c89a4d517f842e491bce212cf9c26a8.pdf

On this episode of The Resistance Library Podcast Dan and Sam discuss the overall decline in American participation in social life.   Church attendance in the United States is at an all-time low, according to a Gallup poll released in April 2019. This decline has not been a steady one. Indeed, over the last 20 years, church attendance has fallen by 20 percent. This might not sound like cause for concern off the bat. And if you're not a person of faith, you might rightly wonder why you would care about such a thing.   Church attendance is simply a measure of something deeper: social cohesion. It's worth noting that the religions with the highest rate of attendance according to Pew Forum have almost notoriously high levels of social cohesion: Latter-Day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, Evangelical Protestants, Mormons and historically black churches top the list.   There's also the question of religious donations. Religious giving has declined by 50 percent since 1990, according to a 2016 article in the New York Times. This means people who previously used religious services to make ends meet now either have to go without or receive funding from the government. This, in turn, strengthens the central power of the state.   It is our position that civil society – those elements of society which exist independently of big government and big business – are essential to a functioning and free society. What's more, these institutions are in rapid decline in the United States, and have been for over 50 years.   Such a breakdown is a prelude to tyranny, and has been facilitated in part (either wittingly or unwittingly) by government policies favoring deindustrialization, financialization and centralization of the economy as well as the welfare state. The historical roots of this breakdown are explored below, along with what concerned citizens can do to mitigate its impact on their loved ones.   You can read the full article “Bowling Alone: How Washington Has Helped Destroy American Civil Society and Family Life” at Ammo.com.   For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).   Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45   And check out our sponsor, Libertas Bella, for all of your favorite 2nd Amendment apparel at LibertasBella.com.   Helpful Links:  Bowling Alone: How Washington Has Helped Destroy American Civil Society and Family Life Resistance Library  Sam Jacobs

This is the first celebration of Corpus Christi—the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ—after the Pew Forum study showing that 70% of Catholics don’t believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Vatican II said that the Eucharist is the source and the summit of the Christian life—so it is clear that something has gone seriously wrong. Therefore, it is with renewed interest and focus that we should look to the readings for today’s feast.

On Wednesday, Aril 15, for the third Virtual Coffee Night speaker series, Melissa Rogers, a leading expert and scholar on religion in American public life, gave a fascinating talk on how the First Amendment encompasses common ground, and for sharing insights on controversies about religion in public life. Needless to say, coffee has had a significant place in our lives for ages. We often say “Let’s have a cup of coffee” to imply “Let’s have a conversation”. That being said, we believe that nothing beats a nice relaxed conversation and invite you both to relieve ourselves over a cup of coffee and to stimulate our minds with various light-hearted talks. Prominent speakers from a variety of backgrounds have been and will be part of this series and all together we will have enriched conversations. About the Speaker: Melissa Rogers is a nationally known expert on religion in American public life. Her areas of expertise include the United States Constitution’s religious liberty guarantees and the interplay of religion, law, policy, and politics. Rogers currently serves as Visiting Professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Rogers previously served as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Executive Director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships (2013-2017), Chair of President Obama’s inaugural Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships (2009-2010), Director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity (2003 – 2013), Executive Director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2000 – 2003), and Associate Counsel/General Counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (1994 – 2000). Rogers is author of Faith in American Public Life (2019) and co-author of Religious Freedom and the Supreme Court (2008). She has received an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity from both Wake Forest University and the John Leland Center for Theological Studies. Rogers holds a J.D. from University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. from Baylor University. In 2017, President Barack Obama appointed Rogers to serve as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Baylor University awarded her its Pro Texana Medal of Service and the First Freedom Center gave Rogers its Virginia First Freedom Award. National Journal has recognized Rogers as one of the church-state experts “politicians will call on when they get serious about addressing an important public policy issue.”

What does it mean for religious liberty when the government asks houses of worship not to hold services in the middle of a pandemic? Amanda Tyler and Holly Hollman look at the impact of the coronavirus on religious communities and how they are responding (starting at 6:13). Plus, they explore a key law that keeps coming up in these conversations: the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (23:03). In the final segment, Amanda and Holly share how the stay-at-home orders are impacting them and how churches are finding new ways to serve in this time. Segment 1: How do government-issued stay-at-home orders impact religious exercise? (Starting at 00:40) Read the Pew Forum survey on why people attend religious services at this link.   Segment 2: The Religious Freedom Restoration Act and religious exemptions (starting at 15:40) Read about the pastor who continues to hold church services in Louisiana in this article by Daniel Silliman in Christianity Today: Pentecostal Pastor Won't Stop Church for COVID-19. Learn more about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) at BJConline.org/RFRA. For more on the current Supreme Court case examining RFRA remedies (Tanzin v. Tanvir), visit this link on our website.   Segment 3: Where did we see religion respected in our world? Religious communities react to the coronavirus (30:58) Read the story about a pastor who preached to photos of his congregants in this story by David Wilkinson in Baptist News Global: Don't mess with Texas, COVID-19: this church packed the pews on Sunday. Read the story about the Alabama church that provided space to test people for coronavirus in this article by Sarah Pulliam Bailey in The Washington Post: A megachurch has helped test nearly 1,000 people for coronavirus in two days.

The fathers of the Second Vatican Council referred to the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Christian life, that from which authentic Christianity flows and that toward which it tends. Yet a recent Pew Forum study found that only 30% of church-going Catholics believe what the Church teaches about the Eucharist, that under the forms of bread and wine, Christ is really present in the sacrament. That alarming statistic is why Bishop Barron devoted an hour-long keynote address to the topic at the 2020 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress. Today we share the first half of his talk, which looks at the Biblical and patristic basis for the doctrine of the Real Presence, and next week we’ll share the second half. Enjoy!

The fathers of the Second Vatican Council referred to the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Christian life, that from which authentic Christianity flows and that toward which it tends. Yet a recent Pew Forum study found that only 30% of church-going Catholics believe what the Church teaches about the Eucharist, that under the forms of bread and wine, Christ is really present in the sacrament. That alarming statistic is why Bishop Barron devoted an hour-long keynote address to the topic at the 2020 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress. Today we share the first half of his talk, which looks at the Biblical and patristic basis for the doctrine of the Real Presence, and next week we’ll share the second half. Enjoy!

The fathers of the Second Vatican Council referred to the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Christian life, that from which authentic Christianity flows and that toward which it tends. Yet a recent Pew Forum study found that only 30% of church-going Catholics believe what the Church teaches about the Eucharist, that under the forms of bread and wine, Christ is really present in the sacrament. That alarming statistic is why Bishop Barron devoted an hour-long keynote address to the topic at the 2020 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress. Today we share the first half of his talk, which looks at the Biblical and patristic basis for the doctrine of the Real Presence, and next week we'll share the second half. Enjoy! NOTE: Do you like this podcast? Become a patron and get some great perks for helping, like free books, bonus content, and more. Word on Fire is a non-profit ministry that depends on the support of our listeners…like you! So be part of this mission, and join us today!

Kyle and Amy discuss the hot topic, "Do I make my kids go to church?" It always feels like a fight. Does it really matter? I want my kids to want to go to church> This question is asked often and it really matters how we answer. Join in the conversation.Pew Forum on decline of church attendance 

This past July, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported the results of a survey regarding the American people’s trust of government institutions. The most trusted people are scientists (83%), while trust of politicians hovers around 37%. At this point in history, the American people don’t trust government institutions and leaders enough to [read more]

In a "Voice of the People" letter appearing in Sunday's Chicago Tribune, JoAnn Lee Frank of Clearwater, Florida says the following: The bill passed in Alabama banning nearly all abortions smacks of contempt and misogynistic views toward women. Why else would so many white Republican male legislators willfully rule that women carry a fetus to full term in cases of rape and incest? Even if it is their religious belief, it has no business influencing the law. The attitude of the lawmakers is not only cruel and unjust, it's also sick and destructive. This stunning decision violates the constitutional protections guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. How does opposition to human slaughter—including the slaughter of about 440,000 female humans annually—constitute "contempt and misogynistic views toward women"? And are the 36% of women who oppose abortion in "all or most cases" as revealed in a Pew Forum poll guilty of contempt for women and misogyny? Read more...

Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers. Joe Fontenot: I'm Joe Fontenot. This is the Answering The Call podcast. This is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call. Today's guest is Kyle Beshears. Kyle talks about a new word, new word to me at least. Kyle was here at the Defend Conference, and the word he taught me was apatheism. Gary: Apatheism? Joe: Apatheism. Gary: That's a new one on me as well. Joe: It is, it's not fruit, it's something else, which he's going to tell us about now. Gary: Let's hear from Kyle. Joe: Okay, so Kyle you've said something that doesn't get said often and it's called apatheism. In some ways we can guess what it's about, but I think your explanation is much more helpful. What is apatheism? Kyle Beshears: Yeah, the word's a bit intuitive. You can parse two words out of there, apathy and theism, a clever way of trying to describe a feeling of indifference towards questions related to God's existence is how I would initially define apatheism. There's a ... I don't know how to describe it, the-ism we think has to do with the way we think, right? Kyle Beshears: It's a belief, it's cognitive, but I think apatheism affects our heart as well, and how we feel, our emotions. Apatheism is not just finding questions related to God's existence intellectually or being apathetic to them intellectually, it's also an affective reaction to questions about God. I might define apatheism as when a person believes questions about God are unimportant and they feel that way as well. It's both a belief and a feeling. Joe: Okay, so let's work that out. Like a role-play, right? Your apatheist, I am me, and I say, "Kyle, I would like to talk to you about God." What do you say? How do you act? Kyle: Well me personally I would be polite, but to have the conversation ... Joe: A kind apatheist. Kyle: Yeah, yeah, you seem like a nice guy Joe, but in reality I really don't want to have this conversation. I find it as uninteresting as arguing over whether or not Pepsi is to be preferred to Coca-Cola, right? It's just not an interesting conversation to me. Joe: It's sort of irrelevant. Kyle: Irrelevant, yeah, I don't find that God affects my life, my relationships, my future, and I don't think ... Maybe he affects you in a personal way, but that's that's you, that's idiosyncrasy, that's unique to each person. To me, I don't care. Joe: Do you think it's a generational thing? Kyle: Thinking through it, I think it's probably more prevalent in younger generations, so millennial's and younger. I've just been reclassified as zenial, so I guess we're in between generation Y and the millennial's. Joe: Okay. Kyle: I think probably you're starting to see it in Y, in zenial's, millennial's, and whoever comes next. I don't think it would be fair to assign apatheism to just younger generations. I think you see wherever there is a decrease in religious attendance and church services, wherever you see an increase in religious un-affiliation, I think you'll find apatheism there. Kyle: Apatheism may even be ... You might be able to find apatheism more geographically that generationally, right? Pockets in the Northeast in the United States, Western Europe, Canada, I think you'll find that apatheism is more prevalent with those people than in say southeastern United States or majority world contexts like South America and Africa where church is growing, you'll find a complete opposite. Joe: Where do you think apatheism comes from or what causes it? Is there an easy answer for that? Kyle: No, I don't think there's an easy answer for that. I think you can trace the beginnings of apatheism maybe as far back as pre-Socratic thinkers. You have this movement in ancient Greece where some philosophers are starting to move away from polytheism and they're moving towards this ... It's not monotheism, but it's God is everything and God is fate, right? Kyle: The problems you're having with your crops or your relationships or your wealth are not because of fickle gods, it's because of fate, so why should you care about the gods? You see an apathy towards the comings and goings of the gods, but it's not replaced with the apatheism we experience. Their apathy was a virtue like you come to just recognize that you can't control fate. Kyle: The moment you truly understand that, you'll find bliss, you'll find happiness. I think the kind of apatheism we experience today starts to rise in the Enlightenment period where people are rejecting Christian theism in exchange for agnosticism, which is we can't know if God exists. Deism, which means a God exists, but he or it doesn't really have any direct impact on our daily lives. Joe: Set it and forget it thing. Kyle: That's right, yeah, the popular phrase is the absentee landlord. Atheism, no, I'm unconvinced that God exists, right? There's this a line from one of those Enlightenment era atheists named Denise Diderot. I'm going to pull it up real quick. Sorry, you'll have to edit this part. Joe: No, it's okay, we don't edit, this will all be in there. Kyle: Oh, okay, great. Joe: They're listening to us right now. Kyle: Good, good, so Denise Diderot, famous Enlightenment atheist thinker, and he distills apatheism in his time in this one sentence. He says, "It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all," right? If you don't know much about hemlock, you should not put that on your tacos. Joe: That's the stuff that kills you. Kyle: It will kill you, yeah. Joe: Painfully. Kyle: Hemlock and parsley look similar, right? Diderot is saying it's more important that you discern between what can go on a salad and what will kill you than warrior fret about whether or not God exists. Joe: I feel like that betrays this huge idea already that God doesn't exist. If he exists, it's more of the idea of God exists. The same emotional attachment we might have like a small kid has to a blanket, do you know what I mean? This makes me feel good, I almost feel like in once sense what he's saying is forget about the blanket, it's just a toy thing. Joe: There's real issues, something could kill you and not kill you. The irony there is that what happens when you die? It really does matter if there is a God or not. Kyle: It is deeply ironic with this question, what happens when you do mistake the hemlock for parsley and you end up dying? Joe: Right. Kyle: Well, now the question of God's existence becomes of the ultimate importance. Joe: Right. Kyle: Yeah. Joe: Yeah. How do you put apatheism on the scale with atheism? I think a lot of people know atheism, whether it's the new atheists which are angry and want to pick the fight, or whether it's just the person who says look, "I'll be honest with you, I've thought through this, I don't think God exists. I'll talk to you about it, but it's not something I talk about a lot." Joe: Then you've got this new class or this newer category, newer to me, apatheism, which is just like this is completely irrelevant. Where do you put those on a line as far as the easiest people to talk to? Kyle: Yeah, intuitively you would think apatheism has a lot to do with atheism. If you don't think God's existence is important, well then you must not believe in him. That could very well be the case for a lot of people, but actually I think there is something that an atheist and a theist has more in common than does an apatheist, and that is interest in questions relating to God's existence. Kyle: If you were to ask a Christian theist, "Do you believe God exists?" They would say, "Yes, of course I do." Then you would be able to have a conversation, "Well, what is that God like? What are the implications of that belief?" If you were to ask an atheist, "Do you believe God exists?" They would say, "Well no, I don't," and then you'd be able have a conversation. "Well, what does God's nonexistence mean," right? Kyle: Now if you were to go to apatheist and ask them, "Do you believe God exists?" They're going to shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't care." That indifference drains any conversational power out of the whole dialogue, right? They won't have the conversation with you, because they don't care to have the conversation. In one sense atheists and theists should both share a deep concern about apatheism, because both the atheists and the theists find questions relating to God's existence important, because they understand the ramifications of answering the positive, theism, or negative, atheism. Joe: That's really interesting, I never thought about that before. An atheist should be concerned about the ramifications of an apatheist. Kyle: Absolutely. Joe: Clearly a theist of the Christian should be concerned, because we want everyone to be restored to God and love God and have a happy life. The atheist should be too, tell me why. Kyle: Yeah, I mean a simple scenario, who's going to buy Richard Dawkins books, right? Let's say Richard Dawkins publishes a new book, which is a very compelling, intellectual argument against the existence of God. The people that are going to buy those books are people interested in the question of God's existence. The atheist, the theist, and even the agnostic are sitting in a room having a conversation about God, because they're all interested in whether or not he exists, and what God is like if he does, and what it means if he doesn't, or even what it means if we can't know. Kyle: The apatheist is on the opposite side of the room looking over at those three having the conversation thinking they're wasting their time, it's completely useless. Yeah, I think that should be deeply concerning to atheists and agnostics as well as theists. That maybe rounds us back to the question that you asked earlier, which of those do I find most difficult to engage with the gospel, the atheist or the apatheist? Kyle: Unequivocally, I think it's the apatheist, because at least when you're approaching atheism, you have a mutually common interest in whether or not God exists. Joe: Yes, okay, so I have a very specific question about this. I'm going to come back to that in just a second. Before I get to there, what are we talking about? Are there a lot of people that are apatheistic? How do you count, find, survey apatheistic people? Would they even care? Then how do they compare to atheists or agnostics? What's the ratio? What's the population? What are we talking about? Kyle: Yeah, this is a frustrating thing looking into apatheism. It's impossible to tell how many apatheists there are in any given culture. The reason is because if you go to polling data, so things like American Religious Value surveys or Pew Forum or Gallup that ask questions about religious identification, those pollsters do not double-click into the reasons for why people don't believe. Kyle: Very quickly we might say, "Well I know where all the apatheists are, they're in the nones, the N-O-N-E-S," right? The religiously unaffiliated, those people who when asked if they have a religious affiliation, they say, "No, none." Apatheism is not restricted to the nones, and there may be nones that are not apatheistic, right? You may just not have a religious affiliation, but it doesn't mean you don't find the question of God's existence important. Kyle: Further, to complicate matters, you can find apatheism in people who identify as a religious tradition. You can say, "I'm Jewish, I'm Christian," but they don't really care what that means. Joe: For sure, I mean, there's so many, not so many, but I already at the top of my head think of so many secular Jews who are popular in the media or whatever. I feel like in a lot of ways they don't really care. They're Jewish by culture and heritage, but not religion in the spiritual sense. Kyle: Here we're in New Orleans, I'm in Mobile in Alabama. We're in the South, the primary religious affiliation is going to be some kind of Protestantism or Catholicism, right? That doesn't necessarily mean that they care about what that means, it just means that, that's the household they grew up in, that's the tribe to which they belong. Kyle: Apatheism permeates both religious affiliation and non-religious affiliation, so it makes it very tricky to try to gauge. Joe: Where does apatheism as a proper noun end, and where does all the category, whatever you would call this, and maybe this is apatheism, all the category of say the people that come and sit in the pew, but don't do anything, do you know what I mean? They don't tithe, they're not active, they're coming for some reason, maybe it's social, maybe it's guilt, maybe it's who knows? Joe: We all know this exact group of people and they're usually a large group of people, is that apatheism? If not, is apatheism something different or more extreme maybe? Kyle: Yeah, so I think what we're walking around now is the difference between apatheism and what's called practical atheism or pragmatic atheism. Practical atheism is as old as the Bible itself. We hear Scripture lament that the fool says in his heart, there is no God. Now that doesn't mean that they were actually atheist. The fool doesn't say, "There is no God." The fool says in his heart, so there's a dissonance between what this fool believes and how this fool acts, right? Kyle: This is the height of foolishness that you believe that there is a God or you acknowledge there's a God and you recognize that the implications of God's existence affects your ethical moral behavior, but you act as if he doesn't exist. I think for a lot of our experience in the church, what we're seeing is practical atheism. Kyle: It's a profession and even maybe a vague belief of God's existence, but a refusal to recognize and act upon the implications of that belief. How that's different from apatheism, is that the apatheist doesn't care about God's existence or nonexistence, he or she could care less. The practical atheism's apathy is sympathetic, it's not real. Kyle: An apatheists apathy towards God's existence is real. To me, from my experience and my readings, this is very new. This is a very new thing in the life of the church, not one that it's had to approach perhaps ever. Joe: Yeah, you had mentioned earlier that you and Tala Anderson have written or presented a paper on this. Kyle: Yeah, that's correct, so Tala Anderson is a professor of philosophy over at Oklahoma Baptist University. He and I and a couple of other folks presented papers on apatheism at the American Academy of Religion in Denver this past November. The goal of that presentation with those papers is to define apatheism from an evangelical, Christian perspective, and then to propose ways in which we might approach it as gospel believing evangelistic, Christians who are first concerned that you don't care about God's existence. Kyle: Second, that we would like to see you come to know the Lord Jesus the way we do. Yeah, we felt it was one of these conversations that the church ought to start having, right? Especially as the United States continues to secularize in an unique way from the rest of the West. A little slower than Canada and Western Europe and a little more diverse, right? Kyle: We're seeing an increase in interest in neopaganism and the occult, which is completely unexpected. Joe: Interesting, yeah, where did that come from? Kyle: Apathy, right? Joe: Yeah. Kyle: We are secularizing in a different way, but yeah, as a challenge to the gospel, we thought it would be a wise thing to begin, at least bringing it to the public mind. Joe: Yeah, getting the word out there. Kyle: Most people experience apatheism, they know it, but they don't know it. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: Right? The second you say even the word apatheism, people go, "Oh yeah." Joe: Right. Kyle: I know exactly what you're talking about. Then it makes that thing that was intangible, tangible. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: If it's tangible, well now we can talk about it, because we can identify it, we can see it, and we can prayerfully think through how we ought to approach it. Joe: This brings me to the question, one of the questions I wanted to ask specifically was how do you start a conversation with an apatheist? An atheist, right? That's easy, there's so many entry points. It might be intimidating, but it's clear there are a lot of ways in. An apatheist says, "I don't really want to talk about this." How do we talk about something someone doesn't want to talk about? Kyle: Yeah, this is the tricky part, right? The word that's probably floating around in people's minds with a conversation like this is well that's apologetics, right? I know what I need to do, I need to go bone up on apologetic methods, arguments for God's existence. If they don't find God important, well maybe if I argue that he exists, they'll find that he's important. Kyle: Unfortunately, that presupposes something that's not there, that they're interested in having that conversation, right? Joe: Right. Kyle: I certainly don't fault people, because as creatures created in the image and likeness of God designed to have a relationship with our creator, we are by default we have interest in God's existence, right? Thinking that everybody thinks the way or feels the way we do about God is intuitive, right? Certainly, that's the model we received from Scripture thinking about the context and the time in which it was written. Kyle: Everybody thought God or gods existence is in the little g, like multiple gods, is important. We've built our apologetic models off of that, and rightly so as a biblical foundation. For example, the most famous apologetic model that's cited from the New Testament is Paul's Areopagus sermon in Acts. When he goes into Athens and he's preaching the gospel and people find it interesting, so they invite him to the Areopagus or Mars Hill in the King James. Kyle: They want him to present this new philosophy they're so unfamiliar with. As he's walking there, he passes a pantheon, so he sees a bunch of statues of gods. He notices that there's one statue to the unknown God. They are so superstitious, that they wanted to make sure they didn't offend the one god that they might not have remembered in their little collection there. Kyle: This one God is really interesting, because there's something special about him, right? He seems to proceed the other gods, there's something more powerful, more mysterious about him. Paul notices that they're very religious and he leverages that religious interest. He starts, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious." Kyle: He presupposes that they both share a minimally common interest in theism, even though they are polytheists and he is a Christian. At least they both think that God's existence is important. From that story we've built our apologetic methods, have we not? I mean, I find it very rare to read a book on apologetics without that model coming up. Kyle: That's so important, because it's so good, but what if we live in an Athens without a statue to the unknown God? Joe: Yeah. Kyle: What if we live in a society now where there may have been a statue to an unknown God, but it's come under disrepair for being neglected, vines are growing on it, soot, it's been chiseled away, right? People don't care about the Pantheon anymore, how could Paul have started, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you're very religious." They would say, "What do you mean? No we're not, we don't care about what you have to say." Joe: It's like in the one hand you've got we're in a car and they're in a car. We have gas in our car and we're going north. They have gas in their car going south, and we're trying to get them to turn their wheel and come north, the right way. This new scenario that you're talking about here is like we're in a car and we're going north and they don't have any gas. Kyle: Right. Joe: It's like a totally, foundationally different issue. Kyle: That's correct, yeah, so that's why I argue that it's far more challenging to present the gospel to an apatheist than it is an atheist or an agnostic, because you are robbed of that minimally common belief. Not only are you robbed of that minimally common belief, but the question, do you believe in God, is zapped of its power because of indifference and apathy to it. Kyle: That question is meaningless to an apatheist, in fact, they may even feel negative towards it, because they're so tired of being asked it, right? Joe: Right, so you're starting at a deficit almost? Kyle: Exactly. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: You have to take a step backwards in just recognizing that we don't share that minimally common interest is crucial to approaching apatheism, yeah. Joe: Excuse me, what should I do if I've ... I have this friend and he's apatheist, I'm just going to say, and I have a few friends that I already know fit. Say they're not friends, say we don't have a relationship already, is that the key? Is it having a relationship? Even then, maybe they don't care to talk about this. I'm the kind of person, jumping into me for a minute, I'm the kind of person that I will get confused like sports. Joe: I'm like which one is the football and the basketball? I'm at that level, right? Extremely ignorant when it comes to sports, just a real idiot, and so somebody wants to come and talk to me at sports, I'm just like I will smile and be nice and can't wait for you to stop talking about this, right? How would a person come to me and talk about sports in a way that's interesting? Joe: How do I go to a person and talk about something spiritual when they just simply don't care? Kyle: Yeah, so in that scenario what I would say is you are interested in sports, you just don't know it yet. Joe: Oh, good one, I love this, please tell me more. Kyle: How do I get you to recognize that you actually are interested in sports? Well, I would begin by finding what are you interested in period, right? When I say that the classical methods that we've developed from apologetics, we've presupposed something that perhaps we don't have any more. What I'm not saying is well we'll just nuke apologetics altogether, right? Kyle: We're just going to start over again, that's absolutely foolish throwing the baby out and the bathwater, right? Joe: You've got nothing. Kyle: No, there are people in the history of Christianity thinking theologically, philosophically and approaching their cultures, that I think anticipated this type of thing. I think we look to, in their technical terms, individuals that have explored presuppositional or existential approaches to apologetics. Things like the moral argument can be very helpful here. Kyle: What we do is we start from the bottom up, rather than the top down, right? The to down approach is you believe in God, I believe in God, but you believe in God in a way that does not align with reality, so let me explain to you how. Let me argue that, let's go through your objections, and then boom, we get to the gospel. Joe: Which even works for an atheist, because you would say, "You believe in the value of this concept God, you just believe that it's false." Kyle: That's correct, yeah. Joe: Right. Kyle: Then you deal with objections and then get to a gospel presentation. With the apatheists though, I think you have to flip the script a bit, you have to start with the bottom up. We start with the individual, and I've found that most people are interested in themselves. Joe: Yeah, sure. Kyle: Via fallen nature that we are our favorite thing to think about. When I'm having conversations with apatheists, the place I start with is not God. He is the goal of course, but the place I start with is them. I ask them, "What do you find interesting? What drives you? What are your fears? What are your hopes? What are your desires? What do you think is virtuous? What do you think is unvirtuous? What do you think is good character? What do you think is a character flaw?" Kyle: Naturally most of those conversations go towards political things. What I try to do is I try to steer the conversation towards issues of morality. Then employ what Francis Schaeffer identified as pressure points and worldviews. Things that are held inconsistently or ideologically, and really push on them and ask, "Why? Why is that?" Kyle: Very quickly, for example, using the moral argument for why murder is wrong. You would ask a person like, "Why do you think murder is wrong?" The person would say, "Well, it's not good to kill somebody, because you're taking away that person from their family." "Well I agree with that, but what if a person, another person believes that taking away that person from their family is good, is a good thing, and they have one reason or another? Well who's to say that you shouldn't murder that person?" Kyle: Well the conversation then goes to there's governments let's say, right? You shouldn't murder, murder is illegal, so I guess that's why I think murder is wrong. Well what if there is a government that decides murdering is good, right? Joe: We've had that before. Kyle: We've had those before in history, right? Then what do we do, right? You argue this until you're in this theoretical land of a one universal government that determines whether or not murder is wrong. Then well you can imagine that universal government decides at one point no, genocide is good, so now what do we do? Well I don't know, what do we do? Kyle: That's a pressure point in their worldview, they can't explain why they believe murder is objectively wrong. Joe: Yeah, I think this is interesting, because a lot of the stuff we learned in apologetics, we've essentially shuffled the deck on. We're still using all those cards, we're using all those approaches. We're using all those ideas and concepts. We're using the reductio ad absurdum, the logic, like take this to its logical end and where does this take us based on what you said you, etc. Joe: We're doing it in a way, like you said, which I think is so critical, we're doing it in a way that starts with something they care about. Kyle: Right, that's exactly right, yeah, and notice the entire time I was having, we were having this very speedy, truncated vision of that conversation, I didn't bring up God once. Joe: Right. Kyle: I didn't need too, that wasn't the point in the conversation at the beginning stage. Then the question becomes well, why can you say murder is objectively wrong? I don't know. That moment, the, I don't know is called doubt, right? Doubt, when used sometimes, is quite advantageous. You've caused them now to think critically about their worldview. Kyle: Soren Kierkegaard has a great line about doubt, using it in this kind of a way. He says, "That doubt is a higher form than any objective thinking, because it presupposes the latter, but it has something more, a third, which is interest." Joe: Yes, because doubt is not simply, I don't know, like agnosticism in the little a, agnosticism. It's not just simply a vacuum, it's an out of balance vacuum. I feel uncomfortable, because something needs to be back in line. Kyle: That's right, so this is Kierkegaard's point. Doubt's a good thing in these kinds of situations, because if you're apathetic about your faith, if you're apathetic about a position, no amount of questioning or propositions is going to zap you out of that apathy until you're interested. Obviously you can't be apathetic toward something and interested toward something simultaneously, it's impossible, it defies both terms. Kyle: How do you get somebody from apathy to interest? Kierkegaard says, get them to doubt something about the thing that they're apathetic about, or that is related to the thing they're apathetic about. Then you have interest, and interest is important, because it zaps the apathy of its power, right? That one thing that they were completely disinterested in and indifferent towards just a moment ago, now becomes something that they have to seek out. Joe: Yes, doubt becomes like the fulcrum gets them back into the interest area. Kyle: That's right, that's right. Joe: That's very interesting. Kyle: At this point, in these moments of doubt, they start to think objectively. Now for the first time maybe in a long time they're interested. This is when you make a gospel presentation. This is when we can re-approach apologetics in the way that perhaps we're more familiar with, right? We've not assumed the presupposition that these men of Athens are very religious in every way. Kyle: We've gotten them interested and then now we can move forward. Joe: Really, unless a person is clinically depressed or something like this, unless a person is really just disconnected and not motivated to live, they are interested in something, in things. They have ambitions, they have motivations, and I feel like what you're saying is we just need to do the work of finding those. They are not being upfront in that kind of way in the way that an atheist is. Joe: An atheist says, "I'm very upfront about what I disbelieve." Somebody who is apathetic in this way says, "I'm not really gonna tell you in that way," right? Kyle: That's right. Joe: This conversation is boring to me, but it's not boring. It's just the framework of it's boring, and what you're saying is you come in with this back door, you find the doubt, find what they're interested in, expose the doubt, and then the new interest emerges, the relevance to the real conversation. Kyle: That's right, if you've struck a vein that truly causes them to doubt, interest inevitably comes. Nobody's ever doubted something and then not felt some kind of interest towards why they doubted that thing, right? It's a very, very powerful tool to use, it just needs to be used wisely and appropriately. Joe: Sure. Kyle: Perhaps even in moderation, you don't want to just throw somebody into an existential tail spin. Joe: Yeah, this is for your own good. Kyle: That's right. Yeah, I think it's a challenge, right? Joe: Yeah. Kyle: It's a challenge. Joe: It's a challenge, but it's also a way forward. I think you come across someone who is in apatheist, someone who's really just apathetic about spiritual things, you're like well I don't know what to do. I think a lot of people feel that, and having this approach first step I think is very helpful, it's very helpful for me. Kyle: Well that's good, that's good, yeah. Yeah, I would say I've had this kind of conversation quite a few times now, and one of the things that I've had told to me is that just seems like a lot. I can't even remember this conversation that we had, how am I supposed to draw up this framework the second I identify an apatheist? One, I think these types of things come with experience and practice. Kyle: Evangelism, of course, is a gifting that the Holy Spirit gives us, and it's one in which he guides us, and one that we become better with through experience. The challenge I would say is well don't worry about being able to draw on this and other things that you've thought about before, go do it in and see if the spirit is not good and willing and able to guide you through these things. Kyle: Then second, in these moments we're called to be stewards. If we're stewards of the message that we're given and we rely in faith that even in our stumblings we're trying to analyze somebody's worldview, find pressure points, push on them, get them to doubt, get them to interest, that first of all this is precious to the father. This is an act of worship and it's pleasing to him. Kyle: Second, he's good to use it, so you may not zap them out of their apathy the first time, the third time, the fifth time, the 10th time. That's okay, like you may be chapters one through three in a story that's 50 chapters long. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: Yeah, it's a challenging thing, but I still think that not only are we called to through the great commission to engage all peoples, which include the apatheists, even if they're more challenging than others, it's something that the spirit indwells you to do, right? He's there with you in these moments. Joe: I think the encouraging thing to me is having the right tools, knowing what to do, at least in some sense is a good thing, but ultimately, it's not my job to save anybody. Kyle: That's right. Joe: Right? It's just my job to say why I care. Kyle: Yeah, that's right. Joe: To me that's encouraging. This has been really great Kyle, I want to ask you one last question, how are you answering God's call? What does that mean and look like and so forth in your life? Kyle: Yeah, I mean personal day-to-day, the way I'm answering God's call is through finding the ways in which he's sanctifying me, and digging in and pushing into those. It may sound very basic, but I think it's very true. This comes through repentance and through prayer and through reading Scripture and acting on the things that God has told me to do and not just filing them away in a journal. Kyle: Very recently, just being candid, the Lord has pressed on, or just pushed on my heart in prayer that he would like to see me be more aware of what repentance means and to be bolder. Answering God's call for me in this season of life is being keenly aware of what is repentance, how often do we do it? Should I be doing it more often? What does it mean to be bold, to be bold for the gospel? Kyle: It means being a good husband, it means being a good teacher. It means being a good preacher when I'm given those opportunities. I think for me, the short answer of how I'm answering God's call is he's given me talents like from the parable, talents to steward and to multiply. Every day I ask how can I multiply the talents that you have given me? Kyle: Not just to receive an answer, but to act on that answer as well. Joe: It's a great question, how can I multiply the talents that you've given me. This has been quite a joy as always. Thanks for coming to the podcast Kyle. Kyle: Yeah, Joe, thank you for having me, it was a pleasure.

We’re excited to share our conversation with Melissa Rogers. Melissa recently served as special assistant to the president and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, during the Obama administration, and is currently a nonresident senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She has also served as executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and is an expert on things like the First Amendment’s religion clauses, religion in American public life, and the interplay of religion, policy, and politics.We caught up with her by phone a few months back and had a great conversation about religion and politics. Yes, it is possible to do! More than that, it’s probably more important than ever to have conversations like these as we seek to build stronger, more connected communities.Learn more about Melissa and her current work at The Brookings Institution.

Do you believe in past lives? If so, you're not alone. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a quarter of Americans believe in reincarnation. In this episode, Jolenta and Kristen attempt to find out what the 25% might know, by following Sylvia Browne's bestseller, "Past Lives, Future Healing." Have you lived by this book? What book should Jolenta and Kristen read next? Tell us at 419-869-BOOK; email us at bythebook@panoply.fm; Tweet us @jolentag, @kristenmeinzer, @bythebookpod; and follow us on Instagram @jolenta_g, @k10meinzer, @bythebookpod. And if you haven't already, please join our By The Book Facebook community! https://www.facebook.com/groups/116407428966900/?source_id=475465442806687Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

February 12, 2013 Does religious freedom help societies flourish? Does the freedom of religious individuals and institutions to put their faith into practice make a difference to the economic and political well-being of the world's people, especially the very poorest? As legal controversy swirls around religious freedom in America and Europe with the Obamacare contraception mandate and battles over gay marriage, the broader social dimensions of religious freedom are often forgotten. A recent Pew Forum report showed that 75 percent of people in the world live in nations where religious liberty is severely restricted. Those nations are highly vulnerable to extremism, social discord, poverty, and corruption. Rick Warren, best-selling author and founding pastor of Saddleback Church, discussed these and other topics in a wide-ranging conversation with Timothy Shah, associate director of the Religious Freedom Project.

The Pew Forum and the Barna Research Group have shown that the demographics of the American religious landscape are undergoing a slow but steady shift away from Christianity. In this context, how should the Church respond? Blake Giunta notes that many of the reasons that people give for abandoning Christianity are directly addressable by apologetics, so this provides a unique opportunity for him and other professional apologists to respond to this cultural pressure on the Church. And it also gives him a chance to engage more with academic-minded atheists, in the hopes of bringing some enlightenment to lay atheists and Christians alike.

Thomas Sheedy started a secular club in his High School. Ed Hensley joins us to discuss the Kentucky Freethought Convention. Also a discussion of the new data about the fall of Christianity from Pew Forum.

Matt Hawkins interviews Brian Grim, president and founder of Religious Freedom & Business Foundation (RFBF). Brian answers the question, "What has religious freedom to do with business?" Brian is a sociologist by trade and, while at the Pew Forum, built the research project that has become the standard for global religious freedom research. The post E14: Brian Grim & What has religious freedom to do with business? appeared first on Canon and Culture.

Listen to this sample broadcast by Dr. Kimberly Hardy talking about "African American Perspectives on Pastoral Counseling" originally recorded on October 26, 2012. Podcast Summary: The Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life has found that African-Americans are more religious than any other racial/ethnic group in the country. Born of struggle and resistance to societal injustice, the Black Church developed as a means of providing both a haven from harm and a sanctuary for worship. The Black Church is still critically important for African-Americans, but the roles it plays may be changing particularly regarding mental health. This session presents the findings of a survey study conducted in two phases: an electronic administration and a paper/pencil administration in the pews of several Black Churches in the mid-Atlantic region. The study identifies the perceptions of African-American Christians related to professional/secular and faith-based pastoral counseling. Specifically, the presentation will identify patterns of responses, reveal the preferred source of support for various personal and mental health issues, and specify ways in which to incorporate the findings into social education and practice.The sample audio was originally published as NACSW's January, 2015 Podcast of the Month. Join NACSW today to gain access to this full podcast, as well as other great resources for integrating Christian faith and social work practice.

Chuck and Patrick debate the importance of the Bible and what it says about marriage. We then interview Pastor Bob Fu who helped blind Chinese Pastor Chen Guanching escape from Communist China and Professor John C. Green of the Pew Forum on American changing attitudes toward religious expression and discussion in public life.

Summary of today's show: Four times as many people are leaving the Church as are entering and most of them are gone by the time they're 23. Why are they leaving? Where are they going? How can we help them stay? Sherry Weddell joins Scot Landry and Fr. Matt Williams to talk about her new book about forming intentional disciples and show how parishes can help them cross the threshold to discipleship and learn that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is not only possible, but intensely desirable. Listen to the show: Watch the show via live video streaming or a recording later: Today's host(s): Scot Landry and Fr. Matt Williams Today's guest(s): Sherry Weddell Links from today's show: Today's topics: Sherry Weddell and Forming Intentional Disciples 1st segment: Scot Landry welcomed everyone to the show and said today's guest is Sherry Weddell and her new book Forming Intentional Disciples is one of the top 5 books he's read in the past two years. But first, he welcomed Fr. Matt Williams to the show. They discussed the Office for the New Evangelization of Youth and Young Adults's annual award dinner last night in which 75 youth, young adults, and parish leaders received awards. The photos are available at . Fr. Matt said he talked last night about the Scripture in which the Lord's light has entered the world and the darkness has not overcome it. Yet the darkness is still there. He said the people there should be like stained glass windows, showing through Christ's light into the world. Scot said Sherry Anne Weddell created the first charism discernment process specifically designed for Catholics in 1993. In 1997, she co-founded the Catherine of Siena Institute, an affiliated international ministry of the Western Dominican Province, and currently serves as Co-Director. Sherry has developed numerous unique formation resources that are used around the world and trained and helps lead an international team who have worked directly with over 85,000 ordained, religious, and lay Catholics in more than 100 dioceses on 5 continents. Scot said he's heard a lot about Sherry's book in the the last few months, particularly among those in the archdiocese working on the new pastoral planning process to help parishes with evangelization. He said there's a lot of great wisdom in the book. He asked her to share a little of the information contained in her first chapters about the influx and outflow of the Catholic community. Sherry said most people think people are raised Catholic and stay Catholic. But in general about four times as many people are leaving the Church are entering. She said about 11 percent of people in church on Sunday are converts, but more are leaving, usually silently. Most leave and don't practice religion or they become Protestant. People are looking for help in their spiritual growth but can't find someone to help them in their parishes. Most people leave young, most before 18 and nearly all by 23. Religious change is a young adult thing, and this is true across religions. But our culture rewards faiths that evangelize intentionally and penalize faiths that rely on inherited religious identity. It's become normal for young adults to decide for themselves as young adults. The difference in other faiths, like evangelical Protestants, is that they evangelize intentionally and have a lot more people entering. The Pew Forum reported that 10% of American adults are former Catholics. Scot said of those who left the faith to become Protestant, they said their spiritual needs weren't being met. And they joined evangelical churches because they enjoyed the new faiths' services and worship in a way that fed them spiritually. Our retention strategy for Catholics is 400 years old, based on our response to he Protestant Reformation. Sherry said in many ways the Church reinvented herself in response to the Reformation. The whole elementary school system was built to evangelize children, for instance. But the modern culture has changed so drastically. The old belief was that if you have a child until he is 7, you will make the man. Most of our practices presume all of our efforts go into children and the adults will just stay. But statistically at the moment all these practices don't make much difference for where adults end up. She said less than half of Catholics told the Pew survey that you can have a personal relationship with God. Faith has to be personally meaningful. The encounter with Christ has always been at the center of the Christian faith. Fr. Matt said when we see that all these programs we're doing aren't working or aren't making a difference, is this because the programs themselves are bad or that whatever happens in the next stage makes them lose whatever they gained? Sherry said there was a study in Canada last year that said four things happened for young adults who practice their faith: 1. They'd seen answered prayer, 2. They'd been able to ask their real questions within the Christian community, 3. They'd encountered the real Christian Gospel story, 4. They'd had other adults around them living this and modeling it for them. If these were ture, they were likely to be there and if they weren't true, they were likely to be gone. The key is adult formation. So many of our children's parents aren't practicing. In New Zealand, 95% of parents of children in Catholic schools don't practice. If adults are disciples, they will communicate it in a living way to their children. That which isn't lived isn't transmitted. Scot said we can't outsource this from ourselves as parents to others. He said he'd never see someone say we're on three spiritual journeys at the same time: A personal journey to be an intentional disciple; a journey of being initiated through the sacraments; a journey of active practice of the faith. Going through sacramental formation and attending church only fulfill the last two. Sherry said the first one is always treated as optional in Catholic circles and among Catholics there's a spiral of silence about talking about your personal relationship with Christ. Sherry said people tell her that they feel like they're betraying their Catholicism if they have a personal relationship with Christ and so they hide it from the rest of their parish. In the typical parish, when parish leaders are asked to estimate the percentage of intentional disciples, the answer comes back as 5%. What happens to this 5% is that they have pressure to conform. Our brains are wired to see standing out as being wrong. People respond by going underground or backtracking or leaving. She's heard multiple stories of Catholics who had a spiritual awakening in their life and were thinking of leaving because they couldn't find anyone to talk to about it. Sherry said when they talk to parishes, they tell them they have to break the silence so people know that it's possible to talk about a personal relationship with God. We need to be talking with each other about the challenge of saying Yes or No to Jesus' invitation to follow him. She said she challenges a parish based on their estimated percentage of intentional disciples to double it in five years. What would be the result in the parish, not because the numbers aren't important but because each person is important. Scot said in the typical parish there are two tracks: the ordinary track and the saint track, which most people don't feel worthy of. What we don't have is the intentional disciple track where people are on a journey but aren't saints yet. Sherry shared the story of someone she worked with who wanted to be on the intentional disciple track and people didn't know what to do with him except say he should study for the priesthood. Sherry said we're supposed to expect conversion and plan for it. We react as if we're surprised by it. She said the young man in the story had a dramatic conversion, having been a meth addict and converting on Divine Mercy Sunday. He was on fire for Christ and the parish just didn't know what to do with him. Disciples understand the journey of a disciple. You can't only understand and facilitate someone else's journey depending on how far you've journeyed. She said some of her collaborators are finding ways to let intentional disciples help form other disciples. This should be essential to post-RCIA, after retreats. Even after you become a disciple, so much of what the Church calls us to do is dependent on what we do developmentally, not on theological categories. It's as much about our interior journey with God as it is with the sacraments we've checked out in order to release the graces in those sacraments. To go public with it requires a maturity as a disciple. Even the most basic witness is dependent on a level of growth. Fr. Matt said we can't just assume that because people go to church that they're disciples. Fr. Matt said that as a priest he has to remember there might be people in the pews who are on the verge of leaving or on the threshold of faith. He has begun thinking about he can help people move on to the next step toward intentional discipleship. Sherry said typically there is someone in our pews. About 2% of people in pews each Sunday are non-Catholics and 2% more are inactive Catholics. We need first to have a bridge of trust. That means that they have some positive association with the Church or Jesus or God or even just a particular Christian. Does a person have that trust in something? It doesn't have to make sense. Some people trust the Virgin Mary, but not God or the Church, for example. If it doesn't exist we have to build it. The second threshold is curiosity. For example, they can be interested in the possibility of having a personal relationship with God. We want to stir their curiosity about Jesus Christ. We want to avoid giving them factual answers to their questions. We want to rouse them to greater curiosity through new questions. The third threshold is openness. The person is acknowledging the possibility of a personal relationship. There is no commitment here. This can be very scary. We have to understand how scary the Church can be from the outside. The fourth threshold is seeking. This is serious wrestling. This isn't casual anymore. They are considering a commitment to Jesus Christ and His Church. It can feel like a quest and there can be an urgency in it for the person who is seeking. They have moved from passive to active. The fifth threshold is intentional discipleship, making a commitment to follow Jesus Christ. This is just the beginning of the journey of discipleship. Scot asked Sherry what makes an intentional disciple. Sherry said when she was 21 living in New York City, what she said was “OK, Jesus” and what she meant was “I am saying Yes to following you now.” Because she didn't know much about him, she set out to find out. So an intentional disciple should set out to get to know him. Start with a New Testament and read it. If she was seeking, she would pray to God with whatever faith she had now, without pretending, asking Him to show Himself to her. Offer yourself to him with the faith you have now and for what's real and no substitutes. If he is a loving God and Jesus Christ is his son who lived among us and taught and healed and forgave and suffered on the Cross for us and was risen for us, if all that's real, then say you want it and that you need God to lead you. Then find a Catholic parish and ask the possibility of taking part in RCIA, which isn't a commitment but is designed for people who are seeking. But the first step is declaring your openness to God. Scot said the best part of the book is pages 207-217, which is about the great story of Jesus in nine acts. 2nd segment: This week's benefactor card raffle winner is Barbara Wojciechowski from Lynn She wins the book If you would like to be eligible to win in an upcoming week, please visit . For a one-time $50 donation, you'll receive the Station of the Cross benefactor card and key tag, making you eligible for WQOM's weekly raffle of books, DVDs, CDs and religious items. We'll be announcing the winner each Wednesday during “The Good Catholic Life” program.

*Please note that part of this session is not included in the podcast because of a technical error.* The emergence of the Tea Party, the revolts in the Muslim countries, the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage --- all have religious implications. But how big a role will religion play in the 2012 presidential race? Our experts make their predictions. # Speakers - John Green, Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life & University of Akron - Melinda Henneberger, Politics Daily - Laura Olson, Clemson University # Moderator - Jeff Diamant, The Star Ledger

An overview of the survey and expert analysis of the values, experiences and demographics of today's teens and twentysomethings. Panelists were: David Campbell, associate professor of political science, University of Notre Dame; Neil Howe, co-author, Millennials Rising; Mark Lopez, associate director, Pew Hispanic Center; Allison Pond, research associate, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life; and Paul Taylor, executive vice president, Pew Research Center.

Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life discussed the Religious Landscape Survey -- a 2007 survey of more than 35,000 Americans ages 18 and older. The extensive new survey detailed the religious affiliation of the American public.

(October 13, 2009) Support for same-sex civil unions is on the rise among Americans, according to Greg Smith of the Pew Forum, though many Americans still oppose them.  What does this mean?  Dr J and Todd Wilken discuss some of the different ways to interpret the data on Issues, Etc.

In this Episode John Larsen is joined by regular panelists Tom, James and Nyal to discuss the statistical findings of the Pew Forum Portrait of Mormons in the US released on July 24th, 2009. The Pew paper can be found at http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=427. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mormonexpression/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/mormonexpression/support

Host:  Dr. Barry Creamer discusses the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Survey.

Freethought Radio discusses exciting new statistics from a major study released this week showing that the nonreligious are the 4th largest sector by religious (or nonreligious) identification in the United States today. Guest is Greg Smith, Pew Forum on Religion. The show also examines the role that women freethinkers have played in making women's history, in honor of women's history month.

On this edition of the podcast, we pause to remember the contributions of William F. Buckley to the Acton Institute and to the conservative movement as a whole with Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico. The Acton podcast crew is then joined by Professor Joseph Knippenberg from Oglethorp University in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss the Pew Forum's newly released research on the American religious landscape. Why is there so much church shopping going on, and is it good or bad? Finally, we listen in to some bonus audio from Dr. Glenn Sunshine's Acton Lecture Series address, Wealth, Work and the Church. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Even among deeply religious Americans, there’s no consensus on the proper role of religion in politics. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washington, D.C., recently invited two veteran politicians to address this issue: former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, and Congressman Mark Souder of Indiana. They were asked to speak about how they have reconciled personal religious conviction with serving a pluralistic American constituency.