Tag: Christians

Christianity in the U.S. is quickly declining, May no longer be the majority religion by 2070

ETH – September 14, 2022

(OPINION) Christianity has remained at the forefront of the nation’s political and social conversations for centuries — but new research shows that could be changing.

A new report by Pew Research Center and the General Social Survey published on Tuesday found that the large numbers of people in the U.S who practice Christianity are declining. The religion’s demographic has been dwindling since the 1990s, the report said, as many adults transition to an identity of atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.”

In the early ’90s, about 90% of people in the U.S. identified as Christians, the report said. In 2020, Christians accounted for about 64% of the U.S. population, including children. Meanwhile, those who are not affiliated with a religion has grown from 16% in 2007 to 30% in 2020, according to the research. All other religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, accounted for about 6% in 2020.

Pew and GSS paired up to analyze how those numbers could change if the Christian decline accelerates or stops, and how other demographic trends, including migration and rates of birth and death, would influence the outcomes. The researchers only looked at religious identity, rather than religious beliefs and practices.

Four potential scenarios were considered: a stable rate of people moving in and out of Christianity; an increasing share of Christians leaving their religion as a decreasing number of people with no religious affiliation switching in; the same as the former but with no more than 50% of Christians switching their identity; and a scenario in which no person changes their religion.

“Depending on the future of religious switching, people who identify as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular’ could become America’s largest (non)religious group within our lifetime,” Pew researcher Stephanie Kramer tweeted.

In all of the scenarios, even if nobody switches their religious affiliation in the coming decades, the number of religiously unaffiliated people is hypothesized to approach or exceed the number of Christians by 2070, the report found.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Evil Roe Reaction: Witches, Warlocks Attack Christians with ‘Guttural Growls,’ ‘Demonic Curses’; Satanists to Create Own ‘Abortion Facilities’ | CBN News

Andrea Morris – June 26, 2022

A cadre of witches, Satanists, and devil worshippers have crept out of the darkness to display their rage over the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Some of these evil activists have been summoning demonic forces, engaging in spiritual attacks and verbal assaults against pro-life advocates and Christians outside of the High Court as they have prayed for peace for the nation.

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, a non-profit Christian religious rights law firm, said the witch-like protesters attempted to scare members from his D.C. office as they held a prayer vigil outside the Supreme Court.

“Black-robed men and women began arriving on the scene, screaming obscenities over the prayers,” Staver said. “A pro-abortion demonstrator brought a wagon carrying a large boom box blaring satanic ‘music’ and noise. A woman walked right up to our podium and stood next to the pro-life speaker.”

Staver continued, “Every time the pro-lifer spoke, the woman would scream unmentionable curses into a megaphone pointed at the podium microphone. The pro-abortion crowd began cursing the Justices, the people praying, and vehemently cursing God.”

He noted that the witches and warlocks were persistent in their efforts to drown out the Christians praying, but the intercessors would not give up.

Staver reports a man dressed like a warlock targeted senior women who were praying on the steps of the Supreme Court.

“The warlock would crowd one woman at a time, making the sign of Satan over each woman’s head. As he made the sign, guttural growls and a language our staff could not understand issued from his throat as he spat his demonic curses over the women. One by one, he tried to corner and curse them,” Staver said.

https://www1.cbn.com

Is religious liberty ‘hanging by a thread’?

Rev. Robert J. Pacienza – August 8, 2022

Several years ago, North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby sparked a significant public debate when he said that our “religious liberties are hanging by a thread.”

Are they? Well, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia have issued similar warnings – and for good reason.

As the president and CEO of D. James Kennedy Ministries, and the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in South Florida, I’m concerned about the curtailing of religious liberty and the negative effects of this trend on all citizens – religious and non-religious alike.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Constitution is clear: Religious freedom extends not only to beliefs, but also public actions based on those beliefs.When religious freedom is upheld, the conditions are set for all of society to flourish. Yet, when religious freedom – the freedom to be Christian, atheist, Buddhist, or otherwise – is threatened, every other freedom is threatened as well.

Yet, in spite of religious liberty’s enshrinement in the Constitution, a number of political trends and Supreme Court rulings have diminished its legal stature. Chief among these threats is the effort to redefine religious liberty itself. Progressives have made a concerted effort to reduce the “free exercise” of religion either to private piety or the semi-public worship that takes place within the four walls of a church building.

https://www.wnd.com

Now They Are Literally Bowing Down And Worshipping Baal Right In Front Of Our Eyes

– August 4, 2022

They aren’t even trying to hide it anymore.  During the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England on July 28th, a giant mechanical bull with glowing red eyes was rolled out into the center of Alexander Stadium.  The bull was approximately 10 meters high, and it took more than five months to build.  It had been given the nickname “Raging Bull”, and it absolutely dwarfed all of the human participants that were involved in the performance.  The “hero” of the opening ceremony, a character known as Stella, calmed the creature down and then all of the human performers gathered around the giant bull and literally began to bow down and worship it.  I have seen a lot of really weird things in recent years, but I have never seen anything quite like this.

A total of 72 nations participate in the Commonwealth Games, and so this opening ceremony was being viewed on countless television screens all over the planet.

The symbolism in this “ritual” was well planned in advance, and the organizers knew exactly what they were doing.

But they were also counting on the fact that the vast majority of the general population would not consciously catch on to what was actually taking place.

The bull has always been a symbol of an ancient deity from the Middle East known as “Baal”.  The following comes from Christianity.com…

In artistic depictions and archeological finds, Baal took the shape of a bull or ram and had associations with fertility.

This god also, apparently according to Canaanite lore, defeated El and had associations with the sun and thunder. And of all the foreign gods the Israelites came into contact with, they appeared to struggle the most with worshipping this one.

If we could go back thousands of years and roll out a giant bull with glowing red eyes for the people of the ancient Middle East, they would instantly understand what was going on.

Nobody would need to tell them that it was a statue of Baal and that they were intended to worship it.

http://endoftheamericandream.com

Respect for Marriage Act Will Usher In ‘New Era of Oppression’ for Christians

Ben Johnson – July 26, 2022

Senate Republicans are feeling the pressure to defend marriage and the natural family, as two large grassroots coalitions warn them that a controversial bill will fuel frivolous litigation and subject the most fundamental unit of society to an infinite variety of experimentation and tampering.

H.R. 8404, which proponents of redefining marriage have dubbed the “Respect for Marriage” Act, would require states to accept any marriage legally recognized in any other state “without any parameters whatsoever,” one of the coalitions notes. “This would include plural marriages, time-bound marriages, open marriages, marriages involving a minor or relative, platonic marriages, or any other new marriage definition that a state chooses to adopt, including through undemocratic imposition by a state Supreme Court,” wrote 83 grassroots organizations led by the Alliance Defending Freedom in a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Another letter cites 10 lawsuits that have already targeted Christians for living according to their biblical values, stating if the hastily introduced legislation passes, far-left activists will take Christians and observant Jews to court for living out their faiths.

“The Court’s decision in Obergefell unleashed religious freedom violations across the land, launching a new era of harassment and coercion of millions of Americans who hold a sincere religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is, or ought to be, between one man and one woman,” wrote the Conservative Action Project, which was founded by Reagan administration Attorney General Edwin Meese and is now chaired by former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. “The Respect for Marriage Act will further usher in this new era of oppression.”

“This legislation will only hasten and intensify hostility” against “those who decline to openly embrace extreme views regarding marriage and human sexuality,” agreed ADF. “H.R. 8404 effectively deputizes activist groups to sue religious individuals, organizations, and businesses that operate according to their sincerely held religious belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.”

The law could also give birth to draconian federal regulations designed to force Christian and other traditional religious organizations out of the public square. “The Internal Revenue Service could rely on this congressional declaration requiring full recognition of same-sex marriage to strip 501(c)(3) organizations of their tax-exempt status if they continue to adhere to their belief that marriage is only between one man and one woman,” ADF wrote.

https://washingtonstand.com

Christian group warns social media can be ‘deadly’ after 2 girls die in TikTok challenge

Samantha Kamman – July 21, 2022

A Christian organization commented on the potential harms of young children using social media without proper supervision amid reports that two sets of parents are suing TikTok over the belief the company could have done more to prevent their daughters’ deaths via an online challenge.

The Social Media Victims Law Center filed a civil lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance Ltd., in a Los Angeles County court on behalf of the families of Lalani Erika Walton and Arriani Jaileen Arroyo, two children who died while attempting the viral TikTok challenge known as the “blackout challenge.”

Participants in the challenge share videos depicting self-strangulation until they lose consciousness. Walton and Arriani, ages eight and nine, respectively, died after participating in the challenge.

The parents claim that their children became addicted to TikTok and that the platform promoted content that influenced the kids to harm themselves.

Paul Asay, senior associate editor of the Christian organization Focus on the Family’s PluggedIn.com, which helps parents navigate popular entertainment, weighed in on the controversy, stressing that social media comes with a “built-in irony.”

Asay told The Christian Post that these applications are intended to strengthen friendships but are also a “business.” He said the purpose of the business is to “keep their users as involved and engaged as much as they possibly can.”

He stated that this can be a problem for kids and teens using social media applications. The associate editor argued that children typically don’t have the ability to make “wise, healthy decisions for themselves.”

“Social media is designed to be addictive, in a way — designed to keep its users engaged with it as long as possible,” Asay wrote. “And, as this tragic story illustrates, content found on such sites can be damaging, dangerous and deadly — especially for children.”

https://www.terradaily.com

Disney Doesn’t Want Christians in their Parks, Says Ex-Employee

– July 13, 2022

A former Walt Disney World employee claims the company doesn’t want Christians in their parks or on their payroll.

In an interview with Fox News, Barbara Andreas, who was let go in March, said, “We’ve been very vocal that it feels like Disney is getting closer and closer to not wanting Christians there. Not on their parks, not on their payroll.”

This comes after two other former Disney employees were fired after giving religious exemptions for the vaccine; they are now suing the company for religious discrimination.

Barbara Andreas, says she was called out by a general manager, “made to feel like a bad person, a bad leader, and totally singled out.”Both employees claim to have reached out multiple times about the status of their exemptions but were ignored by their higher-ups at Disney. When Stephen Cribb, the other employee, asked to have an attorney present, they allegedly refused further conversations regarding his exemption.

Carroll Sanders, the attorney representing them, “spent a great deal of time reaching out” as well and was met with similar silence before filling the lawsuit. He continued to say they have “at least a dozen more plaintiffs in the pipeline” meaning the lawsuit could grow to a larger problem for Disney.

“We want to be valued; we want to be accepted… Disney just thinks they are above the law,” said Andreas.

Disney’s decision to jump into the culture wars has caused significant debate with the nation’s Christian community.

https://www.toddstarnes.com

Elites finally reveal their #1 enemy: CHRISTIANS

WND Staff – June 27, 2022

Two shocking and unprecedented megatrends are unfolding simultaneously in the United States of America right now.

The first is the explosion of what can only be described as openly predatory targeting of America’s children by legions of “gender activists” obsessed with seducing, grooming and recruiting kids into the phantasmagoric transgender world of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgical amputation of healthy body parts and astronomical suicide rates.

Incredibly, this wild celebration of transgenderism is being praised, promoted and funded by the ruling class at the highest levels, from the White House on down, while all who sound the alarm are demonized and canceled.

At first, this trend manifested most notably as “drag queen story hour” events hosted in public libraries across the nation, during which innocent toddlers would be made to sit at the feet of severely mentally ill men (often made-up to appear openly demonic) and be regaled with tales of heroic LGBT characters. But that was just the warm-up.

Today, while almost all of America’s big institutions – big media, big tech, big government, big education, big business, big sports – gush uncontrollably over “Pride Month,” glorifying everything homosexual, transgender and “nonbinary,” the push to groom America’s children into the LGBT lifestyle has gone into overdrive. Disney staffers explicitly brag on camera about inserting as much “queerness” as possible into their entertainment products. After-school “gay-straight alliance” (GSA) clubs, which purport to be support groups but in reality are all about recruitment, are rapidly proliferating throughout America’s public schools. Teachers with bizarre hairdos and multiple facial piercings openly proselytize America’s children, some evangelizing the new transgender salvation aggressively on social media platforms like TikTok.

However, as Tucker Carlson recently put it, “Having some purple-haired loser in a nose ring convince your six-year-old to get a sex change is not why most people send their children to school.”

And yet, although the nation is wracked with violent crime, edging toward financial collapse and losing 290 people daily from drug overdoses, the Biden administration is focused on recruiting children into transgenderism, with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra fully supporting taxpayer-funded amputations of healthy body parts of these vulnerable young people. Or as Becerra ghoulishly put it, “We should help those have the life-affirming care that they need.”

Predictably, as a result of this explosion of LGBT proselytizers, promoters and cheerleaders, a newly minted syndrome has magically emerged among America’s youth: “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” or ROGD. Mission accomplished.

Consider now the second megatrend.

While this sexual-gender anarchy is exploding nationwide – and alongside it, of course, the rest of the deranged Biden agenda, from engineering an ever-expanding foreign invasion of America across its southern border, to destroying the nation’s fossil fuel industry, to bringing the U.S. to the brink of nuclear war with Russia – the very same political, financial, cultural and sexual revolutionaries responsible for all of this chaos have finally dared to “come out” and publicly identify who exactly they consider to be their biggest enemy.

Christians.

https://www.wnd.com

Supremes rule on state discrimination against religious schools

Bob Unruh – June 21, 2022

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled the state of Maine cannot discriminate against religious schools by excluding them from a state program that lets parents use vouchers to pay tuition for their children.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 6-3 majority opinion that explained Maine’s tuition program, which blocked the funds from being used at religious schools, cannot stand.

The ruling echoes a similar ruling from just a few years ago involving religious schools in Montana.

In the Maine case, a family argued that by excluding religious schools from the voucher program, the state was actively discriminating against religion.

Michael Bindas, an attorney for the nonprofit legal group Institute for Justice, argued the case on behalf of the plaintiffs.

“Maine’s ‘nonsectarian’ requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” Roberts wrote in the case of Carson v. Maykin.

“Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise.”

Christopher Taub, the chief deputy attorney general for Maine, had claimed that the state shouldn’t be funding anything that instills religious beliefs, and that providing money for secular private schools does not do that, but that money going to religious schools does.

The state of Maine provides such vouchers to families of students who live where is no local public school to attend – but insisted that the vouchers not be used at religious or “sectarian” schools.

Roberts, during oral arguments, wondered openly about the state’s demands.

“You’re discriminating among religions based on their beliefs,” he said.

https://www.wnd.com

A Global Uptick in the Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Raymond Ibrahim – June 13, 2022

Another day has passed, and another Muslim man has murdered another Coptic Christian in Egypt.

On Sunday, June 5, 2022 — the same day Muslims attacked a packed church in Nigeria, massacring more than 50 Christians — Abdullah Hosni, a Muslim man with a long history of harassing Christians, randomly attacked a Copt, Kirollos (Cyril) Megali, with a meat cleaver in a village in Sohag, Upper Egypt.

Kirollos, who was rushed to a hospital “drenched in blood and with multiple stab wounds,” spent three days in an intensive care unit before succumbing to his injuries, including hack wounds to his skull.

According to the deceased’s brother, Abdullah was locally known for harassing Christians. He had relocated to Libya for a time but returned two days before assaulting Kirollos. The latter himself had been working abroad (in Kuwait) and was visiting family when Abdullah knocked him off his motorbike and started hacking at him [keep reading for more on this story and for pictures].

A few weeks before this latest murder of a Coptic Christian at the hands of a Muslim in Egypt, another young Copt was murdered by a Muslim man — who later said he was moved to the act due to his “loyalty to Allah” — and Fr. Arsenius Wadid was stabbed to death in broad daylight by another knife wielding Muslim man.

Meanwhile, this sort of savagery that was once reserved for Muslim majority nations has come to the West. Turning to France alone, just the other day, a Muslim man stabbed a Christian man ten times in the throat — “in the name of Allah.” The murder occurred near a Catholic school, where the slain was picking up his children, aged 3 and 7; they witnessed the butchery of their father. A few days before that, also in France, three Muslim men tortured and slit the throat of a 70-year-old French woman in her retirement home.

And how have the “powers-that-be” responded? The UN recently inaugurated a “combat Islamophobia” day, and the European Parliament, after being petitioned to discuss the global persecution of Christians soon after a young Christian girl was stoned and burned to death in Nigeria, refused, saying there’s nothing to talk about. Two weeks later, Muslims shot up another church in Nigeria, killing more than 50.

https://pjmedia.com