Faith

Via Digg, from a press release of the same title:

Recently, the world's most visited Christian website, ChristiaNet.com, conducted a survey asking site visitors eleven questions about their personal sexual conduct... ...there were one thousand responses to the poll conducted by ChristiaNet.com. ChristiaNet.com partnered with Second Glance Ministries in evaluating the poll responses... "The poll results indicate that 50% of all Christian men and 20% of all Christian women are addicted to pornography," said Clay Jones, founder and President of Second Glance Ministries whose ministry objectives include providing people with information which will enable them to fully understand the impact of today's societal issues. 60% of the women who answered the survey admitted to having significant struggles with lust; 40% admitted to being involved in sexual sin in the past year; and 20% of the church-going female participants struggle with looking at pornography on an ongoing basis.

I've been curious to find out what happened on Lucado, Atchley, et al.'s trip to China. Atchley reports on how it went in a video (if that link doesn't work, search for "Trip to China Report" from August 9, 2006, on this page for the RealVideo link) on the Richland Hills church of Christ web site. Here's a summary: The trip was the brainchild of John Bentley, a missionary in China who, along with his wife Lisa, founded Harmony Outreach, a ministry that operates a children's home for special-needs orphans in China and helps connect people and organizations to China (see the Harmony Outreach website and also a Tyndale House Publisher's bio about Lisa). John had the idea to arrange a delegation of Christian leaders from America including:

• Rick Atchley (Richland Hills Church of Christ, Richland Hills, TX)
• Bob Russell (Southeast Christian Seminary, Louisville)
• Max Lucado (Oak Hills church, San Antonio, TX)
• Gary Smith (Fielder Road Baptist Church, Arlington, TX)
• Royce Money (President, Abilene Christian University)
• Rick Gregory (Vice President and Dean, Dallas Baptist University)
• John Bethany (representative from Focus on the Family)
• David Llewellyn (Attorney)

to meet with government officials about the possibility of better relations in China with the Christian faith. In order to go, they had to have a sponsor. "Chinese Charity Association" (maybe he meant "China Aid Association"?) had agreed to be their sponsor but got cold feet a couple days before they were to leave. When the group left for China, no meetings had yet been arranged. Once they had arrived, several important meetings were planned. The group visited John and Lisa's "Harmony House" orphanage. Apparently, China's one child policy means that babies with problems are discarded/abandoned. They met with the Chinese association in charge of social work. They agreed that it would be OK to come and do good works (for example, for the poor) in Jesus' name. They met with the equivalent of the state dept. They talked to the equivalent of our secretary of state about dreams for a more cooperative relationship with Chinese government. He listened politely and said "let us continue to dialogue more." They had lunch at the embassy in Beijing with US ambassador. They met with the state department for religious affairs, with the person with the cabinet level position in the party (an atheist) who controls all religion in China. He gave them the standard spiel that there are 16 million Christians in China and that the constitution says China allows freedom religion. They also met with an underground church leader. Overall, the trip seems to have resulted in plans for more activities and engagement with China. In less positive news about China, from an article this week in the NY Times by Howard W. French titled "China Adds Restrictions in Effort to Shake the Faith of Independent Congregations":

Tuanqianbu, China...Despite the 100-degree heat, there was a crowd at the little Protestant church this Sunday... Two weeks earlier, as many as 500 police officers surrounded the congregants as they were closing in on their long-held dream of completing construction of a new church nearby. The 3,000 or so people were driven away from the site, and those who argued or resisted in any way were arrested and, according to their lawyer, beaten. Then the church, with all but the roof in place, was demolished. The campaign against this poor little church outside Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province in eastern China, is part of a national wave of repression against independent, or underground, churches that are not registered with the government and do not recognize the authority of state-appointed spiritual leaders. Since the law regulating religious affairs was introduced in March 2005, provincial and local governments have begun a series of crackdowns on underground churches across China. The vaguely worded new rules call for local governments to "standardize" the management of religion nationwide. The Chinese crackdown, which also affects other faiths, especially Buddhism in Tibet and Islam in the far western Xinjiang Province, comes at a time of booming growth in underground churches across the country. The right to practice any of five recognized faiths - Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam and Protestantism - is enshrined in the Chinese Constitution, and the authorities routinely insist that religious freedom exists in this country. Under Chinese law, however, all recognized faiths must be registered and approved by the government, and they are closely monitored and required to follow strict and frequently changing regulations... According to the China Aid Association, an American Christian advocacy group that monitors religious freedom in China, 1,958 pastors were arrested at churches like these in the last year alone. Although the crackdown is decentralized, with each province and locality carrying out the repression on its own, the pattern is as unmistakable as the constant stream of incidents. In one recent case, in Tongwei, a village in eastern Anhui Province in late July, 90 children were reportedly detained with 40 adults after the police raided a Protestant Sunday school, calling the church teachings "illegal evangelism." Around the same time, in Hebei Province in the north, as many as 90 protesters were arrested after demanding the release of two clergymen from the underground Roman Catholic church, who had been detained without explanation.

Sounds like "complete freedom of religion" to me!

I was impressed by this story about Boyd. I ordered a couple of his books and will let you know if they continue to impress. Via Andrew Sullivan's blog, from an article of the same title by Laurie Goodstein in the NY Times:

Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing - and the church's - to conservative political candidates and causes. The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute "voters' guides" that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn't the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary? After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called "The Cross and the Sword" in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a "Christian nation" and stop glorifying American military campaigns... Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God's ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul - packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals - was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members. But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share... Sermons like Mr. Boyd's are hardly typical in today's evangelical churches. But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq... "There is a lot of discontent brewing," said Brian D. McLaren, the founding pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Gaithersburg, Md., and a leader in the evangelical movement known as the "emerging church," which is at the forefront of challenging the more politicized evangelical establishment. "More and more people are saying this has gone too far - the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right," Mr. McLaren said. "You cannot say the word ‘Jesus' in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can't say the word ‘Christian,' and you certainly can't say the word ‘evangelical' without it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people. "Because people think, ‘Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about ‘activist judges.' "... "When we joined years ago, Greg was a conservative speaker," said William Berggren, a lawyer who joined the church with his wife six years ago. "But we totally disagreed with him on this. You can't be a Christian and ignore actions that you feel are wrong. A case in point is the abortion issue. If the church were awake when abortion was passed in the 70's, it wouldn't have happened. But the church was asleep."... He said he first became alarmed while visiting another megachurch's worship service on a Fourth of July years ago. The service finished with the chorus singing "God Bless America" and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses. "I thought to myself, ‘What just happened? Fighter jets mixed up with the cross?' " he said in an interview... In his six sermons, Mr. Boyd laid out a broad argument that the role of Christians was not to seek "power over" others - by controlling governments, passing legislation or fighting wars. Christians should instead seek to have "power under" others - "winning people's hearts" by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did, Mr. Boyd said. "America wasn't founded as a theocracy," he said. "America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state. "I am sorry to tell you," he continued, "that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ."... Mr. Boyd now says of the upheaval: "I don't regret any aspect of it at all. It was a defining moment for us. We let go of something we were never called to be. We just didn't know the price we were going to pay for doing it."

From an article of the same tite in The Christian Chronicle:

The Dallas Mavericks made Maurice Ager - a faithful member of the Holmes Road church, Lansing, Mich., during his four seasons at Michigan State - their top pick in the recent NBA draft. Holmes Road associate minister Todd Greer describes Ager, the overall No. 28 pick in the draft's first round, as not only a great player but also "a young man who has his priorities in line."

From an article of the same title by Elizabeth Mehren of the LA Times and reprinted in the Detroit News:

Most traditional barriers to religion in presidential elections have toppled, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found. In particular, the survey to be released Monday showed that anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism are fading as voter taboos. But uneasiness about some religions persists. Thirty-seven percent of those questioned said they would not vote for a Mormon presidential candidate -- and 54 percent said no to the prospect of a Muslim in the White House. In addition, 21 percent said they could not vote for an evangelical Christian. Only 15 percent replied that they would not vote for a Jewish presidential candidate. Just 10 percent of those polled were unwilling to cast ballots for a Catholic chief executive. "This clearly shows that the old Protestant/Catholic/Jewish distinction has largely eroded in American politics," said David Campbell, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame.