Source: Charisma News Author: ABBY CARR A new study might reveal why a majority of Christian teens abandon their faith upon high school graduation. Some time ago, Christian pollster George Barna documented that 61 percent of today's 20-somethings who had been churched at one point during their teen years are now spiritually disengaged. They do not attend church, read their Bible or pray. According to a new five-week, three-question national survey sponsored by the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (NCFIC), the youth group itself is the problem. Fifty-five percent of American Christians are concerned with modern youth ministry because it's too shallow and too entertainment-focused, resulting in an inability to train mature believers. But even if church youth groups had the gravitas of Dallas Theological Seminary, 36 percent of today's believers are convinced youth groups themselves are not even biblical.
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Source: The Telegraph Author: Anna Roberts Metal spikes have been installed outside a block of luxury flats in London to deter homeless people from sleeping there. But the installation of the studs has provoked criticism from some after a picture was uploaded to Twitter, the social networking site. Users said the use of the studs meant homeless people were being treated the same way as pigeons, as similar metal spikes are used to deter them. Source: NBC News Author: CLAUDIO LAVANGA TICAN CITY — The Israeli and Palestinian presidents joined in an unprecedented prayer meeting with Pope Francis Sunday, a gesture the pontiff hopes will "re-create a desire, a possibility" of kick-starting the stalled Middle East peace process. Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accepted a surprise public invitation from Francis to come to “his home” to pray together during his recent visit to the region. “It is my hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of a new journey where we seek the things that unite, so as to overcome the things that divide,” Francis said Sunday. He thanked the presidents for accepting his invitation, and said that people of varied cultures and religions had been praying for a meeting of this nature. The Vatican is keen to play down suggestions that Sunday’s event is political, but it is nonetheless a symbolic gesture that has the power to stir public opinion and put pressure on the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to find a way out of the stalemate. Source: Desert NewsBy Mark A. Kellner WASHINGTON — A small group of political and religious leaders from the United States, including Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, met privately with Pope Francis at the Vatican today. Part of a multiday, unofficial visit to Italy to promote ecumenical prayer and interfaith understanding, Lee was joined in the private audience by former U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne; Lakewood Church pastor and televangelist Joel Osteen; Tim Timmons, a pastor and author based in Newport Beach, California; and Gayle D. Beebe, president of Westmont College, an evangelical school in Santa Barbara, California. Lee said The International Foundation, a private nonprofit, arranged the trip. Source: Fox Nation Al Arabyia News For the first time in history, Islamic prayers and readings from the Quran will be heard at the Vatican on Sunday, in a move by Pope Francis to usher in peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Francis issued the invitation to Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit last week to Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority. Source: http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/ Author: Faith Braverman The Antithesis of Freedom is Forced Association DANBURY, U.K.–A wealthy gay couple has decided to launch a lawsuit to force their church to perform their wedding. The Drewitt-Barlows, a millionaire couple from the U.K, stated, “We’ve launched a challenge to the government’s decision to allow some religious groups to opt out of marrying same-sex couples.” Both attend St. John the Baptist church, a branch of the Church of England, and have been in a civil partnership since 2006. Barrie Drewitt-Barlow said that he and his partner Tony, “feel we have the right as parishioners in our village to utilize the church we attend to get married. Author: Patrick Goodenough (CNSNews.com) – Days before the National September 11 Memorial Museum opens in New York, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is stepping up its campaign to urge organizers to edit a video presentation on al-Qaeda, to remove terms such as “Islamist extremism” and “jihadism.” An earlier CAIR initiative – a letter last month co-signed by several other Muslim and Arab-American organizations, complaining to museum directors about what they called “academically controversial terminology” – met with no success. On Monday CAIR’s New York chapter began asking “all Americans” to lobby national and New York leaders on the issue. Source: Huffington Post
A police criminal complaint filed against two 12-year-old girls who allegedly stabbed their 12-year-old friend 19 times this past weekend offers dark reading about the vicious attack and the girls' alleged motive -- to prove the existence of a fictional creature named "Slenderman." Source:FrontPage Magazine Author: Raymond Ibrahim Originally published by theGatestone Institute Human rights organization Open Doors published its 2014 World Watch List in January, highlighting and ranking the top 50 nations that persecute Christians. The overwhelming majority of countries making the list—and nine of the top ten worst offenders—are Muslim, and include nations from among America’s allies (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) and its contenders (Iran); from among economically rich nations (Qatar) and poor nations (Somalia and Yemen); from among “Islamic republic” nations (Afghanistan), “democracies” (Iraq), and “moderate” nations (Malaysia and Indonesia). The report also indicates that every Muslim nation that the U.S. has helped “liberate,” including in the context of the “Arab Spring,” has become significantly worse for Christians and other minorities. Previously moderate Syria is now ranked the third worst nation in the world to be Christian, Iraq fourth, Afghanistan fifth, and Libya 13th. All four receive the worst designation in the ranking process: “extreme persecution. |
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