We have
compiled a list of twenty trends, in the news, for 2007.
You can read this
review by clicking on the link below
http://www.understandthetimes.org/yir200
7.shtml
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January 12 - To believe, or not to believe: Author examines what moves people toward or away from God, church
Article: .Emerging Church
FINDLAY - People don't undergo religious
conversion, switch traditions,
or give up on God unless they are
experiencing a crisis,
said Scot McKnight, a New Testament
scholar, author, and professor
of religious studies at North Park
University in Chicago.
"I like to talk about Brian
McLaren, Rob Bell, because
these students like them. They like them and
that's good enough for
me," Mr. McKnight said.
"I want to find out what's
making them tick. They read [Donald
Miller's book] Blue Like Jazz, I
read Blue Like Jazz. I didn't think it
was all that good of a book,
but they think it's awesome."
Today's
college students are brought up
with a
vastly different perspective on morality
than previous
generations, he said. "We are
increasingly living with
students who don't know what 'sin' means,"
Mr. McKnight said.
"Sometimes I think the worst thing
we can do for kids
is to expose them to Mister
Rogers because Mister Rogers is so nice. And
these
kids grow up believing that they're good and
that God loves them. We want
them to do that but we want them to have a
little pain in life so the Gospel
works more effectively," Mr.
McKnight said.
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January 13 - Bush: Iran threatens global security
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Worlds
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -
President Bush said Sunday
that Iran is
threatening the security of the
world, and that the United States and
Arab allies must join together
to confront the danger "before it's too
late."
Bush said Iran
funds
terrorist extremists,
undermines peace in Lebanon, sends arms to the
Taliban, seeks to intimidate its
neighbors with alarming rhetoric,
defies the United Nations and
destabilizes the entire region by refusing
to be open about its nuclear
program.
"Iran is the
world's
leading state sponsor of
terror," Bush said in a speech he
delivered about mid-way
through his eight-day Mideast trip that began
with a
renewed push for an Israeli-Palestinian
peace pact - an accord he
said whose "time has
come."
"Iran's actions threaten
the security of nations
everywhere," Bush said.
"So the United States is
strengthening our long-standing security
commitments with our friends in the Gulf,
and rallying friends around the
world to confront this danger before it is
too late."
"This new era is being
built with the understanding that power is
a trust that must be exercised
with the consent of the governed,"
Bush said.
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January 12 - Former creationist preaches gospel of evolution
Article: Creation / Evolution - Creation / Evolution Debate
The Rev. Michael Dowd gave up a
permanent home to
travel the country
spreading his gospel in the
hope of reconciling
disparate beliefs. But the former pastor's
gospel may shock
many Christians. Dowd preaches
"evolution theology," a
view that promotes
evolutionary
science and God as the ultimate reality. In Dowd's
mind, you can
have Darwin and the divine.
Dowd is so
committed to spreading his message that he offers
his
book - "Thank God for Evolution! How
the
Marriage of
Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and
Our
World" - as a
free download on his Web site.
For more than
five years, Dowd, 49, and his wife, Connie Barlow,
a science writer,
have traveled the country in a high-top van that
they named Angel
and asked audiences from
many
backgrounds to
consider evolution theology. Their work has drawn
praise from Nobel
Prize-winning scientists.
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January 14 - More Americans' spiritual growth nurtured within
Article: Emerging Church
That means time is scarce, stress is high
and an
ordinary day - filled
with chatter and other noise - permits barely
a moment for the
mind to rest in silence. Maybe that's why a growing
number of
Americans are recognizing a
need to
develop their inner
life - if not as a spiritual practice, as a way
to cultivate balance
and depth in an increasingly hectic, chaotic,
24/7 world.
To
many people, focusing on their "inner life"
means cultivating a closer relationship with God,
perhaps by developing a
meditation or prayer practice or developing
other spiritual disciplines. To
others, it may be a more secular quest
for tranquility and
connectedness.
As
Americans, "our lives
don't support a contemplative
lifestyle" so much as "a constant search
for efficiency. We've got to have
some way of breaking through to what's
really important for us, and
spiritual discipline helps us to do
that."
Intentional effort can entail
a
traditional spiritual practice or some other
activity that clears the mind by
freeing it from the distractions of
ordinary thinking. Many people
combine several practices.
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January 11 - Bush Alters Stand on Palestinians
Article: Israel And The Last Days
JERUSALEM, Jan. 10 -- President Bush said
Thursday that Palestinian refugees should receive
compensation for the loss of homes they
fled or were forced to flee during
the establishment of
Israel
and declared that there should be an end
to Israel's "occupation" of lands
seized in war four decades ago.
At the same time, Bush restated his
past formulation that Israel
cannot be expected to give up all the land
captured during the 1967 war,
parts of which now have large Israeli
settlements, and that the two sides must make
territorial compromises that
reflect "current realities."
"There should be an end to the
occupation that began in
1967," Bush told reporters, referring to
the Middle East war during
which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza
Strip and Golan Heights. The
third territory was seized from Syria, but
a senior White House official
said Thursday that Bush intended to refer
only to the Palestinian areas.
"The agreement must establish
Palestine as a homeland for
the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a
homeland for the Jewish
people," Bush added.
"These negotiations must
ensure that Israel has
secure, recognized and
defensible borders. And they must ensure that the
state of Palestine is viable,
contiguous, sovereign and independent."
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January 15 - FBI wants instant access to British identity data
Article: One World Government
The US-initiated programme,
"Server in the
Sky", would take cooperation
between the police forces way
beyond
the current faxing of fingerprints across the Atlantic.
Allies in the "war against
terror" - the
US,
UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - have
formed a
working group, the International
Information Consortium, to plan
their
strategy.
Biometric measurements, irises or
palm
prints
as well as fingerprints, and other personal information
are
likely to be exchanged across the network. One
section
will feature the world's most wanted suspects. The
database could hold details of millions of
criminals and
suspects.
The FBI is keen
for the police forces
of
American allies to sign up to improve international
security.
The Home Office yesterday
confirmed it was aware of
Server
in the Sky, as did the Metropolitan police.
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January 16 - Digital Angel keeps tabs on animals
Article: One World Government
Digital Angel,
a GPS and
RFID tracking company, has acquired
Geissler Technologies Corporation, a
developer of electronic identification and
imaging technologies for animals.
Joseph Grillo, chief executive at
Digital Angel, said: "We believe that
bringing a founder of Destron Fearing
back to our company and the
intellectual property and products of
Geissler will further ensure that we
realise our growth
expectations."
Digital Angel uses RFID and GPS
technologies to enable the rapid and
accurate identification, location tracking
and condition monitoring of
people, animals and high-value
assets.
"The
technologies developed by Geissler
include g.TAGT, a
low frequency RFID device used for
animal traceability, and the r.TAGT high-
frequency long-range anti-collision
device used for extensive animal
management," said Grillo.
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January 15 - Soulforce aims to 'dialogue' with six mega-churches; warning offered
Article: Perilous Times
A coalition of
groups led by Soulforce is targeting
six U.S. mega-churches in an effort to foster
dialogue about Christian
views on homosexuality. Caleb Price with
Focus on the Family says the
campaign by the homosexual advocacy group
has a friendly façade that
belies the agenda of the group -- and that
the churches targeted need to
be on guard.This spring, members
of the pro-homosexual group
Soulforce and its allies will visit six
well-known churches
throughout the nation. Dubbed as "The
American
Family Outing," the
campaign targets the following churches: Lakewood
Church (pastored by Joel
Osteen), The Potter's House (T.D. Jakes), Hope
Christian Church (Harry
Jackson), New Birth Missionary Baptist Church
(Eddie Long), Willow Creek
Community Church (Bill Hybels), and
Saddleback Church (Rick
Warren).
According to the Soulforce
website, "lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender
people" and their families will attempt to
visit with members, pastors,
and leaders of the churches to talk about
religious views on
homosexuality. Their objective? "To begin a
process
of changing hearts and
minds" in those churches, says a
document
outlining the campaign,
and "to educate the
national public through the
media on the issues of faith, family, and
sexuality." The website
explains that a delegation of "families"
including adults and children
will visit each of the six churches.
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January 14 - NBC Show Criticized for Portraying Christians as Violent 'Bible Thumpers'
Article: Signs Of The Last Times
A recent "Law
& Order" show portraying a leader in a
college Christian ministry as anti-homosexual and
Christians as "Bible
thumpers" is drawing ire from a watchdog group
for
anti-Christian
bigotry.
In the opening of the NBC
show's episode last week, a leader in a
college Christian
ministry, who opposed
homosexuality, was portrayed
as being guilty of making death threats
against a professor studying
the "gay gene." The lead detective also
refers to Christians as
"Bible thumpers."There is a
relentless
attempt by the media to
stereotype Christians as prone to violence,
said Dr. Gary Cass, chairman
and CEO of the Christian Anti-Defamation
Commission, as he criticized
the producers as insensitive.
"There's a tendency on the side
of the media to
make what I call a 'moral
equivalency': If you are a fundamentalist
Muslim, you are violent. If you
are a fundamentalist Christian, you are
violent," he told
The Christian Post.
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January 17 - 'Saskatchewan's back': Harper
Article: Misc.
PRINCE ALBERT, SASK.
Prime Minister Stephen
Harper's visit to a frigid northern Saskatchewan
community Wednesday
appeared to bring signs of a
warmer relationship between
Ottawa and the province.
Mr.
Harper told more than 400 Conservative
supporters in Prince Albert that
Saskatchewan is
"a winning
province." "People are pouring into this
province from across
Canada and around the
world," said Mr. Harper.
"Saskatchewan's back.
She's a have province once
again, proud, self-sufficient and ready to
take on a bigger role in our
Canadian federation," he said.
Most of the remarks were
similar to other
campaign-style speeches Mr.
Harper has given in Saskatchewan.
There
were references to support for the military,
efforts to crack down on crime
and improve child care policies.
"We recognize that there
are some challenges ahead
especially in some regions and some sectors,
that's part of what brings me to
Prince Albert at this time,"
said Mr. Harper.
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January 15 - In Heart of Islamic World, Bush Puts Forth His Faith
Article: One World Religion
As he traveled
from Israel to the Persian Gulf
and, on Monday, to Saudi Arabia, keeper of
Islam's holiest sites, Mr. Bush
repeatedly cited
monotheistic faith, contending that
it served as the foundation for freedom,
justice and representative
government.
"A great new era is
unfolding before us," Mr. Bush said in a speech on
Sunday in an opulent hotel in Abu Dhabi,
the capital of the United Arab
Emirates. "This new era is founded on
the equality of all people before God. This
new era is being built with the
understanding that power is a trust that
must be exercised with the consent
of the governed - and deliver equal
justice under the law."
"Someday I hope that as a
result of a formation of a Palestinian state,
there won't be walls and
checkpoints, that people will be able to
move freely in a democratic state,"
he said, having seen
Israel's security barriers and
checkpoints for himself. "That's the
vision, greatly inspired by my belief that
there is an Almighty, and a gift
of that Almighty to each man, woman and
child on the face of the earth is
freedom."
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January 15 - Cultural Architect: Why Churches are Declining in America
Article: Emerging Church
A cutting-edge church leader known for
his
innovative ideas
on reaching a post-modern generation for Christ
contends the reason why churches are
declining
in America is
because they are self-centered."My
primary
assessment
would be because American
Christians tend to
be incredibly self-indulgent so they see the
church as a place
there for them to meet their needs and to express
faith in a way that
is meaningful for them," said cultural
architect Erwin
McManus, lead pastor at Mosaic Church in Los
Angeles, to The
Christian Post Monday. "There
is almost no
genuine compassion or urgency about serving and
reaching people
who don't know Christ," he added.
McManus,
whose church members' average age is 25 years old,
is known for breaking the
"rules" of
traditional church
and applying spiritual creativity to engage and
develop the next
generation of Christian leaders.
He often
explains that while the Bible does not change,
the methods to effectively
communicate the
Word of God
can.
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January 18 - Sacramento schools' history textbook advocates Islam, ignores Christianity, Judaism
Article: Signs Of The Last Times
Sacramento,
Jan 18, 2008 / 06:50 am (CNA)
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A textbook used in Californian seventh-
grade history classes at public
schools has been criticized for proselytizing for
Islam and bias against Christianity,
WorldNetDaily reports. The textbook is
part of a curriculum that teaches students
to write Arabic by copying
sentences from the Quran.
A student's parent wrote to
WorldNetDaily saying that the textbook
"History Alive! The Medieval World
and Beyond," published by the Teachers'
Curriculum Institute, devotes large portions of seven
chapters out of thirty-five total to Islam or
Muslim topics. The religious
teachings of Islam are covered in detail,
while Christianity and other
religions are neglected. "This
book does not really go into Christianity or
the teachings of Christ, nor does it
address religious doctrine elsewhere to
the degree it does Islam," the
concerned parent wrote.
The book
reportedly
references Jews or Judaism four
times. Once it indicates that Jews were
tortured by Crusaders to force them to
convert to Christianity. Other
references point to Jews being blamed for
the plagues and problems of the
times. "It does not talk about the Jews as
making a significant impact on
the culture at large," the parent
wrote.
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January 15 - 'Islamic Jesus' hits Iranian movie screens
Article: Misc.
A director
who shares
the ideas of Iran's
hardline president has produced what he says is
the first film giving
an Islamic view of
Jesus Christ,
in a bid to show
the "common ground" between Muslims
and Christians.
"Gibson's film is a very good film.
I mean that it is a
well-crafted movie
but the story is wrong -- it was not like that,"
he said, referring
to two key differences:
Islam sees Jesus
as a prophet, not the son of God, and does not
believe he was
crucified.
Talebzadeh
insists it aims to bridge
differences
between Christianity and Islam, despite the stark
divergence from
Christian doctrine about Christ's final hours on
earth.
"By making
this film I
wanted to make a
bridge between Christianity and Islam, to open the
door for dialogue
since there is much common ground between Islam
and
Christianity," he said.
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January 19 - Russia: We may use nukes if threatened
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Wars
Russia's military chief of staff said
Saturday that
Moscow could use nuclear
weapons in preventive strikes in case of a
major threat,
the
latest aggressive remarks from increasingly assertive
Russian authorities.
"We have no plans to attack
anyone, but we
consider it necessary for all our partners
in the world
community to clearly understand ... that to
defend the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of
Russia and its allies,
military
forces will be used, including preventively, including
with
the use of nuclear weapons," Gen. Yuri
Baluyevsky
said.
The comments from the hawkish
Baluyevsky did not appear to
mark a
policy shift for Russia, whose
leaders have stressed the need to
maintain a powerful nuclear
deterrent and reserved the right to carry
out preventive
strikes.
"Baluyevsky's statement means
that, as before,
we cannot count on our conventional
forces
to
counter aggression," Golts told Ekho
Moskvy radio.
"It means that as before, the main
factor in containing
aggression against Russia is nuclear
weapons."
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January 19 - Spaniard becomes Jesuits' new "black pope"
Article; Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days
VATICAN
CITY (Reuters) -
Spaniard
Adolfo Nicolas was elected the
Jesuits' "black pope," as the
head of the largest and perhaps most
influential, controversial and prestigious
Catholic order is known, in a
secret conclave on Saturday.
Jesuit
superior generals
are known
as "black popes" because, like the
pontiff, they wield worldwide influence and
usually keep their position for
life -- and because their simple cassock is
black, in contrast to the pope
who dresses in
white.The
468-year history of the Jesuit order has
often included stormy relations
with the
Vatican. Benedict's predecessor,
Pope John Paul,
believed the order had become too
independent, leftist and political,
particularly in Latin
America.
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January 18 - United Methodist, Lutheran Churches Pursue 'Full Communion'
Article: Ecumenical Movement - Misc.
The United Methodist Church and
Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America will
ask its members
to approve "full communion" between the
two bodies
starting this
spring.
Church leaders
agreed to take another step
toward unity
between the two major church denominations during
their
last round of
dialogue in December.
Full communion
essentially means
"acknowledging one another's ministries as
valid,"
and wanting to be
involved in mutual decision-making,
explained the Rev.
W. Douglas Mills, an executive with the United
Methodist
Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious
Concerns,
according to the
United Methodist News Service.
Although full
communion is a
clear step towards full unity, Mills added,
"We don't know what full unity is
or can look
like."
An interim
"Eucharistic
sharing" agreement was approved by the United
Methodist
Council of Bishops
in May and by ELCA representatives in August
2005.
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January 20 - Scientists find missing link - and it's a fish finger
Article: Creation Evolution - Creation Evolution Debate
HUMANS could be closer to
pond life than had been
realised. Researchers have linked a raft of our
anatomical and genetic
features with fishy ancestors that lived hundreds
of millions of years ago.
They have found that
the origin of human hands and
fingers
could lie in the emergence of a
finned fish 365m years ago. Similarly,
the sophisticated joints that
give us the ability to run, grip and turn
may owe their existence to a
sea creature known as the tiktaalik that
lived in the Arctic 375m years
ago.
Even our acute vision may be a
legacy of an even earlier
ancestor,
similar to a jellyfish, whose genes
have
been adapted to play a crucial
role in the human eye.
"An entire tree of
life, from microbe to worm, to
fish and mammal, is embedded inside of
us. We can uncover our past
by studying fossils and understanding our
DNA," said Neil Shubin, professor of
anatomy at
Chicago
University.
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January 20 - Papal Message for World Day of the Sick
Article: Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days
This year this
significant day is connected to
two important events for the life of the Church, as one
already understands from
the theme chosen 'The
Eucharist, Lourdes and Pastoral Care
for the Sick': the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
the apparitions of
the Immaculate Mary at Lourdes, and the celebration
of the International
Eucharistic Congress at Quebec in Canada. In
this way, a remarkable
opportunity to consider the
close connection that exists
between the Mystery of the Eucharist, the role of Mary
in the project of
salvation, and the reality of human pain and suffering,
is offered to us.
One cannot contemplate Mary without being attracted
by Christ and
one cannot look at Christ
without immediately perceiving
the presence of Mary. There is an indissoluble link
between the Mother and the
Son, generated in her womb by work of the Holy Spirit,
and this link we
perceive, in a mysterious way, in the Sacrament of the
Eucharist, as the
Fathers of the Church and theologians pointed out
from the early centuries
onwards. Mary restored
to salvation what Eve had destroyed
by her sin'.
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January 10 - Did Insects Kill the Dinosaurs?
Article: Creation / Evolution - Misc.
The first has to do with
the period's cataclysmic close.
In lots of people's minds, the mystery of
what killed the dinosaurs and
other species - paving the way for the
rise of mammals - was solved a couple
of decades ago: a
giant asteroid or comet slamming
into the Earth, resulting in a dust cloud that
shrouded the sun, cooled the
planet dramatically and killed off plants
and animals wholesale. It's
a compelling story, but plenty of scientists
never completely bought it. So
alternate theories - the dinosaurs
succumbed to allergies, from the rise of
flowering plants, or to world-shaking
volcanoes in what's now India, or to
disease - have always bubbled around
the periphery of the conventional
wisdom.
Among other things in their lode,
they've found ticks, nematodes, biting
flies and all sorts of other nasties,
including intestinal parasites, dating
back to the Cretaceous period. From
some of the insects, the Poinars have
extracted microbes
that cause leishmania and malaria -
evidently new pathogens back then,
against which dinosaurs wouldn't have had
much resistance.
The authors aren't arguing that the
dinos all died in a massive epidemic;
rather, the constant
wear and tear of illness weakened
the dinosaurs so that other catastrophes,
like comets and volcanoes, could
have finished them off.
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NEWS ALERT - January 16 - Hindu, Muslim and Jewish leaders bless Catholic high school students
Article: One World Religion
Reno, Jan 16,
2008 / 04:02 am ( CNA)
.-
An interfaith prayer service at a
prominent
Nevada Catholic
high school brought together leaders from different
denominations
and religions to bless the students.
Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu,
and
Buddhist leaders
gathered at Bishop Manogue High School in south
Reno for the
blessing ceremony.
""We commit ourselves to
persevere in
constant prayer for
unity within the human race, and through
concrete gestures
of reconciliation and dialogue to seek to bring
forth peace in our
world," they said.
The service
was organized by Father Charles T. Durante, pastor of
St. Teresa of Avila
Catholic Community in Carson City. He
began the prayer service by invoking
the Holy
Spirit, saying
"We start our prayer by recognizing that we are in
God's
presence."
A local rabbi performed a Hebrew
recitation, while a
Hindu chaplain recited Sanskrit slokas from the
Rig-Veda.
There was also a Buddhist text reading, along with a
reading from the
Letter to the Thessalonians from an Episcopalian
minister. An
imam also gave a reflection address quoting the
Quran.
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January 14 - Benedictines governed by ancient rules
Article: Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days
HULBERT - Lunchtime visitors to
Clear Creek Monastery
participate in ancient traditions
stemming from the time
of St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Order.
As guests enter the dining hall, the leader of the
community pours water over their hands from a
pitcher, catching it in a basin
and offering them a towel, an ancient rite of
friendship.
Before sitting down to eat, monks stand behind their
chairs and
sing in Gregorian chant.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Chapter 38 of
the Rule of St. Benedict
"prescribes reading aloud
during meals, which duty is to
be performed by such of the brethren, week by week,
as can do so with
edification to the rest. Signs are to be used for
whatever may be
wanted
at meals, so that no voice
shall interrupt that of the reader." After the meal,
monks rise, stand behind
their chairs, and again sing in Gregorian chant.
The Rule of St. Benedict has influenced monastic life
in the West for 1,500
years.
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January 13 - Prisoners 'to be chipped like dogs'
Article: One World Government
Ministers
are planning to
implant "machine-
readable" microchips under the skin of
thousands of
offenders as part of an
expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that
would create more space in
British jails.
Amid concerns about the
security of existing tagging systems and prison
overcrowding, the Ministry of
Justice is
investigating the use of
satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor
criminals.
But, instead of being
contained in bracelets worn around the ankle,
the tiny
chips would be surgically inserted under
the skin of offenders in the
community, to help enforce home curfews.
The radio frequency
identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of
rice, are able to carry scanable
personal information about individuals,
including their identities,
address and offending record.
The tags, labelled
"spychips" by privacy campaigners,
are
already used around the world to keep track of
dogs, cats, cattle and airport
luggage, but there is no record of the
technology being used to
monitor offenders in the community. The chips
are also being considered as
a method of helping to keep order within
prisons.
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We hope the Weekly News In Review has been a
blessing to you.
In Jesus,
Roger Oakland
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