Friday, May 12, 2006
Church Attendance
Church Going in the South
Jennifer Harper, The Washington Times, National Weekly Edition, May 1-7, 2006, reports on a recent Gallop Poll that examined church attendance in the southern states over the past few years. In Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina the poll shows that 58% of the people attend church regularly (almost every week). Mississippi was close with 57%. Utah and Arkansas report 55%. North Carolina and Nebraska report 53%, and Georgia and Tennessee come in at 52%. The national average is about 42%, so southern states show significantly higher attendance than do other parts of the country.
Surprisingly, the statistics reveal some other interesting facts. Frank Newport (son of my former professor, John Newport, at Southwestern Seminary) heads the Gallop Organization. He has found, through his research, that only a small minority of Americans simply do not go to church at all. Church attendance is lowest in New England and in Nevada. Washington, D.C., reports 33% regular attendance.
The Barna Group, in April 2006, reported that their polls showed that 47% of Americans read the Bible during a typical week (in addition to any reading done in church services). Only 31% read their Bible apart from church meetings in 1995. Church attendance in 1996 was at 37% (according to the Barna data), whereas it increased to 47% in 2006. [That’s a 5% difference from the Gallop data, but the general trends reflect a significant increase in church attendance overall.] Barna says that adult Sunday School attendance reached 24% (up from 17% in 1995).
By the way, 77% of church going teens reported having read Harry Potter (which I would not forbid my own kids to do), but only 4% of those teens reported having any teaching or discussions in a church about the spiritual themes that are set forth in these stories. Only 13% said that their church ever addressed the subject of witchcraft.
Other research (based on census data) indicates that frequent church goers average 9% more income. [Perhaps “honesty pays” and crime doesn’t after all.] Church goers are also less likely to be on welfare on to be divorced. Even life expectancy is about 3 years more for church goers.
It is not automatic, of course, but the gospel does produce positive results for people. We do not believe for that reason, but God does bless His faithful people.
Jennifer Harper, The Washington Times, National Weekly Edition, May 1-7, 2006, reports on a recent Gallop Poll that examined church attendance in the southern states over the past few years. In Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina the poll shows that 58% of the people attend church regularly (almost every week). Mississippi was close with 57%. Utah and Arkansas report 55%. North Carolina and Nebraska report 53%, and Georgia and Tennessee come in at 52%. The national average is about 42%, so southern states show significantly higher attendance than do other parts of the country.
Surprisingly, the statistics reveal some other interesting facts. Frank Newport (son of my former professor, John Newport, at Southwestern Seminary) heads the Gallop Organization. He has found, through his research, that only a small minority of Americans simply do not go to church at all. Church attendance is lowest in New England and in Nevada. Washington, D.C., reports 33% regular attendance.
The Barna Group, in April 2006, reported that their polls showed that 47% of Americans read the Bible during a typical week (in addition to any reading done in church services). Only 31% read their Bible apart from church meetings in 1995. Church attendance in 1996 was at 37% (according to the Barna data), whereas it increased to 47% in 2006. [That’s a 5% difference from the Gallop data, but the general trends reflect a significant increase in church attendance overall.] Barna says that adult Sunday School attendance reached 24% (up from 17% in 1995).
By the way, 77% of church going teens reported having read Harry Potter (which I would not forbid my own kids to do), but only 4% of those teens reported having any teaching or discussions in a church about the spiritual themes that are set forth in these stories. Only 13% said that their church ever addressed the subject of witchcraft.
Other research (based on census data) indicates that frequent church goers average 9% more income. [Perhaps “honesty pays” and crime doesn’t after all.] Church goers are also less likely to be on welfare on to be divorced. Even life expectancy is about 3 years more for church goers.
It is not automatic, of course, but the gospel does produce positive results for people. We do not believe for that reason, but God does bless His faithful people.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Debating Creation and Evolution
Faith and Evolution
The Raleigh News & Observer is not on my subscription list, but I do see the newspaper when I get my oil changed and in other places like that. May 1, 2006 was my oil change day, so I sat down to read in the Jiffy Lube waiting room. There on the Editorial Page was “The People’s Forum,” the name given to the letters to the editor. Neil Stahl (noted only as being from Chapel Hill, which for those out of the area is the home of the University of North Carolina). There was no indication whether Mr. Stahl is connected with the University in any way other than being from Chapel Hill.
His concern was an April 10 headline that read “Christian Students Take Evolution Fight to Classroom.” These evolution opponents, says Mr. Stahl, are “desperately opposing the weight of scientific evidence in astronomy, biology, geology, and other fields.” In his view, “They cannot win, but it’s tragic when they make the work of teachers even harder, and especially when they interfere with the education of the rest of the class.”
These students are definitely making the work of their teachers harder, because they are asking their teachers for valid reasons to believe that evolution is the best way to interpret the so-called scientific evidence. This is especially hard on teachers, since the evidence presented in the textbooks is often out of date and frequently simply false. Have you seen the video or read the book Icons of Evolution? All of that “evidence” is still in the textbooks, and all of it is patently false.
I always thought that raising questions to get to the root of an issue of evidence was a way to enhance education, not interfere with it. If the evidence is so overwhelming, why is it so easy to ask probing questions about it? If the evidence is so weighty, why can’t all intelligent people see it clearly? Are we simply uninformed? That is always a possibility, of course, but Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis is fairly erudite. Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box is fairly well-informed. Scholars can certainly be wrong, but when they lay out their evidence, one cannot dismiss their point of view without refuting or casting serious doubt on their evidence. Neither of these books has been refuted as far as I can tell. Read them and see what you think (that is, unless you already have your mind made up apart from the evidence).
The most telling line in Mr. Stahl’s letter, however, is when he complains that the anti-evolutionists are doing a disservice to Christians. Many Christians, he says, “can easily reconcile their religion with science.” This is, of course, quite true, but what does that mean? Did that reconciliation require a compromise from science? Oh no, science rules by definition. So it must mean that these Christians found it within their hearts to compromise their beliefs about the teachings of the Bible to somehow make room for the scientific theories that they think “must” be true. For these Christians, it is the Bible that is ambiguous and flexible. Maybe Jesus was married after all. Maybe Judas was just doing what Jesus asked, but it all went wrong. Oh how sad! Maybe biblical Christianity is really a hoax, protected by the Roman Church as a means of consolidating the Church’s power base in order to influence the world. It’s all politics, right?
There is no question but that the Bible teaches that God is the Creator of all things. He tells us that animals reproduce after their kind. This does not rule out variations and adaptations as needed for survival, but it does rule out a naturalistic single origin for all life forms on the earth today. The evolutionary process is so slow that many animals become extinct before they can evolve sufficiently to survive. Apparently this all sounds reasonable to naturalistic thinkers.
According the Bible, God makes a unique woman for the first man, because the man could not find a companion among the animals. He apparently was unable to find his family-kind. He could not find his mother or a sister or any other animal of his species. Of course, for these Christians who “reconcile” their faith with science, this story of the first man and woman is myth, not literal history, anyway. And so it goes. The compromise is always with our reading of the Bible. We cannot reconcile the actual teaching of the Bible with the standard theory of Darwinian, naturalistic evolution. So we just give up our Bible at these points in order to find ways to harmonize our religious ideas with “scientific” (naturalistic) theories. This strategy eventually will reduce Christian faith to a few moral principles at best. Why would Christ need to save a bunch of advanced primates? Who was Christ, if evolution is true? Just one of us, I guess, Himself in need of saving.
I say to these creationist students, keep up the pressure. The evidence does not confirm that evolution is true. The evidence is strong in favor of design, and creation is the most reasonable approach to the scientific evidence. Naturalism leads only to meaninglessness.
L. Russ Bush, Director
Center for Faith and Culture
Southeastern Seminary
Wake Forest, North Carolina 27588
The Raleigh News & Observer is not on my subscription list, but I do see the newspaper when I get my oil changed and in other places like that. May 1, 2006 was my oil change day, so I sat down to read in the Jiffy Lube waiting room. There on the Editorial Page was “The People’s Forum,” the name given to the letters to the editor. Neil Stahl (noted only as being from Chapel Hill, which for those out of the area is the home of the University of North Carolina). There was no indication whether Mr. Stahl is connected with the University in any way other than being from Chapel Hill.
His concern was an April 10 headline that read “Christian Students Take Evolution Fight to Classroom.” These evolution opponents, says Mr. Stahl, are “desperately opposing the weight of scientific evidence in astronomy, biology, geology, and other fields.” In his view, “They cannot win, but it’s tragic when they make the work of teachers even harder, and especially when they interfere with the education of the rest of the class.”
These students are definitely making the work of their teachers harder, because they are asking their teachers for valid reasons to believe that evolution is the best way to interpret the so-called scientific evidence. This is especially hard on teachers, since the evidence presented in the textbooks is often out of date and frequently simply false. Have you seen the video or read the book Icons of Evolution? All of that “evidence” is still in the textbooks, and all of it is patently false.
I always thought that raising questions to get to the root of an issue of evidence was a way to enhance education, not interfere with it. If the evidence is so overwhelming, why is it so easy to ask probing questions about it? If the evidence is so weighty, why can’t all intelligent people see it clearly? Are we simply uninformed? That is always a possibility, of course, but Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis is fairly erudite. Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box is fairly well-informed. Scholars can certainly be wrong, but when they lay out their evidence, one cannot dismiss their point of view without refuting or casting serious doubt on their evidence. Neither of these books has been refuted as far as I can tell. Read them and see what you think (that is, unless you already have your mind made up apart from the evidence).
The most telling line in Mr. Stahl’s letter, however, is when he complains that the anti-evolutionists are doing a disservice to Christians. Many Christians, he says, “can easily reconcile their religion with science.” This is, of course, quite true, but what does that mean? Did that reconciliation require a compromise from science? Oh no, science rules by definition. So it must mean that these Christians found it within their hearts to compromise their beliefs about the teachings of the Bible to somehow make room for the scientific theories that they think “must” be true. For these Christians, it is the Bible that is ambiguous and flexible. Maybe Jesus was married after all. Maybe Judas was just doing what Jesus asked, but it all went wrong. Oh how sad! Maybe biblical Christianity is really a hoax, protected by the Roman Church as a means of consolidating the Church’s power base in order to influence the world. It’s all politics, right?
There is no question but that the Bible teaches that God is the Creator of all things. He tells us that animals reproduce after their kind. This does not rule out variations and adaptations as needed for survival, but it does rule out a naturalistic single origin for all life forms on the earth today. The evolutionary process is so slow that many animals become extinct before they can evolve sufficiently to survive. Apparently this all sounds reasonable to naturalistic thinkers.
According the Bible, God makes a unique woman for the first man, because the man could not find a companion among the animals. He apparently was unable to find his family-kind. He could not find his mother or a sister or any other animal of his species. Of course, for these Christians who “reconcile” their faith with science, this story of the first man and woman is myth, not literal history, anyway. And so it goes. The compromise is always with our reading of the Bible. We cannot reconcile the actual teaching of the Bible with the standard theory of Darwinian, naturalistic evolution. So we just give up our Bible at these points in order to find ways to harmonize our religious ideas with “scientific” (naturalistic) theories. This strategy eventually will reduce Christian faith to a few moral principles at best. Why would Christ need to save a bunch of advanced primates? Who was Christ, if evolution is true? Just one of us, I guess, Himself in need of saving.
I say to these creationist students, keep up the pressure. The evidence does not confirm that evolution is true. The evidence is strong in favor of design, and creation is the most reasonable approach to the scientific evidence. Naturalism leads only to meaninglessness.
L. Russ Bush, Director
Center for Faith and Culture
Southeastern Seminary
Wake Forest, North Carolina 27588
