tagged w/ Evangelical Christian
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We have been told often that a quarter of all Americans are evangelicals, and that the support of this enormous number of ultra conservatives has kept George Bush in office. A book recently published in the US casts doubt on both claims.
Christine Wicker is a former religious reporter for the Dallas Morning News. She was "saved" at the age of nine in an Oklahoma City Southern Baptist Church, and these days she's a Christian, but not an evangelical. In "The Fall Of The Evangelical Nation" (HarperOne), she set out to count America's evangelicals. What she found surprised even her.
The standard story is that there are 54million adult and 21million child evangelicals. In political terms they are sometimes known as "the religious right" or "value voters". Their leaders have the capacity and the will to tell them how to vote and get them to the polling booths (important in a country with voluntary voting). The leaders have used this influence to affect government policy on matters such as abortion, gay marriage and the teaching of creationism in schools.
There is some truth in this picture, but not nearly as much as has been claimed. First, the numbers. The figure of 25 per cent comes from people identifying themselves as evangelicals in opinion polls.
But once you dig further you find the figure has little significance, either religiously or politically. The respected pollster George Barna found that when you start to ask these people if they agree with specific evangelical beliefs (such as the literal accuracy of the Bible), the numbers drop away. A large proportion of evangelicals are not conservative or fundamentalist. They're so-called "progressive" evangelicals such as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
When you look at behaviour, you find the average member of a congregation is far more typical of the average American than of any fundamentalist bogy figure. Going through the data systematically, she concludes that the actual number makes up just 7 per cent of Americans.
A big part of the myth has been that the number of evangelicals has been growing. In fact, the movement is in decline. That figure of 7 per cent is down from 12 per cent in 1991.
In truth, Wicker points out, the fastest-growing belief category in America is not evangelicalism, but the group to which so many on the left belong: non-believers. From 1990 to 2001 in America, their numbers increased from 14 million to 29 million.
I posted a link to a Sydney Morning Herald article for more details ... really interesting stuff. I heard the author interviewed on Radio National in Australia but see also website www.christinewicker.com which has other interviews she's given, as well as reviews of the book.
There's also a really good article in Mother Jones: http://www.motherjones.com/arts/feature/2008/05/the-myth-of-the-moral-majority.html
We have been told often that a quarter of all Americans are evangelicals, and that the... more
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A worker's-eye-view of the goings on at an 8,000-seater evangelical christian church in Hackney, London. Jaw-dropping mass hysteria leads to eye-watering sums of money being handed over to Superstar preachers.A worker's-eye-view of the goings on at an 8,000-seater evangelical christian... more
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This is the trailer for a half-hour documentary about the jaw-dropping techniques used by an Evangelical Christian Church to extract vast quantities of money from its congregation.This is the trailer for a half-hour documentary about the jaw-dropping techniques used... more
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The founders of the Turtle Island Project believe residents of Earth are facing a Kyros moment because of the abuse of the environment.
Kairos is Greek for seizing the moment.
The Turtle Island Project promotes respect for the planet, nature, wildlife and fellow humans.
Turtle Island Project founders say we can learn a lot from Earth-based cultures like the Celts and Native Americans.
Dr. Cairns said a former of chanting called jubilation (that he demonstrates in this video) helps him focus on the problems he wants to tackle - plus demonstrates the interconnection between humans and the Earth.
TIP volunteer media advisor Greg Peterson reports
TIP website:
http://www.turtleislandproject.org
Turtle Island TV (blipTV)
http://turtleislandtv.blip.tv/
Turtle Island TV (youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/MunisingWhiteHorse
Turtle Island (myspace)
http://www.myspace.com/TurtleIslandProject
Turtle Island Project websites/Blogs:
http://groups.msn.com/WhisperingTurtle
http://turtleislandproject.wordpress.com/
email:
TurtleIslandProject@charter.net
White Buffalo Calf Woman Society:
http://www.wbcws.org
Solastalgia is a term by Glenn Albrecht to describe profound sadness over the effects of the long-term drought in Australia
Glenn Albrecht, environmental philosopher, University of Newcastle:
http://healthearth.blogspot.com/
http://healthearth.blogspot.com/2007/03/solastalgia-new-concept-in-human.html
http://home.iprimus.com.au/tammie1/Publications%20-%20Journal%20Articles.htm
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/news/2006/09/newsyndrome.html
Solastalgia:
http://vector1media.com/spatialsustain/?p=255
http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2005/12/solastalgia.html
http://watershed.typepad.com/watershed/drought/index.html
http://www.greendaily.com/2008/01/07/word-of-the-day-solastalgia
http://fermiparadox.wordpress.com/2008/01/05/solastalgia-or-thre-sadness-of-climate-change/
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Huston Smith: Scholar, writer and a Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus Syracuse University
http://ethics.sandiego.edu/video/Kenan/Smith/index.html
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Species Extinction/Endangered Species
http://www.ecosyn.us/ecocity/Challenges/index.html:
http://eelink.net/EndSpp
http://www.animalinfo.org/rarest.htm
http://www.unep-wcmc.org/
http://www.teamhumanity.com/News-Environment08012004.htm
http://www.planetguide.net/book/chapter_5/extinction.html
http://www.sciencenewsden.com/2007/riskofextinctionacceleratedduetointeractinghumanthreats.shtml
http://www.grconnect.com/murals/html/n2252462.html
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement - Plus Graphic by Nina Paley:
http://www.vhemt.org/aboutvhemt.htm
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20030721/carbon.html
http://www.zeroextinction.org/charts.htm
http://www.nhbs.com/averting_extinction_tefno_63272.html
Robert Camacho:
http://www.robertcamacho.com/paintingpic4.htm
http://www.archbold-station.org/fai/species4.html
Eco Kids
http://www.ecokidsonline.com
Kyros (Greek) unique moment in time, gives people a platform to serve God.
Kairos (Kyros), a fullness of time, an appointed time purposed by our creator.
Kyros (KIR os): The Greek word for power that is legitimate, but limited and compassionate
Kairos’ is Greek for ‘occasion’ or ‘timing.’ Kairos is the art of seizing the moment.
Kairos, or kairotic time, refers to God's eternal time.
Kairos is the ancient Greek term that can roughly be interpreted as a rhetorical combination of understood context and proper timing.
Kairos: ancient Greek word meaning right or opportune moment
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/layers/start.html
http://www.kairospower.org/whowe.asp
http://www.kyros.org/NEWKyros_AboutUs_TheMeaningOfKyros.htm
http://www.kairostherapy.com/why_kairos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos
http://www.kyros.org/NEWKyros_AboutUs_TheMeaningOfKyros.htm
Jubilation:
http://www.envoymagazine.com/backissues/2.3/ihaveaquestion.html
http://blip.tv/file/480070The founders of the Turtle Island Project believe residents of Earth are facing a... more
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Climate change is affecting our day-to-day life in rural Virginia.
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Ted Pike's gripping video expose dramatizes how abuses by false Zionist leadership, with Evangelical Christian support, have helped create ... all » international Arab terrorism. This powerful documentary explains how Zionists have used a false religious argument to ram a cruel, unbiblical return of Jews to Palestine down the throat of the Arab world. Such injustice, if allowed to continue, will only lead to increased terrorism, loss of freedoms, and Mideast war.
This Video Documents:
* The Talmudic basis of hate and racism that fuels Zionist aggression * What really happened in the West Bank under Sharon's 2002 invasion * How loss of freedoms under "homeland security" directly results from unconditional support of Israel * How U.S. takeover of Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc. actually sets up Israel as ruler of the mid-eastTed Pike's gripping video expose dramatizes how abuses by false Zionist... more
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