Tag: poll

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‘Christian Petition’ Against Donald Trump’s 2024 Bid Has Amassed 15k Signatures

A ‘Christian’ organization has launched a petition against Donald Trump’s 2024 Presidential bid, garnering nearly 15,000 signatures from like-minded Christians, specifically those who say they do not want him to run.

The group, Faithful America, is a progressive leftist organization run by the Rev. Nathan Empsall (he/him), a lost Episcopalian priest. They have seen some activism successes, such as “helping Catholic students win justice for their fired gay principal” and “defeating a fracking pipeline with Catholic sisters in Kentucky.” According to their website, their mission is:

“…fighting for social, economic, and racial justice, standing with the Black Lives Matter movement and upholding the Gospel’s values of love, equality, and dignity. Together, we’re helping make a difference for immigrants, refugees, the climate, the LGBTQ community, and more.”

The group has set a new goal of 20,000 Christian signees. While they have not endorsed any candidate, they are deeply opposed to Trump running again, explaining:

We don’t know much yet out how the 2024 election will play out, but one thing is certain: Another Trump presidency would be a disaster for our country. 

The insurrectionist ex-president — who infamously tear-gassed peaceful protesters to take a photo-op with a Bible outside an Episcopal church that didn’t support him — repeatedly weaponized religion in his last two campaigns, and 2024 will be no different. Multiple power-hungry pastors and Christian-nationalist leaders like Mike Huckabee, Mark Burns, and Eric Metaxas are already lining up to stand with him, falsely pretending they speak for all Christians.

It is unlikely to sway Trump from running.

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Lifeway Research: Half of Churchgoers Want Their Congregation To Share Their Politics

According to a new Lifeway Research Poll, most Christians say they’d prefer if their church votes the same way they do and have the same political identity; results that are hardly surprising given the current climate we live in. 

The research found that “Half of U.S. Protestant churchgoers (50%) say they’d prefer to attend a church where people share their political views, and 55% believe that to be the case at their congregation already.”

While these statistics are not dissimilar from a previous 2017 poll, what has changed is the adamancy of “worshipping alongside political peers,” with 19% “strongly agreeing” that they’d prefer not to worship next to someone whose political perspectives are completely contrary their own, a 7% increase from 2019. 

Though there are several biblically defensible perspectives on which party or candidate to vote for, from Republican to Independent, write-in to Libertarian, to even not voting at all, who one votes for does reveal something about the spiritual state of a man or woman. For this reason, no Christian should feel kinship and comfort when surrounded by people who consistently vote for a certain party that is rabidly and unapologetically pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ, pro-child grooming, pro-theft and pro-tyranny.

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Census Data: 35% Of Canadians Have No Religious Affiliation. In Some Provinces, It’s Nearly 60%

(OnlySky) More than a third of Canadians have no religious affiliation, according to new census data released by Statistics Canada, the nation’s statistical agency. The 34.6% of Canadian “Nones” more than doubles the 16.5% who fell into the same category in 2001, revealing a trend that has yet to plateau.

The agency says the change cannot simply be attributed to a rise in immigration since immigrants to Canada have been disproportionately religious; rather, they attribute at least some of the rise to people raising their kids without organized religion:

Part of the growth is due to the number of children under 10 who were born in Canada and have no religious affiliation. The number of children under 10 rose by 597,000 (+55.3%) from 2011 to 2021

Meanwhile, the percentage of self-described Christians (of all stripes) is still in freefall, dropping from 77.1% in 2001 to 53.3% in 2021.

It won’t be too long, I suspect, before the Nones overtake Christians across the country—and even sooner for Christians to become a religious minority. That’s already happened in Yukon and British Columbia, in the western part of the nation, where the percentage of non-religious citizens is 59.7% and 52.1%, respectively.

The BC Humanist Association…to continue reading, click here.

Editor’s Note. This article was written by Hemant Mehta and published at OnlySky.

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New Poll: 1 in 4 Democrats Believe ‘Men Can Get Pregnant’

Not a man

In a sign of the continued, intentional destruction and blurring of God’s designs for men and women; what it means to be made in the image of God and reflect his character, nature, and design for mankind, a new WPA Intelligence poll of 1000 registered voters, found that 22% of Democrats agreed with the statement “”Some men can get pregnant.”

Within the sampling, they also found that 36% of college educated white women agreed that the statement is true.

Speaking of the results,  WPAi Managing Director Conor Maguire notes “Overall, few Americans think men can get pregnant. But with 36% of a core Democratic constituency (college-educated white Democratic women) and one out of five Democrat voters believing this, one can see why Democratic leaders coddle the radical gender theory movement.”

While the results do not give the percentage of Republicans who believe similarly, this continued desire to erase women and wipe out gender differences reveals that newest satanic scheme is effective, and is being driven by a demographic hell-bent on transforming the culture into their wicked likeness, of which Christians should resist with all our might.

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Drive-In Church In-person Church News Righteous Defiance Unrighteous Compliance

Lifeway Study: One Year In, Only 75% of Churches Gathering for Services

A new study from Lifeway Research found that 25 percent of churches did not meet in person in the month of January, and of the ones that did meet, practically none are near pre-pandemic level, with 1 in 3 pastors reporting that their current Sunday service attendance is half what it used to be before the national lockdowns in March 2020.

Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research explains that “churches continue to evaluate when to meet in person based on local conditions and cases within their congregation. Even when a church determines it’s safe to meet, their individual members will return on their own timetable.”

The study further found that 88 percent say that a church attendee has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and 29 percent say a member has died from it. Small groups have been decimated, with 40 percent no longer meeting. Children’s ministries have followed suit, with only 25% of churches having exclusively in-person activities.

With the odds of young, healthy people dying from COVID-19 being infinitesimally small, there is simply no excuse for churches to remain closed and congregants to be staying away. If your church is not open yet, it is time to leave that church. And unless a church member has very real co-morbidities and tangible health challenges, it is time to enact church discipline on wayward members who still are not gathering for either in-person services or drive-in services.

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Conspiracy Evangelical Stuff Featured

Pew Research Poll: Faithful Christians Still Don’t Believe in Evolution

A new Pew Research Poll shows that “Christians” lag behind the rest of the world in believing that humans and animals evolved over millions of years, often showing as much as 35% disparity. While that is good news on the face of it, the number of professing Christians that do believe in it is far higher than it ought to be.

Like most polls from Pew or Barna, they ought to be taken with a ‘Lot’s wife’ worth of salt. One methodological point is that the graph doesn’t distinguish between the number of “Christians who say religion is very important to them” and “Christians who don’t”

Given that there is no such thing as a believer who says religion is not important to them, it’s a misnomer. If they wanted to know the percentage of Christians who believe in evolution, this would not be a self-identifying descriptor, but rather would only include those who say the Bible is the inspired, infallible, inerrant, sufficient word of God.

And then the number would drop down to  < 1 %.

Though Tim Keller and his ilk at BioLogos want you to believe that the earth is billions of years old and humans or human-like-humans have been evolving for millions of years, this is not Christian orthodoxy.

Rather, God created the universe ex-nihilo and the book of Genesis is to be taken literally, including talking serpents, Adam and Eve, 7-literal day creation, naming the animals, angel guarding Eden, people living to be nearly 1000 years old, the flood, Nephilim, etc. All of it.

Macroevolution for animals? No. Microevolution for the same? Sure. Human evolution? Heck no.

According to the survey:

“[there is] broad acceptance of evolution across these publics. A median of 74% say humans and other living things have evolved, while a median of just 21% think humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.

The 21% echoes a Biologos poll commissioned in 2013 that shows just 19% of Christian pastors believe the creation story ‘Answers-in-Genesis style.’

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News

Group Launches Petition to Demand Forensic Audit of NAMB and LifeWay

The newly launched petition website, SBC Transparency, calls for a forensic audit of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and LifeWay, the for-profit publishing arm of the SBC, declaring that “members of the SBC have a right to know that their sacrificial gifts are being used for the mission, not self-enrichment.”

The case they make is simple, in light of the lawsuit between LifeWay and Thom Rainer which has brought financial shenanigans and impropriety to the spotlight.

The North American Mission Board (NAMB) Trustees and staff steward assets of $435 million on behalf of Southern Baptists, with an annual budget of $125 million. It is imperative that we operate with full transparency and accountability in order to build trust in our voluntary cooperative Kingdom work. We believe there are significant questions and concerns around possible financial irregularities, misuse of funds, use of funds outside of their approved purposes, conflict of interests with NAMB Trustees and the NAMB auditor and violations of SBC bylaws and governing Business and Financial plan. 

Therefore, we the undersigned call upon the SBC Executive Committee (EC) to commission and direct an independent forensic financial audit of the North American Mission Board and report the complete findings of the audit to the entire Southern Baptist family of cooperating churches and partners (State Conventions and Associations). As well, because of similar questions of irregularities, we are calling for the SBC EC to conduct a forensic audit on LifeWay Christian Resources.

The group details several questionable practices, such as NAMB having multiple large financial reserve accounts more than they should, the independence of the financial audits by NAMB, the SBC business and financial plan as it pertains to fundraising, and a host of other queries.

Of note to us, as we put the call out several weeks ago with information on who is owning houses bought and paid for by NAMB.

Millions in Houses for a Very Few Church Planters. NAMB has spent tens of millions on houses for use by a few church planters. Some of these homes cost over $500,000 and have amenities like swimming pools. Where are these homes? How many are there? Who lives in them? How many of these homes are tied to SBC President Greear and NAMB Trustees or the churches they lead in violation of SBC governing documents? Are there any other favors or friendships factors in the distributing use of these homes? Are any of the homes not being used for their NAMB Trustee approved purposes as evidence reveals may be the case in several homes. 

New Home Built and Large Investment to NAMB Staff Member Who is a NAMB Planter Questions arise regarding the building of a new 3,300 square foot home valued at $500,000+ for a planter who is a NAMB staffer in Pittsburgh. Questions arise regarding the purchasing of about a dozen homes in Pittsburgh and the $500,000 church building purchased from the Presbyterians that was being used by a NAMB planter, who was subsequently hired by NAMB for Send Relief.

Church Planting Budget Tripled while Plants Reduced by Half. The NAMB church planting budget has grown from $23 million to $75 million in 10 years, but the number of new church starts has dropped to less than half the number a decade ago. How is NAMB spending $50 million more in church planting and getting less than half for it? Where is that money specifically going? 

The whole website is a wealth of good questions and details the broad cloak of secrecy that surrounds SBC entities. Go to sbctransparency.com, read the whole thing, and sign the petition.

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Evangelical Stuff Featured News

New Barna Poll: The Christian Church is Seriously Messed up.

A new poll last week released by George Barna’s Cultural Research Center shows that professing Christians are developing more and more decidedly unchristian beliefs, demonstrating that many of these professing Christians are in fact, un-professing pagans.

According to the American Worldview Inventory 2020, syncretism rules the day, with the majority of Christians having fundamental, troubling, primary belief problems.

56% of respondents who identify as Christian and who attend Evangelical churches, or 62% of Christians who say they attend Pentecostal churches, profess that having ‘some type’ of religious faith is more important than which faith a person aligns with. Unsurprisingly, Mainline Protestant churches were at 67% and Roman Catholic at 77%.

When asked if one could qualify for heaven by being good or doing good, compared to the belief that salvation comes ONLY from embracing Christ as Savior, 41% of professing evangelicals said that if a person is generally good, or does enough good things in their life they will earn a place in heaven, a view shared by 77% of Roman Catholics.

Dr. George Barna, CRC Director of Research and one of the authors of the survey, called the results of this latest survey discouraging.

If you step back and look at the big picture painted by all of the outcomes in this research project it seems to suggest that people are in an ‘anything goes’ mindset when it comes to faith, morals, values, and lifestyle,” Barna commented. “Americans appear to be creating unique, highly customized worldviews based on feelings, experiences and opportunities rather than working within the boundaries of a comprehensive, time-tested, consistent worldview.

If you look at some of the dominant elements in the American mind and heart today, as illuminated by the Inventory, we find that most people say that the objective of life is feeling good about yourself; that all faiths are of equal value; that entry into God’s eternal presence is determined by one’s personal means of choice; and that there are no absolutes to guide or grow us morally.