Category: Issues

By Leonardo Blair, Christian Post Reporter | Friday, December 17, 2021

Less than half of American adults pray on a daily basis as church membership continues to decline and the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated swells, according to a study published by the Pew Research Center.

Data from the National Public Opinion Reference Survey conducted by Pew Research Center from May 29 to Aug. 25 among a nationally representative group of respondents found that 45% of U.S. adults say they pray daily compared to 58% who reported doing so in 2007 and 55% who said they prayed daily in 2014.

Some 32% said they seldom or never pray, which is close to the 29% of U.S. adults who identify as religious “nones” — people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular,” the study says.

The nation’s share of religious “nones” is now 6% higher than it was five years ago and 10% higher than it was a decade ago, showing what appears to be a galloping trend of secularization.

Even though Christians are still the largest religious group in the U.S., they now only make up a collective 63% of the adult population. When the Pew Research Center began measuring religious identity in 2007, Christians outnumbered “nones” 78% to 16%.

The study noted that the decline in the number of Christians nationwide was mostly concentrated among respondents who identified as Protestant. Their numbers declined by 10% in the last decade and 4% in the last five years.

While the share of Catholics had fallen between 2007 and 2014 to 21% of the adult population, that number remains the same today.

Protestants were found to be predominantly “born-again or [E]vangelical Christian,” among both black and white respondents in the study. Some 58% of white Protestants identify as born-again or Evangelical, while 66% of blacks did so.

When it comes to church attendance, black Evangelical Christians were found to be the most faithful churchgoers, with 70% of them attending services monthly. Some 63% of black Protestants reported attending church religious services at least once or twice monthly. Only 56% of white Evangelical Protestants said they attended religious services at least once a month.

Among Catholics, church attendance fell even lower. Just 35% reported attending services monthly or more.

Earlier this year, political scientists David E. Campbell and Geoffrey C. Layman of the University of Notre Dame and John C. Green of the University of Akron highlighted data in their new book, Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics, showing that the marrying of religion and politics among conservatives to create the well-known and powerful religious right had led some Americans to abandon their ties to the Christian faith and join the ranks of secularists.

According to the researchers, the rising tide of secularism in the U.S. means that some voters are on opposite sides of a religious-secular fault line fueling the flames of political polarization.

“[A] secular-religious divide in politics also may illuminate why, above and beyond their ideological differences, ordinary Democrats and Republicans increasingly dislike and distrust the leaders and members of the other political camp — what political scientists have labeled ‘affective polarization,'” they wrote. “Their very different worldviews may spur Secularists and Religionists to view each other with suspicion and perhaps even hostility, thus encouraging animosity and distrust between their political teams.”

South Dakota’s Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has introduced a bill that would allow students in public schools to pray every morning at school if they so choose despite pushback from secular groups to similar bills in other states.

On Monday, Noem released the text of legislation that would “require a moment of silence in schools to begin the school day.”

In a statement, Noem shared her belief that “every student deserves the opportunity to begin their day with a calm, silent moment.”

“I hope students will take this opportunity to say a quick prayer or reflect on their upcoming day. However they choose to take advantage of this time, it will be beneficial to students and teachers alike,” she added.

The bill calls for all public school districts in the state to “provide students and teachers the opportunity each morning that school is in session to have a moment of silence lasting up to one minute.”

Potential uses for this moment of silence include “voluntary prayer, reflection, meditation or other quiet, respectful activity.”

The legislation would mandate that “no school employee may dictate the action to be taken by students or teachers during the moment of silence” and that “no student may interfere with another student’s engagement in the moment of silence.” It also clarifies that the language in the bill shouldn’t “be construed to permit schools to conduct the moment of silence as a religious exercise.”

The legislation contends that a moment of silence at the beginning of the school day is necessary to provide students and teachers with a “reprieve from the frenzy of daily life and to set a tone of decorum that will be conducive to learning.”

South Dakota is one of several states where elected officials are pushing for a moment of silence in schools. 

An Ohio Senate bill introduced in October would establish a moment of silence in schools.

In June, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that would give students a daily opportunity to “reflect and be able to pray as they see fit.”

Separation of church and state advocacy groups see the “moment of silence” measures as causes for concern.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocates for a strict separation of church and state, wrote a letter to the Ohio Senate criticizing Senate Bill 248 as an “unconstitutional promotion of religion.”

The Wisconsin-based advocacy group expressed particular opposition to the language of the bill calling on each public school district to “provide for a moment of silence each school day for prayer, reflection, or meditation upon a moral, philosophical, or patriotic theme.” 

FFRF Staff Attorney Ryan Jayne maintained that moment of silence bills that contain an explicit reference to prayer — such as the bills in Ohio, Florida and South Dakota — run afoul of U.S. Supreme Court precedent in the 1985 Wallace v. Jaffree decision. The court struck down an Alabama law setting aside time for “meditation or voluntary prayer” during the school day.

“The addition of ‘or voluntary prayer’ indicates that the State intended to characterize prayer as a favored practice,” the decision stated.

The Supreme Court concluded that “such an endorsement is not consistent with the established principle that the government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion.” Jayne argued that the Ohio bill’s mention of prayer before other potential uses for the moment of silence makes “the endorsement even more clear.”

“There can be no serious doubt that the primary intent of this bill is to inject religion into the public school day, which is an improper legislative purpose,” he wrote. “Mandatory moment of silence bills are a trend across the country and invariably they are described in terms of promoting religion.” 

DeSantis described the Florida moment-of-silence bill as an initiative allowing students to “pray as they see fit” and one that counters attempts to “push God out of every institution.” The headline included with the statement from Noem’s office about the South Dakota bill characterizes the legislation as an effort to “restore protections for prayer in the classroom.”

I grew up in a Christian home but had no relationship with Christ; youthful exuberance took me too far to the side of the devil. I ventured into all manner of things. I founded a cult called Barracks Green Barrett (BGB) when I was in the university. I went into so many religions in search of truth, and at a certain point, I even became an atheist and a Marxist.

One day I came across an article in Time magazine with the caption, “Is God Dead?” I was so excited about the argument that favored the “God is dead” opinion and pulled an excerpt that says, “how can an omnipotent God exist in a world with so much misery and injustice? — continues to press religious thinkers to grapple with how to sustain faith while living a mortal life.”  I photocopied this along with other excerpts and produce a tract that I handed out to Christians to let them know that their God had grown old and died of senility.

One night, I had a dream that changed my life. In that dream a demon wanted to kill me.  I addressed these powers by saying, “By the authority given to me by my Lord Jesus, I command all of you to surrender.”  To my greatest surprise, the demons that came to attack me surrendered and fled.

When I woke up, I realized my follies. Scripture says that only a fool says that “there is no God” (Psalm 14:1). My eyes of understanding were enlightened and I knew that I seriously needed forgiveness for all the blasphemy and atrocities that I had committed against God. I wept bitterly asking Jesus to have mercy on my soul.

I soberly reflected on the dream. It was so real, and I wondered how I could used the name of Christ whom I did not believe in. It was then that I realized that I had a high calling and must give all for the sake of the Gospel.

The following morning, I went to my next-door neighbor, whom I had constantly harassed for playing Christian sermons and music.  I had threatened to break his DVD player if I heard any sound of Christian sermon or music come out of his room. I knelt before him and apologized for my entire wicked act towards him, and he raised his hand and praised God and said to me, “I have been praying for you.”

The following day I was invited to a program in Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministry Abuja regional headquarters, and there I gave my life to Christ. From that day forward my life has never remained the same. No one preached to me before I gave my life to Christ because I never allowed anyone to talk to me about Him. I harassed, beat and threatened anyone who dared tell me about Jesus. But as soon as Christ revealed Himself to me, I immediately enrolled in Bible college.

I fashioned my ministry after the Apostle Paul. By the power of the Holy Spirit I have taken the Gospel to 15 communities where no one had preached Christ before and where not a single person had heard about Jesus. I have escaped assassins many times; I have been arrested for mentioning Christ where it is forbidden; I have been stranded, famished and dehydrated in the bush for days for the sake of the Gospel. I know no other Gospel than Jesus and Him crucified. My love for the Cross of Christ helped me embrace my suffering, and in it lies my Christian strength.

There are so many who are like Saul today and do not look anything like Paul. But our prayers can catalyze their spiritual metamorphosis that will eventually make them to become like Paul tomorrow. Let us keep on praying for those who have rejected the Gospel with the hope that one day Jesus will reveal Himself to them. Those who hate God today can be lovers of God tomorrow, for where sin abounds, grace abounds much more (Romans 5:20). I am convinced that there shall come days when all those who are persecuting the church shall come to realize that Jesus is Lord.

Some of them will become missionaries of the Gospel, but they need the intercession and prayers of the saints. If my neighbor had not prayed for me, I would have perished in my sins and ignorance.

Take a look around your environment and pick one sinner and make a vow that you will never rest in your prayers until he or she bows to the saving power of Christ. Let us not despise them, because some of us were worse than them before Christ found us.

Archaeologists say a second synagogue dating back to the Second Temple period has been discovered in what is believed to have been the birthplace of Mary Magdalene of the Bible and is “changing our understanding of Jewish life in this period.”

While excavating the Galilean town of Magdala, known today as Migdal, archaeologists say they found the remnants of a second synagogue dating back to the Second Temple period — which in history was a time that is believed to have lasted between 515 or 516 B.C. up until 70 A.D. 

“This is the second synagogue from the Roman period that has been uncovered in the village — and the first case of the existence of two synagogues in any locality from the Second Temple period, a period when the Temple in Jerusalem was still standing,” the Israel Antiquities Authority shared on Facebook.

Prof. Adi Erlich,  who heads the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, and Dina Avshalom-Gorni, who directs the excavation of the site on behalf of the University of Haifa, believe the discovery “sheds light on the social and religious life of the Jews in the Galilee during this period.” They contend that the finding “indicates the need for a special building for studying and reading the Torah and social gatherings.” 

The first synagogue in Migdal was uncovered in 2009 through an excavation that found ritual baths, streets, a marketplace and industrial facilities in the ancient village.

The second synagogue was first discovered by probes conducted by Barak Tzin of the Israel Antiquities Authority and lies less than 200 meters away from the first synagogue. The IAA statement states that the discovery of the second synagogue is “changing our understanding of Jewish life in this period,” IAA stated. 

“We can imagine Mary Magdalene and her family coming to the synagogue here, along with other residents of Migdal, to participate in religious and communal events,” excavation co-director Avshalom-Gorni told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. 

The discovery was made amid a plan to build new infrastructure in the town of Migdal. But while the areas were being excavated — a typical practice in advance of construction —  the second synagogue was discovered by the IAA, Y.G. Contractual and the University of Haifa.  

Avshalom-Gorni told the newspaper that the first synagogue had a decorative mosaic floor and the second one had a compacted, plastered and earthen floor. 

The second synagogue is said to be smaller and not as ornate as the first. 

The first synagogue was in an industrial area, while the second was located in a residential street, which suggests they were built “within the social fabric of the settlement,” Avshalom-Gorni told The Times of Israel.

The Times of Israel reports that the second synagogue consisted of the main hall and two side rooms. A stone bench was also recovered. Archeologists found bases for two of the building’s six pillars that held up the roof. The walls of the synagogue were colorfully decorated and covered in plaster. Archeologists believe that a room at the south end of the main hall with a shelf may have stored scrolls.