Theology in the News

Gallup have conducted a poll looking at American perceptions of moral issues.

Here’s the results:

So the top 5 most contentious and divisive issues are:

Doctor Assisted Suicide – Abortion – Having a baby out of wedlock – Buying or wearing animal fur – Gay relationships

The top 5 most immoral issues are:

Marital adultery – Polygamy – Cloning Humans – Suicide – Pornography

The top 5 morally acceptable issues are:

Divorce – Death Penalty – Gambling – Medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos – Sexual relations between unmarried men and women

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More than 60 percent of Americans in a new Gallup poll believe abortion should be illegal in most circumstances, a six-year high that puts them at odds with Supreme Court decisions that legalized abortion for virtually any reason.

Sixty-one percent of U.S. adults say abortion should be illegal in all circumstances or legal in only a few circumstances, compared to 37 percent who say abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances. The 61 percent is an increase from 56 percent last year and is the highest since 2005, when 62 percent answered similarly.

Additionally, 51 percent of U.S. adults say abortion is morally wrong compared to 39 percent who say it is morally acceptable.

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I wonder what long term impact this will have on the child?

You can read about it here.

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“Pastors’ sentiments on global warming have shifted right in step with Americans in general,” said Scott McConnell, director of LifeWay Research, in a statement released Monday.

A thousand randomly-selected pastors with different denominational backgrounds and political ideologies were interviewed in a survey conducted by LifeWay Research in October last year. Participants were asked if they “believe global warming is real and manmade” and told to answer either “strongly disagree,” “somewhat disagree,” “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree.”

Results revealed that 13 percent “somewhat agree” and 23 percent “strongly agree” with global warming warnings. On the other side, 41 percent of interviewees “strongly disagree,” up from 27 percent in 2008, while 19 percent “somewhat disagree.”

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According to the newly released survey, evangelicals are most skeptical to global warming. LifeWay’s report found that 68 percent of evangelical pastors “strongly disagree” or “somewhat disagree” with the statement that global warming is real and manmade. Among mainline pastors, less than half (45 percent) disagree with that notion.

Only 14 percent of evangelical pastors strongly agree that global warming is real and manmade.

The LifeWay Research poll also revealed that pastors with a more liberal political leaning tend to be convinced that global warming is real and manmade. Among pastors who describe themselves as progressive or liberal, 78 percent strongly agree with that notion. Yet only seven percent of conservative pastors and six percent of very conservative pastors strongly agree.

Protestant pastors rarely address environmental issues to their congregation, the survey also found.

Only half of Protestant pastors (52 percent) do so once a year or less. Pastors who consider themselves evangelical speak to their churches on the environment less often than mainline pastors. While 49 percent of evangelicals address the environment once a year or more, 67 percent of mainline pastors address it once a year or more.

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I’ll leave to your imagination the storm of protest currently emanating from the LGBT online community….

Computer firm Apple has approved an iPhone and iPad application which claims to ‘cure’ gay people.

The app, called Exodus International, is targeted at ‘homosexual strugglers’ and teaches them that gay people have a choice about their sexuality.

Its Christian makers claim the app gives them a chance of ‘freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus’.

The free programme, which is available in Britain, was given four out of five stars by Apple, which means it is deemed to have  ‘no objectionable content’.

But the computing giant is now under pressure after gay rights campaigners started a petition to have it withdrawn.

U.S. pressure group Change.org said that Exodus’ claims are ‘hateful and bigoted’ and send out an appalling message.

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UPDATE: Apple have bowed to pressure and have pulled the App.

ABC News: Appls Pulls ‘Anti-Gay’ App After Pressure

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Not all sociological developments are predictable. This truism is nowhere illustrated more strikingly than in the way that the homosexual agenda has become the vehicle for the totalitarian liberal agenda — systematic discrimination against Christians and the tearing down of all that remains of normal and conservative society and resistance to liberal ideologues’ control.

SOURCE

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On the eve of the federal budget deadline and on the heels of Congress’s passage of a temporary stop-gap funding bill, prominent evangelical leaders today unveiled a Christian proposal on the American debt crisis. On a conference call with reporters this morning, nationally recognized evangelical leaders Shane Claiborne, Michael Gerson and Jonathan Merritt, as well as Dr. Gideon Strauss and Stephanie Summers of the Center for Public Justice and Dr. Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action urged Congress not to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.

“How we balance our national budget is first of all a moral question. That we must do so is clear. But the bible says God measures societies by what they do to the people on the bottom,” said Dr. Ron Sider, founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action. “So as we both cut federal expenditures and raise taxes, we must fully fund effective programs here and abroad that combat disease and starvation and lift millions out of poverty.”

The statement, “A Call for Intergenerational Justice: A Christian Proposal on the American Debt Crisis,” calls for “fiscal frugality and compassionate action” and proposes concrete ways of cutting the debt while protecting the poor and making moral investments for the future of our nation and world. It was also signed by prominent evangelical leaders including Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary, Richard Cizik, President of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, Kim Phipps, President of Messiah College, Shirley Mullen, President of Houghton College, and Rev. Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed in Orlando, Florida and a former member of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. (The full statement and list of signers below and here.)

“From a fiscal perspective, cuts in global health and poverty programs are inconsequential,” said Michael Gerson, former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, fellow at the ONE Campaign, and columnist for the Washington Post. “From a moral and humanitarian perspective, they would be tragic. America does not have a debt problem because it spends too much on AIDS drugs or bed nets.”

Specific proposals in the statement include cutting defense spending, curbing health care costs, closing corporate tax loopholes and tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, and cutting wasteful subsidy programs, while fully funding domestic and international programs that empower and protect the most vulnerable and prevent hunger and suffering.

“I am concerned about the elephant in the room. We’re spending $200,000 a minute on the military while we cut mosquito nets and nutrition programs for neighborhoods like mine in North Philadelphia where we have an epidemic of obesity… here, it’s easier to get a gun than a salad,” said Shane Claiborne, founder of The Simple Way and author of Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals. “Our money says “Our money says ‘In God we trust.’ I wish it said, ‘In God we hope to trust,’ and that we wouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain, but do something that’d make God proud.”

Their proposal emphasizes the need for shared sacrifice and the need to prioritize the common good over self-interest.

“Partnership of citizens with government at this juncture in the life of our political community is vital to enabling government to satisfy its joint responsibilities to reduce the federal debt to a responsible level while continuing to do justice for the poor and vulnerable,” said Stephanie Summers, COO of the Center for Public Justice. “Confronted by necessary federal austerity measures, citizens of all ages must place the demands of justice before immediate self-interests, sharing costs and making sacrifices to support these difficult but moral responsibilities.”

Signatories grounded their support for the proposal in their understanding of Scriptural teachings about justice.

“Biblical Justice is more than a private virtue or moral platitude,” said Jonathan Merritt, founder of the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative and author of Green Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet. “Justice is a commitment to care for those who are powerless, to speak for those who lack a voice. Doing justice means both caring for those who need us now and speaking for those who are yet to come.”

The statement and its endorsers also appeal to lawmakers’ sense of purpose and responsibility as they tackle the fiscal challenges facing our nation.

“In issuing this Call to Intergenerational Justice, we call on those who make our nation’s laws and those who administer these laws, to ‘fulfill their proper task and high purpose,” said Gideon Strauss, CEO of the Center for Public Justice. “…To try to balance the diversity of our interests, but to act to uphold a just public order for us and for all our neighbors.”

The Christian Proposal on the American Debt Crisis is below and here.

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The Pew Research Centre has just released a new report on public attitudes.

Here are some excerpts:

The public remains deeply frustrated with the federal government, but fewer Americans say they are angry at government than did so last fall. Overall, the percentage saying they are angry with the federal government has fallen from 23% last September to 14% today, with much of the decline coming among Republicans and Tea Party supporters.

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Just 29% say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right just about always or most of the time, up from 22% last March. About seven-in-ten (69%) say they trust the government only some of the time or never, compared with 76% a year ago.

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The survey finds a continuing rise in support for same-sex marriage since 2009. Currently, 45% say they favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally while 46% are opposed. In Pew Research surveys conducted in 2010, 42% favored and 48% opposed gay marriage and in 2009, just 37% backed same-sex marriage while 54% were opposed.

Over the same period, there has been movement toward a liberal position on abortion. In 2009, for the first time in many years, the public was evenly divided over whether abortion should be legal or illegal in all or most cases. But support for legal abortion has recovered and now stands at about the same level as in 2008 (55% then, 54% today).

Independents have become more supportive of both gay marriage and legal abortion since 2009. Roughly half of independents (51%) now favor same-sex marriage, up from 37% in 2009. And 58% of independents say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 47% in Pew Research Center surveys two years ago.

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Today, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects fundamentalist church members who mount offensive protests outside military funerals. The court voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, throwing out a $5 million judgment to the father of a dead Marine who sued church members after they picketed his son’s funeral.

A nearly unanimous Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment protects even hurtful speech about public issues and upheld the right of a fringe church to protest near military funerals.

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The supreme court ruling can be found here in PDF format.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote:

“…..is certainly hurtful and its contribution to public discourse may be negligible.” But he said government “cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.”

However, the one dissenting judge – Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr – was quoted as saying:

“Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case”.

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Marriage and family experts argued against media coverage of a recent study that claims a large numbers of Americans view marriage as obsolete. Rather than endorse a negative interpretation of the figures, the experts argued that the same study shows the majority of young people today still want to get married.

The interpretations come after the Pew Research Center and Time Magazine issued a report on Nov. 18 in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, saying that 39 percent of U.S. citizens view marriage as “obsolete.” This figure is an increase from the 28 percent of Americans who stated the same belief in 1978.

A media firestorm erupted after the release of the study, with major news outlets questioning whether or not the figures heralded the end of traditional notions on marriage and family life in America.

Opposing this idea, were  Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, president of the National Organization for Marriage’s Ruth Institute, and Chuck Donovan, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. They argued that a closer look at the study reveals more promising news.

Donovan said in a Nov. 19 e-mail that because the “forces against marriage” such as casual sex and abortion have been “powerfully corrosive” in American society, “it’s quite amazing that pro-marriage attitudes are so tenacious.”

Sixty-one percent “of adults think it’s by no means obsolete,” he said.

Citing additional figures from the Pew study, Donovan said that in fact, most single young people who were evaluated expressed a desire to get married. “The vast majority of the rising generation expects to marry someday – 85 percent or more will do so.”

“Young people want to get married and stay married,” Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse remarked in a phone interview with CNA on Nov. 19, adding that the problem in our current divorce-ridden society is that many are unsure how to effectively go about this.

“The responsible thing is to help people figure out what to do,” she said. Morse argued that “the real story is the enthusiasm of the mainstream media” in attempting to signal the demise of marriage.

Backing this idea, Donovan noted that the Pew numbers would serve as a “wake-up call” on the need for more of what he called marriage-supportive policies in the U.S.

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