Info-Secte / Info-Cult’s Post

John Schweiker Shelton evaluates the history and impact of parachurch organizations, the need for church campus ministries, and analysis from the recent book The Great Dechurching alongside the context of early American Christian missionaries. Read more from our latest Issue 37: Church in "Praying Towns, Parachurch Ministries, and the Need for Sodality" https://lnkd.in/giYDRU-R #theotherjournal #tellitslant #parachurch #churchcampusministry

To get some idea of the sneaky, and unethical ways the Evangelical Christians are taking over our country, and others, here is a scary read. https://lnkd.in/eEBpCiYx

Eugene Peterson wrote that "It is not difficult…to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate…the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim." Research confirms this: Barna reported that only 1% of church leaders say the Church is succeeding at discipling new Christians. Join us in Chicago for a five-week series on the life of faith in the 21st Century. We will look at life in exile, examine the mission of those called to follow Christ, discuss the nature of discipleship, the importance of community, and consider some practical strategies to stem the tide of casual Christianity and not only sustain our faith but to grow spiritually in community. Register at https://lnkd.in/eBpP6Ych

https://lnkd.in/ehKJaRPJ Cracking the #Christian #nationalist code: A glossary for the confused The Christian right has a clearly anti-democratic agenda — but it's concealed with deliberately confusing terms By PAUL ROSENBERG ..."Christian nationalism: The belief that America was founded as, and intended by God to be, a Christian nation. This is based on an Old Testament-based worldview fusing Christian and American identities, rooted in parallels between America and Israel, which was commanded to maintain cultural and blood purity, often through war, conquest and separatism. It’s an important premise for most of the Christian right, which claims it is seeking to restore or reclaim this mandate. The Christian nationalist vision has been used, for example, by theologian Francis Schaeffer to justify the anti-abortion movement, and by advocates of dominionism to advance a theocratic society. Sometimes identified as “white Christian nationalism” to distinguish it from the Black Christian nationalist tradition identified with the civil rights movement.  Christian #Zionism: Primarily an evangelical doctrine, originating in 19th-century British premillennialism, that regards supporting the State of Israel as crucial to fulfilling prophecies in the Book of Revelation. This culminates in the battle of #Armageddon, with the mass slaughter of #Jews as Israel is covered in “a sea of human blood,” as described by Hagee. While Jewish Zionists hold a wide range of views and some support a #Palestinian state, Christian Zionists oppose any such accommodation. In the extreme, they support Israel stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and are especially eager for war with Iran.",,,

Here is an article I co-authored for Christianity Today. The basic question: are evangelicals pursuing Christ or Christendom? https://lnkd.in/gy4RStU7

To grow the Church in a way that counters its historic tendency to colonize, we must first look to our past. The four priorities guided our denomination in the first 20 years of the 2000s, but did they transform the Church, and if so, how? Learn more below! #ccdoc

https://lnkd.in/eyBHiRdP To give you a glimpse of how the church is doing in the role of sending, check out these numbers on the income and spending of the Church worldwide. Global Income of Christians in US Dollars: $42 Trillion Given to Christian Causes (2% of total income) $700 Billion Given to Foreign Missions (only 6% of the 2% giving to Christian causes) $45 bill. Of all the Money Given to Foreign Missions: 87% goes for work among those already Christian. 12% goes for work among already evangelized non-Christians. 1% goes for work among people groups in the Unevangelized or Unreached category ($450 Million) (Taken from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. http://www.gcts.edu)

A more globalised Catholic Church seemed to be the animating story today from the Rome Synod. You might have thought the CHurch was already the biggest multi-national phenomenon of them all: I certainly did. But the Pope clearly wants much more of it, emphasising the "universality" of the Church. Accordingly his new 27 cardinals announced this week exemplify this desire. And this was on display at the daily 1.30pm Vatican press conference rooms adjacent to St Peter's, when three new Cardinals-elect---from Ivory Coast, Japan and Brazil---presented their wares and were up for questioning. Nanding the politics likely around the choice of the next Pope (always is a bit of a maze and which I can't predict) I thought the Archbishop of Tokyo, Tarcisio Kikuchi, was impressive---real Papabile material. We'll see: how long away that prospect is of course we don't know. But together with his big recent visit to our region, we realise now that Francis has been on a determined mission: to ensure that the next voting bunch to elect the Pope will NOT be just Europeans or Westerners but a broader group. 141 will be eligible to vote out of the 256 Cardinals and he's appointed 80% of them. He's also in tune with the prevailing story-of-the-moment: the rise of the Global South. It makes sense though I wonder whether the Church's centre of gravity will actually move away from the northern hemisphere. According to the soon-to-be Cardinal Kikuchi: "The centre of the missionary Church is shifting from Europe to the GLobal South...but I (also) think the peripheries are moving: maybe moving towards Europe." Mmm. And there's the question of money. Can the Church afford to sideline the funds that routinely flow from the established centres: reports say the Vatican runs at an 60-80 million euro deficit each year and simply has to trim its sails. More to come in this story. But definitely new personalities will emerge. They already are.

The Church has often struggled with being co-opted by dangerous and violent individuals. It’s happened before in church history, and it is happening again now. The use of Christianity as a banner to unite the far-right isn’t new. But it is dangerous, and it needs to be called out. Read my latest comment, for Premier Christian Communications 👇 https://lnkd.in/erQdf-pY

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