The changing faiths of Americans February 29, 2008
Posted by questcollegeministry in christianity, church, news, spirituality.Tags: christianity, church, news, religion, spirituality
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A major study on the religious landscape of the United States was released earlier this week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The study creates possibly the most detailed picture ever of which Americans belong to which religious groups.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the survey is how it demonstrates that rate at which people change faiths. The study points out the one of the most significant features of religious life in American is this “churn.”
Luis Lugo, the director of the Pew Forum, said that Americans “not only change jobs, change where they live, and change spouses, but they change religions too. We totally knew it was happening, but this survey enabled us to document it clearly.”
According to the study, 28% of American adults currently affiliate themselves with a different religious faith than they had as a child. And this number does not include people who have changed from one Protestant denomination to another. If you include that figure, then the number jumps to 44%. Let that sink in for a minute. Almost half of all Americans have a different religious affiliation than the one they were raised with.
For some groups, this churn is hidden by the raw numbers. For example, since 1972 the number of Catholics in the United States has remained pretty stable, moving from 25% of the population to 23.9%. However, nearly 1/3 of those who were raised Catholic have left the Catholic church. Put another way, nearly 10% of the U.S. population is ex-Catholic.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses give an even more extreme example of this turnover. Although the number of Jehovah’s Witnesses has stayed roughly the same, nearly 2/3 of those who said they were raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses have left that faith.
The group that has seen the biggest “gains” in terms of people coming in versus people leaving is the group of “unaffiliated.” This includes atheists, agnostics, and people whose affiliations are “nothing in particular.” This group now makes up 16.1% of the U.S. population. But still, 50% of adults who were raised “unaffiliated” now, as adults, have made a religious affiliation.
The study doesn’t speculate into the reasons for these changes, but there are a couple of things that stand out to me. The first is that traditional, family, and historical ties are loosening. People no longer continue to attend a church, or even a type of church, simply because they is what their parents did. I don’t think that’s an entirely bad thing. I think that if these factors alone determines a person’s faith, I think that it is more likely that the faith never really becomes theirs. Instead, religion or church becomes nothing more than something they do every Sunday (or Saturday or Friday or whenever). As a follower of Christ, I know that I need my own faith in Jesus, not just a tradition to follow.
The second thing I see is that people are searching. They are looking for spiritual fulfillment. And if they aren’t finding it where they are, they are willing to go somewhere else to look for it. That fact should be an encouragement to those of use who are trying to provide a place where spiritual fulfillment and spiritual growth can happen.
If you are looking for more information about the survey, you can find articles about it here and here.
I also recommend looking at the survey results themselves. They are fascinating. You can find an entry page to the survey here. You can find all kinds of statistical breakdowns and maps and all sorts of things. I recommend taking some time to explore it.
Life after Plan A February 27, 2008
Posted by questcollegeministry in Bible, Quest, following God, spirituality.Tags: Bible, christianity, religion, spirituality
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In the latest part of our ongoing series, we discussed what God had intended the plan to be when he created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, when you involve people plans tend to get messed up. God created a great plan, but people chose to mess it up.
Fortunately, God didn’t choose to stop there. He didn’t just say “oh well” and write off humanity. “Plan A” was broken because of what Adam and Eve had done, but almost immediately God begins putting together a new plan. This last week we looked at the next few interactions after the Garden of Eden between God and man. We wanted to think specifically about what these stories tell us about what God wanted the relationship to look like now that “Plan A” was gone. Here are some of the things we came up with:
- We started by looking at the story of Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel both bring gifts to God. God accepts Abel’s but not Cain’s. The key difference between the two seems to be that while Cain “brought some of the fruits of the soil,” Able “brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.” (Genesis 4:3-5). The implication is that Abel brought the best part of the first stuff he had, while Cain brought some of what was left over. God loves us and wants us to love him back. In life, we can tell how much we mean to someone based on where we fall in their priority list. No matter how much I may say that I like Bryndon, if I don’t ever talk to him or spend time with him, he is going to get the message that he isn’t very important to me. That is what seems to be going on here. Abel says that God is important, and he brings best part of the firstborn of his flock to prove it. He gives to God before he takes things for himself. Cain, on the other than, gives God what is left over. As a result, God can tell that he is important to Abel, but not really to Cain.
- Even after sin has entered the picture, God is still personally interacting with people. He comes and has an actual conversation with Cain. (Genesis 4:9-16) Cain doesn’t see this as odd. One of the lessons we can take out of this is that, even though Adam and Eve sinned and broke the relationship with God, God still wants to have a relationship with people. He still wants to personally interact with them. So while the way that the relationship works has changed, God’s goal has not.
- The next interaction between God and man comes in the micro-story of Enoch. (Gen. 5:21-24). Enoch walked so closely with God that God took him, hundreds of years sooner than other people were dying. We discussed that the implication here is that Enoch’s relationship with God was so strong that God wanted to have a physical, face-to-face relationship. It is as though God was ready to see his friend. He didn’t want to wait until Enoch died, so God just took him.
- That brought us to the story of Noah. By that time, the only people who were interested in a relationship with God were Noah and his family. Everyone else on earth had “corrupted their ways.” (Genesis 6:12). God was so fed up with everything that he was ready to destroy his entire creation. But he looked and saw Noah, who “was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.” (Genesis 6:9). God was ready to destroy everyone, but he rescued the one family that followed him. This is very similar to the rescue of Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:6-19:29). In the story of the flood, we see God involved in the lives of his followers. We see God taking care of the people who seek a relationship with him.
- In all of these early stories, we see a God who continues to care about people, and a God who wants to have a relationship with people. In spite of the fact that sin has entered the world, God still loves people and wants people to return that love. God truly stands by those who return his love.
Those are the highlights of our discussion about what God wanted the relationship with people to look like after sin entered the picture. From here we are going to continue by looking at Abraham and what God’s relationship with Abraham can tell us.
Weekly Bible Readings – February 26-March 3 February 26, 2008
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Tuesday, Feb. 26 Exodus 39 & 40, Mark 9:2-32, Psalm 26
Wednesday, Feb. 27 Leviticus 1-3, Mark 9:33-10:12, Psalm 27:1-6
Thursday, Feb. 28 Leviticus 4, Mark 10:13-31, Psalm 27:7-14
Friday, Feb. 29 Leviticus 5:1-6:7, Mark 10:32-45
Saturday, Mar. 1 Leviticus 6:8-7:10, Mark 10:46-52, Proverbs 6:12-19
Sunday, Mar. 2 Leviticus 7:11-8:36, Mark 11:1-25, Psalm 28
Monday, Mar. 3 Leviticus 9 & 10, Mark 11:27:12-12, Psalm 29
At some point, you have to take their word for it… February 23, 2008
Posted by questcollegeministry in humor, news.Tags: humor, news
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According to this article, Benjamin Lovell from New York City was given access to a $5.8 million bank account that wasn’t his. The bank confused Lovell with another man also named Benjamin Lovell. He apparently tried to tell officials at the bank that he didn’t have an account with nearly $6 million, but the officials insisted that it was his and that he had the right to withdraw the money.
The investment banker, and real account holder, Benjamin Lovell wasn’t so convinced that the other Benjamin Lovell had the right to withdraw the money. The “lesser-funded” Lovell now faces grand larceny charges for the $2 million he took from the account. And he doesn’t even have much to show for it. While he spent some of the money on jewelry and cash gifts to friends, much of the money went into bad investments and has been lost, according to prosecutors.
So much for the “bank error in your favor” card from Monopoly. It might end getting you sent to jail.
God’s “Plan A” February 21, 2008
Posted by questcollegeministry in Bible, Quest, christianity, following God, spirituality.Tags: Bible, christianity, religion, spirituality
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At Quest, after looking at who God is and who people are, we looked at what God initially planed for the relationship between God and people to be like. In other words, what was “Plan A” before people came along and screwed it up?
We started off simply by reading the story of the Garden of Eden, in Genesis 2:4-3:13. Then we looked at some of the things we can learn from that story. Here are some of the things we came up with:
- From the beginning, God intended to have a personal relationship with people. We see interaction between God and Adam in Genesis 2:15-21, before the creation of Eve. We also see in Genesis 3:8-9 that God made a habit of coming and walking in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. God’s plan was for there to be a close relationship between him and people.
- God intended for people to be involved with caring for the garden. God intended for people to be an active part in managing God’s creation. Genesis 2:15 tells us that God put Adam in the Garden of Eden “to work it and care for it.” Genesis 2:19-20 tells us that although God had created all of the animals, he gave Adam the job of naming them. This shows us that God wanted people to be an active part of running creation.
- Creation is an evolving thing. One of the very interesting things that we can see in the creation story is the words that God used to describe it. Consistently, when God looked at the things he created, he “saw that it was good.” It says this in Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21 and 25. God didn’t say that it was “perfect.” He said that it was “good.” God intended for there to be change and progress. We can see this by flipping to the end of the story. Revelation 21 describes what heaven is going to be like, and it describes a city. If the Garden of Eden was “perfect,” that is what heaven would look like. But instead we see things advancing from a garden to a city. Genesis 1:28 shows us that people are going to be part of that process of change.
- We also looked at the fact that God made Adam first, and then some time later made Eve. Before Eve was created, God had Adam name all of the animals. In that process, Adam didn’t find a “suitable helper.” That’s when God made Eve. (Genesis 2:19-22). This led to the question of whether God alone is enough for us in our lives. Adam had a personal, physical access to God. They physically spent time together. They worked together. They took walks together. They had a friendship that looks very similar to the types of friendships we have today. And yet God saw that “it is not good for the man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18). This suggests that God didn’t intend for us to only have a relationship with him. There is something more that we need, beyond just a relationship with God. We also need to have relationships with other people. In fact, “it is not good” for us to be without those relationships. So God intended for us to develop relationships, both with him and with other people.
Those are the highlights of our discussion about what God intended for things to be like before sin entered the picture. From there, we will move on to talk about some of the ways that God has tried to rebuild the bridges that were burned when people chose to sin and damage the relationship with God.
Weekly Bible Readings – February 19-25 February 21, 2008
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Sorry this is a day late. If you are reading the Bible through with us this year, here are this week’s readings:
Tuesday, Feb. 19 Exodus 25 & 26, Mark 4:30-5:20, Psalm 23
Wednesday, Feb. 20 Exodus 27 & 28, Mark 5:21-6:6, Psalm 24
Thursday, Feb. 21 Exodus 29 & 30, Mark 6:7-29, Proverbs 5:15-23
Friday, Feb. 22 Exodus 31:1-33:6, Mark 6:30-56, Psalm 25:1-7
Saturday, Feb. 23 Exodus 33:7-34:31, Mark 7:1-30, Psalm 25:9-15
Sunday, Feb. 24 Exodus 35 & 36, Mark 7:31-8:13, Psalm 25:16-22
Monday, Feb. 25 Exodus 37 & 38, Mark 8:14-9:1, Proverbs 6:1-11
In some places, the Patriots won February 18, 2008
Posted by questcollegeministry in news.Tags: news
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The Super Bowl ends. The winning team starts celebrating and the players and coaching staffs all get a shirt and hat celebrating their team’s achievement. If you stop and think about it, you realize that there has to be another set of gear commemorating the “victory” of the team that just lost. Do you ever wonder what happens to those shirts?
They end up being donated to impoverished communities where people need clothes. For example, according to this article, the NFL had 290 shirts and hats they were ready to be given out to New England Patriot players, coaches, etc. When the Giant’s won, and the “Patriots 19-0″ gear became unnecessary, the league donated these unused clothes to the impoverished communities of San Gregorio and Buena Vista, Nicaragua.
The NFL used World Vision to arrange the donation, which primarily benefited children. According to a representative of World Vision, the Patriots may have lost, “but the children won.”
In a nation where so many usable things simply get thrown away, I think it’s pretty cool that the NFL would donate unnecessary clothing to people who really need it.
So close, yet so far… February 17, 2008
Posted by questcollegeministry in humor.Tags: humor
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Hmm…I just don’t think that this is what they meant. On the other hand, the warning might even be more effective if it were…
Thanks to YSMarko for the picture.
Flawed People February 16, 2008
Posted by questcollegeministry in Bible, christianity, following God, spirituality.Tags: Bible, christianity, religion, spirituality
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Recently, I’ve been reading my way through Genesis and then Job. One of the things that really struck me this time was how God uses flawed people. Time and time again, we see people who make mistakes and who struggle with sin, and yet we see God having a relationship with them and using them to affect the lives of others.
One of the first things that Noah does after getting off the ark is to get drunk. There are a couple of occasions where Abraham passes his wife off as his sister, and he uses this lie to help make himself get rich. Isaac does the same thing. Jacob lives the first half of his life as a selfish manipulator. Joseph was pretty much the definition of arrogance up until the time he was sold into slavery. Yet these people are heroes of the book of Genesis.
Job and his friends spend almost 40 chapters arguing about God. Both sets of people have incorrect views of who God is and how he works. Then God shows up and explains how Job misunderstood him. Yet after three chapters of taking Job to task, God still calls Job his friend.
Too often, people think that they have to be perfect for God to use them, or that we need to clean ourselves up before God will want to have a relationship with us. Nothing could be further from the truth. We don’t have to be perfect in order to have a relationship with God. If that were true, the Bible would have no heroes, other than God and Jesus. Because everyone else in the Bible is a human being who struggles with the same kinds of things that all human beings struggle with.
Certainly sin is wrong. And as we have a relationship with God, we should see changes in our lives. We should start to become more like him. Typically, that change is a result of a relationship with God, it isn’t a prerequisite for it.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Northern Illinois University February 15, 2008
Posted by questcollegeministry in news.Tags: news
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This is another tragic day. Yet another school shooting on a college campus. This time it is close to home, at Northern Illinois University. You can find a more detailed story and video here, if you are looking for more information.
According to reports, a former NIU graduate student in sociology walked onto the stage in a lecture hall during a geology class and started shooting. As of the latest report, 5 students and the gunman were dead, and other 16 people were wounded.
Any time there is a school shooting, it is a terrible tragedy. However, it seems a little different when you have an actual attachment to the school. In this case, Cheryl’s brother and his girlfriend both go to Northern. Additionally, three students from Living Hope Church, including one who occasionally pokes her head into Quest also go to school there. Fortunately, they are all safe and sound.
My reaction tonight is one of sadness and a desire to help. As I was driving home tonight, all I could think of was that if I thought it would do any good, I would drive out to DeKalb to help. But I just didn’t know that it would accomplish anything.
To everyone attending or related to Northern: We are praying for you. If there is any way that I personally, or Quest as a group, can be of any assistance, let me know. You can post a comment here, or you can email me at questcollegeministry@yahoo.com.
