No sooner do I empty my inbox each weekend, that it fills right up again! Here’s the news from the last seven days:
Remember smiling ecumenical minister, Robert $chuller (pictured)? He was the Joel Osteen of the previous generation. No messages about sin or hell, just lots of smiles. He died last year and his ostentatious glass church complex was bought by the local Catholic diocese and is currently being renovated to the tune of $72 million. $chuller’s ultra doctrine-lite grandson, Bobby Schuller, unsurprisingly has a regular slot on TBN.
Graham is absolutely right about the prosperity gospel, but I don’t know what was more harmful to the true Gospel witness; the prosperity gospel that’s rampant on TBN or Graham’s ecumenism with Rome?
Enlightening! Ca$h for canonization! No surprise. These kinds of backroom deals have been part and parcel for the Catholic church for centuries, folks.
- A whiff of schism: when different Catholics hold radically different beliefs
- Catholic church’s total ban on contraception challenged by scholars
- 500 Catholic scholars lash back at Humanae Vitae critics
- Catholics Face a Choice
- On Communion debate, Pope Francis opts for decentralization
Catholic traditionalists and progressives continue their no-holds-barred fight to control the future of the church. This is not how you spell u-n-i-t-y.
- Where have all the children gone?
- Young People Are Abandoning Religion, Especially Catholicism
- What Tim Kaine and Mike Pence say about the diluted identity of the American Catholic Church
- No, American politics didn’t create ‘Cafeteria Catholics.’ Catholicism did.
The American Catholic church is in deep, deep crisis mode as younger people are dropping away like the plague. They wonder why they should climb Catholicism’s mountain of religious legalism and liturgical rigmarole when the pope says even atheists will go to Heaven if they “follow the light they are given” and are “good.”
- Joint Catholic Lutheran commemoration a sign of hope to divided world
- Pope, Christian leaders pray for peace, victims of war
A week doesn’t go by that I don’t see a story about Rome pushing its ecumenical agenda.
This is an interesting article on the Catholic church’s premier Marian apparition, with the church marking Fatima’s 100th anniversary next year with great fanfare.
I applaud this school official in Italy who banned Catholic mass from public schools. I think I need to post a message down the road about American evangelicals who continue to bemoan the discontinuation of prayer in public schools.
I love this rundown of the headlines!
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Thanks so much!
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Tom, I would love to see some written thoughts from you on the banning of prayer in public schools.
I have some thoughts on the matter myself, and frankly they are somewhat out of align with many of my brethren.
🙂
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Thanks, Wally. I’m definitely a “square peg” when it comes to some very widely held and cherished viewpoints in the church, like prayer in public schools. I’ll get a post out in a day or two and we can all chew on the issue.
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Problem is with being a square peg is that people persist in trying to hammer them into that round hole.
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Yeah, it’s tough to buck tradition or the latest gimmick that “everybody’s doing.” The church does several things because “that’s the way it’s always been done” or because celebrity Pastor X does it that way, without thinking and praying it through.
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Want to see where you stand on the issue too
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Every time I hear “no more prayer in public schools” it’s like nails on a chalkboard.
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Yikes, what a descriptive analogy…
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Hey! Whattaya know! I wasn’t even trying.
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Thanks for the updates, Tom. Wish I had more time to read them all.
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Thanks, Caroline! I enjoy keeping an eye on the trends inside the Catholic church but realize most people don’t want or need that level of detail.
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