Have You Heard "The Sermon on the Mall"?

 

In spite of how many of us profess to be followers of Jesus, few take his actual life and words seriously, and too many of us live our lives in direct contradiction to his teachings.

As you see by the list of "popular posts" on Harvspot, the one entitled "Rand, Ryan and the Rich Young Ruler" has received the largest number of page visits, 250 so far. The post describes how many of the politicians and other supporters representing the Tea Party Right (many of whom consider themselves conservative Christians) have been influenced by the blatantly anti-religious and anti-Christian writings of Ayan Rand, author of the best-selling "Atlas Shrugged."

I was heartened recently by becoming aware of how much Chuck Colson, a highly respected religious conservative, has spoken out against her influence. And today I viewed a powerful YouTube piece showing how the message of Jesus would sound if he were preaching the Tea Party/Ayn Rand gospel.

Take time to listen to this "Reversed version" of Jesus' words, entitled "Tea Party Jesus: The Sermon on the Mall," produced by The American Values Network, followed by a brief but provocative synopsis of some important things Jesus did actually say.

Note: As always, your comments are welcome. If you can't post your a comment because you don't having a Google account that allows you to do so, feel free to just send me an email, and I can post it if you wish.

They've Turned the World Upside Down?

Sheldon C. Good, web editor of the Mennonite Weekly Review, recently posted the following on the MWR blog site "Our World Together," and gave me permission to use it here (Incidentally, there is no logical reason that the "Northern Hemisphere" should appear on top of a world map!):

There are more Christians in China than the United Kingdom, and the population of Russia is nearly as Christian as the United States, a new study on global Christianity has found.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life study shows Christians make up nearly a third of the estimated 2010 global population of 6.9 billion, and in a historic shift, no single continent or region is the indisputable center of global Christianity. From the study’s executive summary:

A century ago, this was not the case. In 1910, about two-thirds of the world’s Christians lived in Europe, where the bulk of Christians had been for a millennium, according to historical estimates by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. Today, only about a quarter of all Christians live in Europe (26 percent). A plurality — more than a third — now are in the Americas (37 percent). About one in every four Christians lives in sub-Saharan Africa (24 percent), and about one-in-eight is found in Asia and the Pacific (13 percent).

In short, the study shows that Christianity today, unlike a century ago, is truly a global faith.