The march of Christianity
CHR Comment: A helpful map illustrates percentages of Christians who regularly attend church. The article describes the correlation between lower economic income and higher church attendance, including numerous statistics.
Source: The future of the world’s most popular religion is African | The Economist
From sunken treasure to ceremonial bobcat burials, it’s time to look back at the year’s biggest finds.
CHR Comment: The remains of four Jamestown men were originally discovered in 2010 buried beneath the chancel of a church. Analysis has now identified the remains of Rev. Robert Hunt, the first chaplain of the colony.
Assaults on churches by right-wing Jews, a new phenomenon, raise concern about movement’s increasingly aggressive tactics.
CHR Comment: The Church of the Multiplication is built over an ancient site associated with Jesus’ miracle of multiplying bread and fish to feed hungry crowds. It is the third church burned by Jewish terrorists who, spurred on by some rabbis, regard Christians as idolaters that must be driven from the Holy Land. According to the National Geographic article, young Jewish terrorists are adopting tactics against Christians that Jews and Muslims have used against one another for many years.
Source: Jewish Extremists’ Attacks Rattle Christians in Holy Land
I’m adding a more personal post during the Christmas season to share a little about how our family celebrates. We put our tree up a little before Christmas and will keep it up through the twelve days of Christmas (December 25 through January 5). This year we used dried flowers and leaves for decorating. Here is a description of our tree, which was fun to put together.
Angel. Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would give birth to the holy child, Jesus, our Savior (Luke 1:26-38). An angel announced to Joseph that Mary’s firstborn son was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20). Angels also announced Jesus’ birth to the shepherds (Luke 2:8-21). We love to place our angel figure atop the tree to remember these truths of Christmas.
White Flowers. Our daughter, Gretchen, clipped white snakeroot blossoms in late fall, bound them together, and hung them to dry in our garage. The blossoms turn a soft gray when they are completely dry. They are delicate so we had to handle them gently or else the petals would separate from the flower heads and drift about.
Purple Flowers. In November Gretchen clipped two types of purple mums (one variety is a bit darker than the other). She hung these also to dry in the garage. Mums are very sturdy dried flowers and retain their color well.
Yellow Flowers. We feel that the yellow mums really make the tree beautiful since they show up so well against the evergreen foliage and their color is a compliment to the purple mums. You can see them looking fairly fresh in Gretchen’s photo above. The dark purple mums are drier in the photo.
Leaves. We used two types of dried leaves. The yellow leaves are from a gingko tree. Most leaves look bright when they first fall but fade to dull browns and grays when they are fully dry. I noticed this year, however, that gingko leaves retain their color. So we collected them and strung them together in short chains connected with hot glue.
The other leaves are from a tree in our wood lot. I don’t know the species but it produces large, lobe-shaped leaves. They were also bright yellow when they first fell and I gathered them up with enthusiasm. However, as they fully dried, they lost that bright yellow color. They turned a nice butterscotch brown so I decided that we might still find a place for them in the decorating. I found that by tying six leaves together, you can create a nice, large flower-shape (you can see one just behind Susan’s head in the photo above).
Lights. Susan loves a tree with lights! So we included a few strands of simple white lights. They really help brighten the tree and look great when we turn down the other lights in the room.
In this Christmas season, we pray that the Lord would bless your household with the light of Christ our Savior!
The Sanctuary Movement made headlines in January by providing refuge in Philadelphia to a Honduran woman whose two children were born in the United States.
CHR Comment: The article provides two very different figures for the number of churches participating in the Sanctuary Movement. One pastor says 50, another mentions 300. Since persons from Central America may be eligible for asylum, the churches offer them a place to stay until their status is confirmed.
Source: Churches Offer Refuge For Central Americans Facing US Deportation
A gas tanker truck ignited an inferno at a crowded industrial gas plant in Nigeria, killing scores of people lining up to refill their cooking gas cylinders.
CHR Comment: Member of the Nnewi community were lined up to refill their gas cooking cylinders so they could cook their Christmas meals when the truck exploded. More than 100 people died. Nnewi is in southeastern Nigeria.
A Philippine military spokeswoman says Christmas attacks by Muslim rebels against Christian communities in the country’s volatile south have left at least 14 people dead.
CHR Comment: Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters killed nine Christians in attacks on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Government forces learned that an attack was coming and repelled about 200 rebels in eight different attacks during the two days of fighting. The Philippine population is largely Roman Catholic but they have had continued conflict with Muslim terrorists on some Islands.
Source: 14 killed in Muslim rebel attacks in southern Philippines
Government income limits could keep the family from collecting $15,000 in donations.
CHR Comment: Tavi Gilmore is fifteen years old and needs chemotherapy. Riverton Park United Methodist Church is offering assistance to the family though such generosity has simultaneously interfered with the government assistance the family was receiving. This is a good example of how taking initiative to help oneself can backfire under government regulation. Lord, have mercy.
Somalia’s government bans the celebration of Christmas, warning that such Christian festivities could threaten the nation’s Muslim faith.
CHR Comment: Somalia is more than 99% Muslim, operating under Sharia law. So this decision is not too surprising. According to the article, the ban applied to public observances that might take place in hotel lobbies (e.g., putting up a tree). Christians could observe the holiday in their homes.
From astronomy to religion, the year’s shortest day brings enduring mysteries.
CHR Comment: National Geographic briefly describes two theories about the relationship between the winter solstice and the date of Christmas. A prevailing view is that Christians chose December 25 as the date to celebrate Jesus’ birth to offer a Christian alternative to celebrating the pagan Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun) holiday that was timed with the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. A more common Christian explanation is that the day was chosen since it is nine months after the day when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would miraculously have a child who would be the Savior (Annunciation Day, March 25; Luke 1:26-37).
Source: Everything You Need to Know About the Winter Solstice
church history review 