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Here are a few items interesting news items that emerged during 2008. Each reveal something about us as human beings, about the evangelical church, and about the world.
Billion dollar Planned Parenthood
A new annual report from Planned Parenthood shows the nation’s largest abortion business has made more than $1 billion in income for the first time in its history. The non-profit pro-abortion group shows the historical gain in its new annual report covering 2006-2007.
While Planned Parenthood made $972 million in its 2005-2006 annual report, last fiscal year it brought in $1.017 billion. On its Web site posting of the annual document, Planned Parenthood says it “highlights our advancements in providing and protecting trusted health care services and medically accurate sexuality education.”
Instead, the report finds Planned Parenthood doing more abortions than ever before. The report shows an increase in the number of provided abortions from 264,943 in 2005 to 289,650 in 2006. Planned Parenthood reveals it has doubled “excess of revenue over expenses—what the rest of us might call “profit”—from $55.7 million in 2005 to $112 million in 2006.
Muslims outnumber Catholics
The number of Muslims has overtaken the number of Roman Catholics in the world, a Vatican official said March 30. Muslims make up 19.2 percent of the world’s population and Catholics 17.4 percent, Reuters reported, citing Vatican numbers.
Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, an Anglican priest and director of the International Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, said as Islam grows, Christiansneed to grow in their understanding and discernment.
“Western Christians who are concerned to react in an appropriate, loving, scriptural and Christ-like way to the presence of Islam in their societies must have a clear understanding of the nature of Islam—its theology, ethics and culture—so as to discern where there is common ground and where there are differences,” he writes in his book “Islam: The Challenge to the Church.”
“This will help in the crucial decisions that have to be made on how to approach Muslims, and how to respond to the approaches that they make to Christians.”
Ted Turner teams with religious groups
Media mogul Ted Turner once called Christianity a “religion for losers.” Now, he is aligning with Christian groups to launch a $200 million dollar campaign to fight malaria in Africa. He also told the United Nations General Assembly “you’ve got to have faith to build a better world.” He also said he regrets his “loser” comments as well as a 2001 incident when he called Christians who worked at CNN “Jesus freaks” who should be working for Fox News instead.
The United Methodist Church will raise $100 million. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod will raise between $75 million and $100 million. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided $10 million to help promote the campaign in churches.
U.S. HIV rate found to be higher
The Centers for Disease Control said in 2008 that it had underestimated the HIV rate in the U.S. over the past 12 years. The U.S. saw approximately 56,000 new HIV infections in 2006, 40 percent more than the estimated 40,000.
The CDC said a better blood test and new statistical methods led them to revise their numbers. Male-to-male transmission accounted for almost 60 percent of new infections in 2006, according to the CDC, while 34 percent occurred among people ages 13 to 29.
“I feel great compassion for these men, because I’ve had different friends who are HIV-positive, friends who have died with AIDS,” said Jeff Johnston, gender issues analyst for Focus on the Family Action. “Outside of a faithful marriage between a man and a woman, there is no ‘safe sex.’ It is irresponsible to teach people that you can have ‘safe sex’ or ‘safer sex’ outside of marriage.
“For years, the gay community has been calling for approval of gay relationships, for promotion of homosexuality as a person’s core identity, and for so-called sexual freedom. What they are finding is that there is a cost. Gay activists want the public to bear the cost of their behavior. People must take personal responsibility for their actions.”
More U.S. women are childless
One in five U.S. women in their early 40s has no children, according to the Census Bureau. That’s double the level from 30 years ago and a record high.
Women age 40 to 44 who do have children have fewer than ever—an average of 1.9, according to the report.
“A lot of women are not having any children,” Jane Lawler Dye, a Census Bureau researcher who did the report, told The New York Times. “It used to be sort of expected that there was a phase of life where you had children, and a lot of women aren’t doing that now.”
“So much of our culture has made kids seem like big sacrifices and a big inconvenience,” said Carrie Lukas, vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women’s Forum. “There is something to being an increasingly secular society and being a little self-absorbed in not thinking about the legacy you want to leave.”
Two-parent homes still majority
Of the nation’s 73 million children, nearly 45 million (62 percent) live with their biological parents, according to a Census Bureau report released Feb. 20. Another 19 million live with their unmarried, biological mothers. The report, collected from 2004 surveys, also shows cohabiting families are on the rise, with 3.7 million children living with one biological parent and an unmarried partner.
A global population bust?
As the media tell it, the world is running out of resources and space. But according to a new documentary called “Demographic Winter: The Decline of the Human Family,” the world is actually running out of people.
Worldwide, each woman of childbearing age needs to have an average of 2.1 children for the population to break even. But, according to documentary spokesman Don Feder, global birth rates have declined by 50 percent in the last half-century. Many countries in Europe are hovering at a birthrate of 1.3 children per woman of childbearing age. “Demographic Winter” claims this is the first time in history that social forces have led to a global decline in population.
“They include secularization, abortion, widespread use of contraceptives, late marriage, cohabitation (and) people choosing lifestyles or careers over children,” Feder said.
More than one road to God?
More than half of self-identified evangelical Christians believe there is more than one path to salvation, according to a poll released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. More than 35,000 Americans were surveyed.
Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, said Christians may be reinventing their beliefs.
“Americans seem to be fashioning their own beliefs on many of these things,” he said, “because it doesn’t seem to correspond to the official teachings that they’re getting from their own church.”
Poll: U.S. is blessed
Six in 10 Americans think the U.S. is “blessed” by God, but 79 percent think the country sometimes does more harm than good when it relates to the rest of the world.
These are the results of a study by the television program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” and the United Nations Foundation.
Among other findings: 68 percent of people who attend services at least weekly said the country has a moral obligation to take part in world affairs, compared with 54 percent of less frequent attenders, and 67 percent of those with strong beliefs about God’s unique blessing on America said the U.S. has a moral obligation to be a leader in world affairs, as did 72 percent of those who thought the U.S. should set a Christian example.
To which, we would only add: Amen.
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