Paul writes to Philemon of “the church in thy house.”

If there is such a Church in our house, let us order it well, and let all act as in the sight of God. Let us move in the common affairs of life with studied holiness, diligence, kindness, and integrity. More is expected of a Church than of an ordinary household; family worship must, in such a case, be more devout and hearty; internal love must be more warm and unbroken, and external conduct must be more sanctified and Christlike. We need not fear that the smallness of our number will put us out of the list of Churches, for the Holy Spirit has here enrolled a family-church in the inspired book of remembrance. As a Church let us now draw nigh to the great head of the one Church universal, and let us beseech Him to give us grace to shine before men to the glory of His Name.

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This is Daniel Whyte III, president of Gospel Light Society International with the Whyte House Family Devotional Reading of Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening podcast. This is Episode #26.

Charles Spurgeon was a prominent English Particular Baptist preacher. He was very influential among the Christians of various denominations during his age and even today, and is commonly called the “Prince of Preachers”. After some time of alternately searching for God and running from God, he had a powerful encounter which led him to give his life to Christ. Spurgeon was only 16 when he preached his first sermon and he began publishing books shortly afterward. At the time of his death, he had preached nearly 3,600 sermons and published 49 volumes of commentaries, sayings, anecdotes, illustrations and devotions. Spurgeon said, “encouraging thoughts are like honey to the heart”, and wrote this devotional in hopes that its uplifting messages for each day of the year would bring comfort and refreshment to our walk with God. He was inspired by Isaiah 50:4 which reads, “He wakeneth morning by morning. He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned” and Psalm 63:5-6 which says, “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips; when I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches.”

2 Kings 6:6 reads: “And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim.”

The axe-head seemed hopelessly lost, and as it was borrowed, the honour of the prophetic band was likely to be imperilled, and so the name of their God to be compromised. Contrary to all expectation, the iron was made to mount from the depth of the stream and to swim; for things impossible with man are possible with God. I knew a man in Christ but a few years ago who was called to undertake a work far exceeding his strength. It appeared so difficult as to involve absurdity in the bare idea of attempting it. Yet he was called thereto, and his faith rose with the occasion; God honoured his faith, unlooked-for aid was sent, and the iron did swim. Another of the Lord’s family was in grievous financial straits, he was able to meet all claims, and much more if he could have realized a certain portion of his estate, but he was overtaken with a sudden pressure; he sought for friends in vain, but faith led him to the unfailing Helper, and lo, the trouble was averted, his footsteps were enlarged, and the iron did swim. A third had a sorrowful case of depravity to deal with. He had taught, reproved, warned, invited, and interceded, but all in vain. Old Adam was too strong for young Melancthon, the stubborn spirit would not relent. Then came an agony of prayer, and before long a blessed answer was sent from heaven. The hard heart was broken, the iron did swim.

Beloved reader, what is thy desperate case? What heavy matter hast thou in hand this evening? Bring it hither. The God of the prophets lives, and lives to help his saints. He will not suffer thee to lack any good thing. Believe thou in the Lord of hosts! Approach him pleading the name of Jesus, and the iron shall swim; thou too shalt see the finger of God working marvels for his people. According to thy faith be it unto thee, and yet again the iron shall swim.

PRAY.

Thank you for listening to the Morning and Evening podcast. If you do not know the Lord as your Savior, here is how you can be saved from Hell and walk with the Lord morning and evening until you go to that wonderful place called Heaven when you die:

First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…”

Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 18:8: “Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Now that is bad news, but here’s the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.

Romans 10:9 & 13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and today I choose to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I trust Jesus Christ as my Savior and I choose to follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.

If you believed in your heart that Jesus Christ died on the Cross, was buried, and rose again, allow me to say, congratulations on doing the most important thing in life and that is accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour! For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

If you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior today, please email me at [email protected] and let us know. There is some free material that we want to send you. If you have a prayer request, please e-mail that to us as well, and we will pray for you until you tell us to stop.

God loves you. We love you. And may God bless you.

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For the past 25 years, the number of Americans claiming no religion has steadily ballooned as more and more people quit church, synagogue or mosque and openly acknowledged being a “none.”

The reality is particularly stark when looked at from a generational perspective. If 10% of people from the silent generation (born 1928-1945) consider themselves religiously unaffiliated, a whopping 40% of Millennials (born 1981-1996) say they have no religion, according to Pew Research.

But this week, three political scientists who study religion have raised the possibility that the number of nones may be leveling off. Looking at a set of recent surveys, they suggest Generation Z, broadly defined as the 68 million Americans born after 1996, don’t look any less religious than the Millennial generation that came before.

“I was just shocked to see it,” said Paul Djupe, a professor at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. “Everything led me to expect that (the number of nones) would keep increasing for a while.”

The initial suggestion that the decline of religious affiliation seems to be slowing came from political scientist Melissa Deckman of Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Deckman interviewed 2,200 Americans ages 18-23 this past summer, asking them a host of questions, including whether they have a religious affiliation and how often they attend religious services.

When she compared those numbers to a 2016 Public Religion Research Institute survey, she found striking similarities between those in her study of Generation Z and older Millennials. In both generational cohorts, 38% said they consider themselves to have no religion.

“Up to this point there’s been a very fast drop-off, especially among younger people,” Deckman said. “It seems to have slowed somewhat.”

Two other political scientists—Djupe and Ryan Burge—then looked at other data sets, including the 2018 General Social Survey, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study and a Voter Study Group. They found those surveys confirmed Deckman’s thesis about slowing rates of religious disaffiliation among Gen Z.

There are a couple of possible explanations for the slowing of religious decline:

The Country’s Growing Racial Diversity

The United States will soon be a minority-majority country. Scholars project that might happen between 2041 and 2046, depending on the amount of net immigration into the U.S.

That’s important in terms of religion because minority groups such as African Americans, Hispanics and immigrants from Africa and Asia tend to be more religious than American whites. Deckman, for example, found that 67% of Gen Z Hispanics and 66% of Gen Z African Americans have a religious affiliation, compared with only 58% of Gen Z whites. As the pool of whites shrinks, other groups—particularly immigrants—may be growing and they tend to be more religiously attached and attend services more often.

The Culture War Sorting Is Mostly Over

The past few decades have been marked by a host of divisive social and political issues, including abortion, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage. Many religious congregations used to be a lot more diverse on a range of issues. But they have become less so, as both liberals and conservatives have joined up with like-minded congregants or dropped out of religion altogether. While the United Methodist Church is still in the midst of that kind of sorting—the denomination is expected to split on the issue of LGBTQ inclusion—many other denominations have already completed that process.

A Changing Social Desirability Bias

This is a related phenomenon. Americans once embraced their religious identities. They are now more willing to admit they don’t have one because it’s no longer socially desirable to declare an affiliation.

“A lot of marginally attached Protestants and Catholics who went once a year used to say they were Catholic or Protestant,” said Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois. “But now it’s easier to say you’re a ‘none.’ So they say, ‘I’m not religious at all.’”

Because this social desirability bias waned considerably over the past decade, it became more acceptable for those marginally religious to report being unaffiliated, which likely contributed to the sharp uptick in nones over such a short time. Now, that group has largely already claimed that status, and those who remain affiliated are committed to their faiths and likely to remain more stable.

(One of the last barriers may be identifying as atheists. Deckman found that among Gen Z, 12% were comfortable calling themselves atheists. Among American adults as a whole, there’s still some social desirability in not identifying as atheist; only about 4% identity that way.)

Admittedly, the data sets are limited. They include surveys from 2018 and 2019. And there isn’t a lot of data on Gen Z because the oldest among them are 23 and pollsters generally don’t poll people younger than 18.

But they do suggest at least a momentary pause in the secularization march.

Not everyone is convinced.

Joseph Baker, a sociologist of religion at East Tennessee State University and editor of the academic journal Sociology of Religion, said it’s too early to know if the unaffiliated have leveled off.

“Those kids are barely out of college,” said Baker. “If you think of people dropping out of religion, it usually tends to come about by their mid- to late 20s. It’s possible it could go up.”

He also suggested that generational replacement may continue to drive up the share of the population that’s religiously unaffiliated.

“We need to be cautious,” he warned.

SOURCE: Religion News Service, AP

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A church’s financial manager stole more than $500,000 to pay for her wedding and many other personal expenses, authorities said.

Taisha Smith-DeJoseph, 43, of Willingboro faces numerous charges including theft, misapplication of entrusted property and failure to file personal income tax returns, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s office announced Tuesday.

The charges stem from an investigation that began when officials with St. Paul’s Baptist Church in Florence reported their suspicions to authorities.

The subsequent investigation determined that from 2014 to March 2019, Smith-DeJoseph opened bank accounts on behalf of the church and used that money for personal purposes. She also allegedly wrote checks to herself from the church and fabricated the church’s monthly financial statements.

Smith-DeJoseph allegedly spent the money on rent, car loan payments, credit card bills, hundreds of online purchases and her wedding at a venue in Burlington County. She stole $561,777 overall, authorities said.

It wasn’t known Wednesday if Smith-DeJoseph has retained an attorney. A telephone number for her could not be located.

SOURCE: Associated Press

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A foundation for the Saints ownership has given at least $62 million to the Archdiocese of New Orleans and other Catholic causes over the past dozen years, including gifts to schools, universities, charities and individual parishes, according to an Associated Press review of public tax documents.

Along the way, Archbishop Gregory Aymond, who knew Tom Benson and his now-widow Gayle separately before they married in 2004, became almost a part of the team, thought by some to bring the beloved Saints help from a higher power.

Aymond has been spotted on the field at Saints games and inside the team’s Superdome box and has flown on the owner’s private jet. He is known for celebrating stirring pregame Masses, including one before the team’s lone Super Bowl appearance in 2010, when he correctly predicted victory and joined in a rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

The archbishop arranged a 2011 meeting of the Bensons with Pope Benedict XVI in Rome’s St. Peter’s Square, where Tom Benson kissed the pontiff’s ring and flashed his own Super Bowl ring. A few years later, Aymond served as a witness to the signing of the will that cut out Tom Benson’s estranged daughter and grandchildren and gave third wife Gayle control of a business empire that included ownership of both the Saints and the NBA’s Pelicans.

And Aymond was there in 2018 after Tom Benson’s death at age 90 to eulogize him as a “New Orleans saint on Earth” and walk side by side with Gayle in the funeral procession. In an honor typically reserved for clerics, Benson was given a two-day public visitation at Notre Dame Seminary, a chateau-style institution renovated with one of the couple’s multimillion-dollar donations.

“Our relationship with past Archbishops and the archdiocese dates back 50 years plus,” Gayle Benson said in a statement this week in response to the AP’s request for comment. “Our faith is the core foundation from which we live our daily lives. Unifying, helping and giving back is not something we do when asked; we do it every day. It defined how Tom Benson ran his organization and how I ardently continue his legacy.”

That bond has received renewed scrutiny after the AP reported last month that hundreds of confidential Saints emails allegedly show that some of the team’s top executives did public relations damage control for the archdiocese in the midst of its clergy abuse crisis.

It’s a controversy that has led fans in New Orleans and beyond to question what exactly the Saints did for the church and whether it was appropriate.

Those answers are not yet clear because the team has gone to court to block — or at least delay — the public release of those emails, which emerged as part of the discovery process in a clergy abuse lawsuit. A court hearing is scheduled next week in New Orleans to determine whether the 276 documents may be made public. The AP has filed a motion in support of their release.

Attorneys for about two dozen men bringing clergy sex-abuse claims against the church allege in court filings that the emails show the team joined in the church’s “pattern and practice of concealing its crimes.” The attorneys contend that included taking an active role in helping to shape the archdiocese’s 2018 release of its list of 57 credibly accused clergy, a roster an AP analysis found had omitted at least 20 names.

In her statement, Gayle Benson denied the Saints had any role in selecting the names, saying the team’s senior vice president of communications, Greg Bensel, was asked only to help prepare church officials for the release of the list.

“His recommendations were consistent with the Archdiocese which included: be honest, complete and transparent,” her statement said. “We are proud of the role we played and yes, in hindsight, we would help again to assist the Archdiocese in its ability to publish the list with the hope of taking this step to heal the community.”

Gayle Benson, a 73-year-old former interior designer and devout Catholic with a fortune estimated by Forbes at $3.1 billion, also said that neither she nor her late husband ever contributed to paying settlements or legal awards in the church’s clergy abuse crisis.

“To suggest that I would offer money to the Catholic Church for anything related to the clergy molestation issue sickens me,” she wrote.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys Richard Trahant and John Denenea recently subpoenaed Benson’s charitable foundation for any records relating to “settlements of claims for clergy abuse” over the past decade.

“Archbishop Gregory Aymond stated that he could turn to ‘benefactors’ to help him pay sexual abuse claims,” they said, referring to an interview Aymond gave last year. “We are simply following the legal process to see if he has turned to his biggest benefactor, Gayle Marie Benson.”

The NFL has yet to weigh in on the Saints’ actions. The league has a policy barring “conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the National Football League.”

Saints fans who have spoken out on the controversy on social media — with some even calling on Benson to sell the team — have acknowledged the complexity of an issue in a metropolitan area of 1.5 million people that is steeped in Catholic history, 36% Catholic and wild about the Saints.

When members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests held a protest outside the Saints’ suburban practice facility last month to urge the team to release the emails, some of them wore black and gold Saints jerseys and acknowledged being season-ticket holders.

Overall, the Bensons’ namesake foundation has donated nearly $100 million since 2007, helping fund a cancer center in metro New Orleans and upgrades at the stadium in Ohio where the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game is played. Most of their giving has gone to Catholic organizations, AP’s review of public tax documents found.

At least $11 million has gone toward projects at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, where both Bensons were raised. In addition to Notre Dame Seminary’s renovations, the couple has supported a health and wellness program for senior citizens at a former church.

The couple has also given at least $7 million to Tom Benson’s Catholic high school and at least $8 million to Loyola University in New Orleans, the Catholic school where he studied accounting.

The Bensons were also major donors in San Antonio, where Tom’s career in the car business broadened into banking. They donated at least $10 million to a theology school and $6 million to the Catholic university where they were married.

For their contributions to Catholic causes, the Bensons in 2012 received the highest papal honor bestowed on lay members, the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice.

Former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, a Catholic who is now president of the National Urban League, said he was “horrified and dismayed” by the sexual abuse inside the archdiocese and added: “I would urge the Archdiocese and any organization that has aligned itself with the institution to adopt a policy of complete transparency, with a goal of helping victims to heal and preventing further trauma.”

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It’s hard to tell who has a gun at Fellowship of Wildwood church.

The men stand silently at the edge of the crowd, as worshippers shrug off their heavy winter coats and sip from paper coffee cups before the Sunday service.

Nicknamed the “sheepdog ministry,” the group of about a dozen volunteers provide armed protection for congregants at the Baptist church west of St. Louis.

Attacks on houses of worship in recent years have left congregations grappling with how to respond. Some have hired armed guards or trained members to carry weapons, but others have resisted the idea of allowing guns inside houses of worship.

In the past two years, gunmen have attacked worshippers in cities across the country, including Pittsburgh, where a man stormed a synagogue and killed 11 people, and Sutherland Springs, Texas, where 26 people were killed during services at a Baptist church.

“From a theological standpoint, we’re trying to understand why these things are happening,” said Ryan Bowman, a pastor at Fellowship of Wildwood. “But on a very practical level, what would we do? How would we respond? Are we prepared and ready?”

Leaders at Fellowship of Wildwood would prefer not to have guns in the sanctuary, said Bowman, but they felt they had no other option. Per Missouri law, only congregants with explicit permission from the church can carry concealed weapons.

Fellowship of Wildwood member Tara Jones said she feels safer knowing that the church has a security plan in place — and added that having a physical place to worship is important to her.

“God put me here to live my life abundantly,” Jones said. “I’m not going to stay home and watch TV evangelists.”

Preparing congregants

For some faiths, preparing for the possibility of a violent attack is nothing new.

Rabbi Ze’ev Smason, who leads Nusach Hari B’nai Zion synagogue in Olivette, Mo., calls anti-Semitism “one of the oldest hatreds.”

“We have a collective institutional memory going back 3,000 years when we have suffered terribly,” said Smason.

Still, he considers the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in 2018 a turning point for his congregation, which dates back to the early 1900s.

Members went through active shooter training and worked with the local police department to assess their facility for possible security risks. They also hired armed guards, which Smason compared to “having a lock on your front door.”

“A gun is only as good or as evil as the person who uses it,” he said. “We have a primary obligation to create a safe space for the people who come to our synagogue.”

Safety is also a key concern for leaders at the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis.

On a recent afternoon, security guards stood watch, as worshippers hurried into the mosque for their daily prayers. Mufti Asif Umar said they’ve strengthened their security in recent years, though he declined to give specific details, citing safety concerns.

Umar called God the “ultimate protector,” but said they still have to be prepared. He compared it to a passage from the Koran, in which the Prophet Muhammad sees his companion leaving a camel without tying it up.

“The Prophet Mohammed said, tie your camel first and then trust in God,” Umar said. “If you just leave it there and you go, there’s a good chance the camel can run away. It’s like that.”

SOURCE: NPR, Shahla Farzan

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Pope Francis has sidestepped a request for married men to be ordained as priests and women to be ordained as deacons, saying the Roman Catholic Church should find other ways to address a dire shortage of clergy in South America’s Amazon region. Bishops in that part of the world had asked for fundamental shifts in Roman Catholic policy last autumn.

The bishops’ plan was widely seen as another potential rift between Francis and his conservative critics within the church — some of whom have already accused the pope of heresy because of his stances on issues such as homosexuality and divorce.

“Ultra-conservatives in the church in Europe and the U.S. have warned allowing married priests in the Amazon could trigger total abolition of the clerical celibacy requirement,” NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome.

Speculation has swirled for months about how the pope would respond to requests to allow married male deacons and women to take on new roles. The proposals came out of a special three-week Synod of Bishops last October that included countries from the Amazon region, from Brazil and Bolivia to Colombia and Venezuela. Deacons are allowed to oversee weddings and baptisms but are not permitted to consecrate the Communion wafer and wine.

A critical shortage of priests has hobbled Catholics’ ability to celebrate sacraments in that area of South America.

“They can’t have a priest for weeks or months, which, if they can’t have a priest, that means they can’t have Mass,” Rocco Palmo, editor of the website Whispers in the Loggia, told NPR last year. “If they can’t have Mass, they can’t have the Eucharist, Holy Communion, the thing that Catholics consider to be the bread of life, the thing that keeps us alive spiritually.”

Pope Francis’ response came Wednesday in the form of a document titled Querida Amazonia — or “Dear Amazon.” In it, he deflected many of the core issues about ordaining married men as priests and women as deacons.

SOURCE: NPR, Bill Chappell

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