This week: Worldwide Christian Persecution, the fall of Dawkins, a Doctor in violation of the Hippocratic Oath, and more Global Warming (or lack thereof)
Welcome to the Faith at the Cross Roads News Roundup! Each week (or month or whatever!) I will collect a few articles along the way to bring to light news items that are relevant to the purpose of this blog: Areas where culture and science seem to intersect the Christian faith. I’d love to hear some of your thoughts in the comments.
Christians: The world’s most persecuted people
The Centre for the Study of Global Christianity in the United States estimates that 100,000 Christians now die every year, targeted because of their faith – that is 11 every hour. The Pew Research Center says that hostility to religion reached a new high in 2012, when Christians faced some form of discrimination in 139 countries, almost three-quarters of the world’s nations.
Generally speaking, Christians in the good ole USA really have no clue about how good we have it here, and about how bad it is elsewhere. God help us all.
Richard Dawkins, what on earth happened to you?
The former fair-haired prince of the New Atheist movement has some tarnish on his crown.
Doctor shoots man who opened fire on hospital staff
As a doctor, his charge is “First, do no harm.” As an upstanding citizen, he realizes sometimes harm must be done in defense of self and others.
Still no global warming for 17 years 10 months
“The Pause” keeps on pausing!
I’d love to discuss these things with you. Any questions and comments that are in line with this page’s Commenting Policy will be published and responded to (to the best of my ability).
For more information on how I keep my worldview informed please go to Cross Roads Church.
Faith at the Cross Roads 
hessianwithteeth
/ August 4, 2014I’d like to know a couple things related to the first article. First, what are the state of murders committed against those of other religions, or the non-religious. Unfortunatly there isn’t much to compare the data to (not that murder is ever justified, but I’d still like to know). And second, who is killing the Christians? Which groups are the most responsible. I think that if we can answer that question, we can find a way to solve the problem, at least to a certain degree.
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johnspenn
/ August 4, 2014Hello hessianwithteeth and thank you for taking time to read and comment on my article. As to your first question, I honestly have no idea. I’m not aware of any service that collates that type of data.
I do of course realize that “The Centre for the Study of Global Christianity” may be biased somewhat in their reporting, but I have no reason to believe they have skewed the numbers.
The Pew Research Center seems to study these types of issues with even-handedness, and there is an interesting article regarding hostilities against various religious groups here: http://www.pewforum.org/2014/01/14/religious-hostilities-reach-six-year-high/
Here is a particularly interesting graphic: http://www.pewforum.org/files/2014/01/restrict-5-16.png where atheists are included in the “other” column along with some of the smaller religions.
Now, I have a couple of questions for you. You said “And second, who is killing the Christians? Which groups are the most responsible. I think that if we can answer that question, we can find a way to solve the problem, at least to a certain degree.”
My questions are: 1. What problem will be solved by knowing who is killing Christians?
2. How will knowing who is doing the killing solve the problem you have in mind?
Again, thank you and I look forward to your response.
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