Poll: More Than One-third of Americans See Signs of End Times in Extreme Weather
More than a third of Americans - 36 percent - believe the severity of recent natural disasters is evidence that we are the "end times" described in the New Testament, the Religion News Service reports. "There is a significant proportion of Americans who see these phenomena through a theological lens," said Daniel Cox of the Public Religion Research Institute. "It's hardly a fringe belief. It's nealry four in 10 Americans who are embracing this." The conviction is particularly strong among white evangelical Protestants (65 percent), and less common among Catholics (21 percent) and the religiously unaffiliated (15 percent). But a majority of Americans connect recent extreme weather to climate change: 63 percent say the severity of recent weather is evidence of global warming, compared to 33 percent who disagree. Cox noted religious divisions among Americans on recent destructive storms, floods, snowstorms and heat waves. Sixty-nine percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans link dramatic weather to global warming, compared to 60 percent of Catholics and 50 percent of white evangelicals. "They're experiencing the same weather, but how they perceive it is very different," Cox said. The differences among Democrats and Republicans are even starker, with 70 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of independents saying unusual weather patterns are evidence of global warming, compared to 43 percent of Republicans. The survey also found that 29 percent of Americans believe God sometimes punishes nations for the political decisions of their leaders, though 65 percent reject this idea.
Out-of-Wedlock Births Society's "New Norm"
The number of children being born outside of marriage has increased sharply, according to a new study by the National Marriage Project and the Institute for American Values, CBN News reports. The report focuses on what it calls "middle America," the nearly 60 percent of Americans who complete high school but not college. Among that group, 44 percent of children are now born outside of marriage - up from 13 percent in the 1980s. "Marriage in middle America is at a tipping point, with unwed childbearing threatening to become a new norm," said study co-author Brad Wilcox. Research shows children born or raised outside of marriage are more likely to suffer from a range of social and emotional problems, including drug use,depression, attempted suicide and dropping out of high school.
Islamist Constitution SpellsTrouble for Egypt's Christians
Egypt has approved a new, pro-Islamist constitution, and Christians and other minorities foresee bleak and repressive days ahead, Patheos.com reports. Voter turnout in the two-stage nationwide referendum was reportedly limited, and Christians were particularly underrepresented - as low as 7 percent in some areas. Intimidation from Islamists kept many away from the polls, and in one instnace, an estimated 50,000 pro-constitution Egyptians marched through Christian areas of the city of Assiut before the election. Men on horseback with swords led the way - evoking the seventh-century Muslim conquest - as marchers chanted that Egypt would be "Islamic, Islamic, despite the Christians." Under the new charter, the rights of Chirstians and other religious minorities are "undermined beyond salvage," says Hudson Institute scholar Samuel Tadros.
Global Nones
Back in October the Pew Research Center released a report saying those who have no religious affiliation represent a growing number of Americans - perhaps as many as 45 million people. This week, Pew widens the survey and says the trend is global. One in six people worldwide answer "none" when asked for religious affiliation. That makes the "nones' the third-largest group worldwide, behind only Christians (2.2 billion people) and Muslims (1.6 billion). The study also notes that the world has about 1 billion Hindus and a half-billion Buddhists.
(above articles from WORLD News Service)
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