Polls Show Trump not Leading with Devoutly Religious Republicans
Despite reports that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has support among evangelical Republicans, a Gallup poll showed that “highly religious” voters do not back Trump in high numbers.
Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of Gallup, writes in a column for The Christian Post that “a better view of Trump’s image among this group comes from our Gallup data in which Republicans are asked about their views of each candidate individually.”
According to the data, Trump does not have high levels of support from highly religious Republicans. Among the 17 GOP candidates, Ben Carson leads with the most support among the highly religious group. Trump ranks 12th on the list.
“Note that Ben Carson’s 56-point net favorable among the highly religious Republicans is over two and a half times higher than Trump’s,” Newport said.
“In fact, four candidates in all — Carson, Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz — have more than double the net favorable rating among highly religious Republicans that Trump does.”
Gallup also measured how much support candidates have among Republican Protestants and Republican Catholics. Six of the candidates are Catholic: Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Rubio, Rick Santorum and George Pataki.
“Bush, Christie and Pataki are the three candidates who get the biggest “bumps” from Catholic Republicans compared with Protestant Republicans — nine points for Bush, 11 points for Christie, and nine points for Pataki.”
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Atheist Minister Remains Ordained in United Church of Canada
A minister in the United Church of Canada who is an admitted atheist vows to fight to keep her clergy credentials as a regional body investigates the effectiveness of her ministry.
Vosper came out as an atheist back in 2001. She has called the UCC “probably the most progressive Christian denomination in the world” and wants it to be more welcoming of atheism.
“After I spontaneously preached a sermon in which I completely deconstructed the idea of a god named God, rather than fire me, the congregation chose to keep me as their minister.”
The United Church of Canada, the second largest church organization in Canada, is a merger of four Protestant denominations: Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregational and Local Union.
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Schools Now Pushing Soft Porn for Tweens, Islam for All Kids
This new school year under expansive Common Core curriculum and standards testing, children will have data collected by the government about behavioral and mental aptitude, not their test scores. No matter what a governor or state school board might claim, if the state receives federal money in any form, it is participating in data collection without parental consent. Parents have the constitutional right to opt out their child by filling out this form.
And the Exodus Mandate is encouraging and providing resources for Christian parents to do more than opt out, but to exit the public school system altogether. Two excellent videos explain why.
When it comes to “sex education,” minors are taught the benefits of nontraditional sex, beginning in the fifth grade, to the normalcy of their own “sexual fluidity” in the seventh grade and higher. Additionally, the U.S. Dept. of Education no longer defines parents as mothers or fathers, but as Parent 1, Parent 2 on student aid forms.
In New York City, teens via a tax funded smartphone app can locate free condoms within walking and free clinics where they can receive prescriptions and medication, and abortions and IUD implants—without parental consent. The Plan B pill is also distributed at public schools, again without parental knowledge.
Parents are protesting school board policies that require their heterosexual children to share a bathroom or locker room to accommodate another child’s experimentation with “gender fluidity.”
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Court Rules to Keep Statue of Jesus on Montana Mountain
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a previous ruling to allow a statue of Jesus to remain on a Montana mountain.
According the The Christian Examiner, the statue, known by locals as “Big Mountain Jesus,” was erected by the Knights of Columbus in 1954 as a memorial to their fallen World War II comrades and as a remembrance of religious shrines they saw while deployed in Europe.
The statue has stood on the top of Big Mountain for 60 years.
In 2012, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) attempted to get the statue removed. However, the Forest Service, which originally issued the Knights of Columbus a permit to erect the statue, renewed the permit, allowing the statue to remain.
The FFRF then sued the Forest Service and lost, but appealed the court’s decision. In 2013, the FFRF lost the appealed case, and now they have lost their case again, but they say they will once again appeal the court’s decision.
For now, however, “Big Mountain Jesus” is safe.
Eric Baxter, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, commented on the court’s decision:
“Freedom From Religion Foundation wanted to use the First Amendment to erase Big Mountain Jesus from memory, even though it is, as the Court recognized, a crucial part of the history of Montana,” Baxter said. “Thank goodness for common sense.”
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Report: One Christian Martyred Every 5 Minutes
A report found that every five minutes, one Christian is martyred for their faith somewhere in the world.
According to Relevant, Christian Freedom International released a video that details the startling facts of Christian persecution worldwide. The video was released in preparation for the International Day of Prayer on November 8.
Relevant reports that more Christians have been martyred for their faith in the 20th and 21st centuries than in the previous 19 centuries combined.
More than 200 million Christians face persecution worldwide in 105 countries out of 190 around the world.
Open Doors has released a global map, detailing the countries in which Christians face the most persecution.
Number one on the list is North Korea, followed by Somalia and Iraq. Nearly all of the 50 countries listed are either in the Middle East or in Africa.
Christian Freedom International quotes the Bible verse that states, “Remember those in prison as if in prison with them and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering” as an admonition to Christians to pray for their persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ.