The percentage of Americans who identify as Christians now stands at 63%, down from 65% in 2019 and from 78% in 2007. Meanwhile, 29% of Americans now identify as having no religion, up from 26% in 2019 and 16% in 2007, when Pew began tracking religious identity.

Many places of worship closed during the pandemic—some voluntarily, others as a result of state and local social-distancing rules—and in-person church attendance is roughly 30% to 50% lower than it was before the pandemic, estimates Barna Group, a research firm that studies faith in the U.S. Millions of Americans moved to worshiping online, and questions linger about how many will come back in person.

A previous Pew survey, in January, found that a third of Americans said their faith had grown stronger during the pandemic—the highest share of any developed country. But overall, religious engagement trended downward at roughly the same rate as before the pandemic, according to the new Pew survey.

“A significant minority of the population is saying their faith has been strengthened as a result of the coronavirus outbreak,” said Greg Smith, associate director of research at Pew and author of the religious affiliation study. “But that group, the people who say their faith has been strengthened, is concentrated among those who were already highly religious. There’s not a lot of evidence of people who were not that religious before March 2020 [and] have become so,” he said.

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Among the 29% who say they have no religion, 4% say they are theists and 5% agnostics. Both of those figures are unchanged since 2017. The percentage of Americans who identify as “nothing in particular” grew from 16% in 2017 to 20% this year. Though some who identify as “nothing in particular,” may believe in God, Mr. Smith said they are far less likely to pray or attend services than Americans who identify with a religious group.

To continue reading on The Wall Street Journal, click here.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/americans-left-religion-during-covid-pandemic

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U.S. military services have begun to take disciplinary actions and discharges for troops who have refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

As many as 20,000 unvaccinated forces of the approximately 1.3 million active-duty troops are at risk of being removed from service — though neither the Navy nor Marine Corps have released refusal totals and it remains unclear how many could end up being discharged.

MARINE CORPS DISCHARGES 103 ACTIVE DUTY PERSONNEL FOR DEFYING PENTAGON’S COVID-19 VACCINE MANDATE
https://www.foxnews.com/us/marine-corps-discharges-active-personnel-covid-vaccine-mandate

The Navy has already fired one sailor from his command job for refusing to be tested while he pursued an exemption.

The Marine Corps said Thursday that it had discharged 103 Marines thus far, the Army has reprimanded more than 2,700 soldiers and will begin discharge proceedings in January and the Air Force announced earlier this week that 27 airmen had been discharged.

At least 30,000 service members are not yet vaccinated, but several thousand have been granted temporary or permanent medical or administrative exemptions and more than 12,000 have sought religious exemptions.

About 4,800 Army soldiers and Air Force airmen have refused the vaccine outright, without seeking an exemption.

The Pentagon made the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for all service members, including the National Guard and Reserve, and is also weighing making vaccine booster shots mandatory.

TEXAS GOVERNOR ABBOTT REFUSES PENTAGON VACCINE MANDATE: ‘HAVE ONLY PRESIDENT BIDEN TO BLAME’
https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-governor-abbott-refuses-pentagon-vaccine-mandate

Members of the U.S. military are already required to get as many as 17 vaccines, depending on where they are deployed.

The Army said that 98% of its active-duty force had gotten at least one shot, the Marine Corps said 95% of its force had gotten at least one dose, 97.5% of the Air Force and Space Force have gotten at least one shot and 98.4% of the Navy is fully vaccinated.

The administration’s mandate has met some outside resistance as well and Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Thursday that the state would not direct its National Guard members to comply with the order.

Acting on an order from Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, the state’s adjutant general sent a memo telling Guard troops that they aren’t required to get the shot and that “no negative administrative or legal action” would be taken against them if they refused. Stitt also asked Austin to consider suspending the mandate for members in the state.

Additionally, Republican governors from Wyoming, Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi and Nebraska have sent a letter to the Pentagon asking the Department of Defense to remove its mandate on Guard members.

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Austin said in November that National Guard members who refuse COVID-19 vaccination will be barred from federally funded drills and training required to maintain their Guard status.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 72% of the U.S. population age 18 or older has gotten at least one shot.

Julia Musto is a reporter for Fox News Digital. You can find her on Twitter at @JuliaElenaMusto.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/health/covid-vaccine-mandate-military-disciplinary-actions-refusers

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EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Marines are being “crushed” by President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate as thousands face dismissal for their continued refusal to get the shot, several active-duty Marines told Fox News Digital.

To date, 169 Marines have been discharged for refusing the vaccine, and thousands more face the same fate after the Department of Defense’s mandate on all active-duty service members went into effect for the Marine Corps on Nov. 28.

COVID-19 VACCINE MANDATE: MILITARY BEGINS DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS AGAINST REFUSERS
https://www.foxnews.com/health/covid-vaccine-mandate-military-disciplinary-actions-refusers

Marines are allowed to apply for a religious exemption, but so far not a single application regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, or any vaccine for that matter, has been approved, a Marine Corps spokesman told Fox News.

Several Marines who refuse to get the shot were granted anonymity by Fox News Digital, so they could speak freely. They said they are witnessing a “political purge” by the Biden administration that is forcing out the military’s “best and brightest” over deeply held beliefs they say are protected by the First Amendment.

“There’s something fundamentally wrong at this point with our nation’s leadership,” said a major with more than 17 years of active service. “We are facing an unconstitutional edict that I think is very targeted as a political purge, taking out some of the best and brightest soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and guardians from the Space Force.”

A lieutenant colonel with more than 19 years of active service said it appears that the military, specifically the Marine Corps, is discharging service members “as fast as they can and as brutally as they can, damaging every Marine as much as they can on the way out.”

“The one message I got from the colonel above me was: ‘Tread very carefully, this is political, you will be crushed like an ant.’ And he told me that because he cares about me,” the lieutenant colonel said. “Do I want to continue serving in an institution that crushes people for bringing up reasonable points in defending their faith?”

One master sergeant said it seems that “the louder I speak the tighter the screws are turned against me.”

“When you’re expected to behave a certain way and to obey certain rules and follow certain processes, and then to see on the other end that that’s not a two-way street, that’s a violation of my morals that I can’t stand by and not speak out about,” the master sergeant said.

The Marines who spoke with Fox News said they were on the receiving end of a “blanket” denial of religious exemptions, with their applications being rejected without consideration. Eight separate letters of denial provided to Fox News were nearly identical, citing “military readiness” as the primary reason for rejection.

“I saw one package from a sergeant who had attached, like, 30 pages of material to substantiate why his belief was sincere, under no lawful obligation to do so,” the master sergeant said. “And then to have this as a response with no individual inquiry and just a generalized assertion of governmental interest is insulting.”

“On the religious side, this is absolutely a travesty what’s happening,” one chief warrant officer said. “People are getting blanket denials, they’re not addressing the individual concerns or beliefs of Marines who are submitting for religious accommodations, and I think that’s just horribly wrong. I honestly believe that they’re not really reading the packages.”

Another lieutenant colonel, who said she leads an 800-strong support group for service members who oppose the vaccine, said, “Everyone else pretty much has a voice except the military, because we are not authorized to speak out in opposition to our leadership.”

“I’ve talked to so many different service members,” she said. “Just recently, one of the corporals in the group was absolutely distraught because one of his friends who also declined the shot recently just killed himself.”

“This is an absolute travesty,” she continued, choking back tears. “And I’m telling you, I am so upset about this. My heart is breaking for these people.”

Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Ryan Bruce told Fox News that as of Thursday, 3,080 of the 3,192 requests for religious accommodation concerning the COVID-19 vaccine mandate had been processed and zero had been approved, adding that “no religious accommodations have been approved for any other vaccine in the past seven years.”

Despite the Marines’ claims to Fox News, the Corps spokesman said that the process for evaluating requests for religious exemptions has been done on a case-by-case basis “to ensure Marines receive due consideration.” That process, he said, includes an evaluation by a three-member Religious Accommodation Review Board, as well as by health services and legal.

There has also been a debate about what will happen with the thousands of service members who continue to refuse the shot. While they all face separation from the military, a provision added by Republicans to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress passed less than two weeks ago, requires service members discharged for vaccine refusal to receive either an honorable or general discharge.

Bruce said that if the sole basis for separation is vaccine refusal, “the least favorable characterization of service that may be approved is General (under honorable conditions).” Such a designation means that an individual’s military service was satisfactory, but did not deserve the highest level of discharge. He said that 169 Marines have been separated from the Marine Corps for vaccine refusal so far, but he could not say how many have been separated with that designation.

The first lieutenant colonel said that even a general discharge under honorable conditions results in the loss of G. I. Bill education benefits for the individual member and their dependents.

Of the more than 180,000 active-duty Marines, approximately 5%, or 9,000, are considered unvaccinated by the Corps. Bruce told Fox News, however, that the number includes service members who are either currently exempt, are waiting for religious exemptions, or are new recruits who have yet to be entered into the reporting system, and that not all have necessarily “refused” the vaccine.

The Corps’ most recent weekly newsletter last week said COVID-19 is a “readiness” issue, because the “speed with which the disease transmits among individuals has increased risk to our Marines and the Marine Corps’ mission.”

When asked what effect losing thousands of members might have on Corps readiness, Bruce said, “The Marine Corps will be ready to answer the nation’s call if needed.”

And while the Marine vaccination rate is the lowest among the military services, compared to 96-98% among the Army, Navy and Air Force, only two Marines have died from COVID-19 to date, Bruce said.

Which has many Marines asking, is it worth it?

“My son, my cousins, they will not be signing up for service,” the major said. “You talk about the generational damage that was caused during Vietnam and how we treated our veterans there, this will be significantly worse.”

CRUZ, REPUBLICANS SIGN AMICUS BRIEF BACKING NAVY SEALS SUING OVER BIDEN VACCINE MANDATE
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cruz-republicans-amicus-brief-navy-seal-biden-vaccine-mandate-lawsuit

He added that with the current tensions in Russia, Ukraine and China, the military is sacrificing in readiness by purging thousands of able-bodied men and woman ahead of a “World War III scenario.”

“This is the American equivalent of Roman decimation,” added the master sergeant.

“I’ve never had such a moral objection to anything in my life,” the chief warrant officer said. “I have a lot of pride in my service in the Marine Corps and I just don’t like where it’s going.”

“I want to stay in,” he added. “I have the potential to go beyond 20 years and I would love to do that if given the opportunity.”

Earlier this month, California Rep. Darrell Issa led a group of Republicans in sending a letter to Biden saying he was committing a “grave mistake” in enforcing his military vaccine mandate. Last week, the congressman joined a group of nearly 50 Republican lawmakers in filing an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit by 35 SEALs and other Navy personnel who are seeking religious exemptions to the vaccine.

The Navy reported last week that zero of 2,844 active duty requests for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine had been approved.

Issa spokesman Jonathan Wilcox told Fox News roughly 45,000 active duty members across the military, the equivalent of 45 battalions, face dismissal over the mandate.

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“I think that this White House and this president are declaring a rhetorical war on what they call the unvaccinated, and they’re catching the military in that same rhetorical battle,” Wilcox said. “They are determined to fire, remove and I think ruin those who are challenging their mandate.”

“This would be the most grievous injury that a commander-in-chief has imposed in his command, I think, in the history of this country,” he added.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/marines-being-crushed-vaccine-refusal-political-purge

The post Marines say they’re being ‘crushed’ over vaccine refusal: ‘A political purge’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

For years, we’ve been on a slow steady path toward the same communist society as China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and other repressive regimes have. Many in academia, media, and politics have worked to indoctrinate our young people and others with the idea that socialism is compassionate and makes everyone’s outcome in life equal through legislation.

As Lenin once stated, “The goal of socialism is communism.” Socialism inevitably leads to communism. People are continually stripped of their rights until all that remains is a tyrannical, totalitarian regime with total control over the people.

Socialism uses “political correctness” to attack basic moral discernment and force everyone to be the same. This has come along with the normalization and legalization of all manner of anti-theist and profane speech, sexual perversions, demonic art, pornography, and drug use.

This flies in the face of anyone who believes in God and aspires to a higher moral plane. This is done with the goal to marginalize and eventually get rid of anyone who disagrees with them.

Our younger generations have been the ones to view socialism most favorably and participating in protests and riots aimed at destroying our cultural heritage. Meanwhile, many in our society have come to support the idea that the government should provide health care, education, guaranteed income, and perhaps eventually the entire cost of living.

Perhaps knowingly or unknowingly, we’re gradually trading our traditions and freedoms for a system that controls people. Socialism and communism claim ownership over all property and people. Big tech, media, Hollywood, billionaires, and politicians should all take note.

This has all come to a head with the results of the 2020 presidential election with the credible allegations of election fraud. The nation that stands to gain the most from the results of the election is China. Also Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. Communist China has ruthlessly ruled for over 70 years, resulting in the unnatural deaths of at least 65 million people.

America is in a battle between good and evil. Communism teaches people to replace belief in God with atheism and materialism and as a result, good and evil have been inverted. Righteousness is cast as wickedness and vice as compassion.

I didn’t vote for President Trump because I liked him. I voted for him because he was and is the only person I can think of that would stand in the way of a movement designed to tear down and destroy our nation. One that is the greatest on Earth, and one that so many people sacrificed for and died for over the years to make it that way, and one that I love and hold very dear. May God bless Donald Trump and the United States of America.

Bill Fullen Sr. lives in Galveston.

Source: https://www.galvnews.com/opinion/guest_columns/article_09a3a693-7a07-513a-ad1c-39d5518b1cf5.html

The post US passing through socialism on way to communism first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

FILE – In this Nov. 6, 2020, file photo, the Supreme Court is seen at sundown in Washington. The Supreme Court is telling California that it can’t enforce coronavirus-related restrictions that have limited home-based religious worship including Bible studies and prayer meetings.The order from the court late Friday, April 9, 2021, is the latest in a recent string of cases in which the high court has barred officials from enforcing some coronavirus-related restrictions applying to religious gatherings. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Motorists sit inside their vehicles as they wait their turn to be inoculated with a COVID-19 vaccine at Dodger Stadium parking lot in Los Angeles. More California counties are opening up vaccines to younger adults, a week ahead of the state broadening eligibility to everyone 16 and up. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is telling California that it can’t enforce coronavirus-related restrictions that have limited home-based religious worship including Bible studies and prayer meetings.

The order from the court late Friday is the latest in a recent string of cases in which the high court has barred officials from enforcing some coronavirus-related restrictions applying to religious gatherings.

Five conservative justices agreed that California restrictions that apply to in-home religious gatherings should be lifted for now, while the court’s three liberals and Chief Justice John Roberts would not have done so.

California has already, however, announced significant changes loosening restrictions on gatherings that go into effect April 15. The changes come after infection rates have gone down in the state.

The case before the justices involved California rules that in most of the state limit indoor social gatherings to no more than three households. Attendees are required to wear masks and physically distance from one another. Different restrictions apply to places including schools, grocery stores and churches.

“California treats some comparable secular activities more favorably than at-home religious exercise,” allowing hair salons, retail stores, and movie theaters, among other places, “to bring together more than three households at a time,” the unsigned order from the court said. A lower court “did not conclude that those activities pose a lesser risk of transmission than applicants’ proposed religious exercise at home,” it said.

The court acknowledged that California’s policy on gatherings will change next week but said the restrictions remain in place until then and that “officials with a track record of ‘moving the goalposts’ retain authority to reinstate those heightened restrictions at any time.”

Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent for herself and her liberal colleagues, Justice Stephen Breyer and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, that the court’s majority was hurting state officials’ ability to address a public health emergency.

“California limits religious gatherings in homes to three households. If the State also limits all secular gatherings in homes to three households, it has complied with the First Amendment. And the State does exactly that: It has adopted a blanket restriction on at-home gatherings of all kinds, religious and secular alike. California need not … treat at-home religious gatherings the same as hardware stores and hair salons,” she wrote. She added that “the law does not require that the State equally treat apples and watermelons.”

The case before the justices involved two residents of Santa Clara County in the San Francisco Bay Area, who want to host small, in-person Bible study sessions in their homes. In an email message Saturday, one of their lawyers, Ryan J. Walsh, said he and his colleagues were “thrilled beyond words” for their clients.

California had defended its policy of restricting social gatherings as “entirely neutral.”

The court has dealt with a string of cases in which religious groups have challenged coronavirus restrictions impacting worship services. While early in the pandemic the court sided with state officials over the objection of religious groups, that changed following the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last September and her replacement by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

In November, the high court barred New York from enforcing certain limits on attendance at churches and synagogues in areas designated as hard hit by the virus. And in February, the high court told California that it can’t bar indoor church services because of the coronavirus pandemic, though it let stand for now a ban on singing and chanting indoors.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-us-supreme-court-california-john-roberts-c98a87b425040761040f726184992dcc

The post High court halts Calif. virus rules limiting home worship first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Biden spoke from the Rose Garden Thursday morning, announcing new gun control measures that target ghost guns, red flag laws, pistol-stabilizing braces, and other issues.

He said he wants Congress to do more than offer “thoughts and prayers” to the victims of gun violence.

“They’ve offered plenty of thoughts and prayers, members of Congress,” Biden said, “But they’ve passed not a single new federal law to reduce gun violence. Enough prayers, time for some action.”

Because substantial changes to gun laws have always met fierce Republican resistance in Congress, Biden said he asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to prioritize gun violence and help him with concrete actions the president could take without Congress.

President Joe Biden speaks during an event on the American Rescue Plan in the Rose Garden of the White House on March 12, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Biden first spoke of regulating ghost guns, which are homemade firearms that often lack serial numbers authorities would use to trace them. They’ve increasingly turned up at crime scenes, and federal agents have found them in undercover purchases from gang members and other criminals.

There’s no federal requirement for ghost gun buyers to undergo a background check, but Biden’s actions would change that.

Biden said he’ll also tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces. The president said the brace makes the pistol more lethal and “a hell of a lot more accurate.” He wants to designate pistols with the brace as short-barreled rifles, which would require owners to have a federal license.

The braces came under scrutiny last month after a gunman allegedly used a braced pistol to kill 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.

RELATED: Boulder King Soopers shooting: 21-year-old man to be charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder

That shooting, along with shootings at three Atlanta-area spas that left eight dead plunged the U.S. back into a gun debate that has dominated American politics for years.

Part of Biden’s action asks Congress to pass an appropriate national red flag law that would allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others.

And he hopes Congress will incentivize states to pass similar laws. Biden praised the House for passing bills that would close loopholes in America’s gun legislation.

The gun show loophole allows buyers to purchase a gun from a gun show, where background checks aren’t required. The Charleston loophole allows guns to be purchased if the FBI hasn’t completed a background check within three business days. And the boyfriend loophole allows physically abusive ex-boyfriends and stalkers with previous convictions to maintain access to firearms.

Democrats control both chambers of Congress, but the slim Senate advantage likely wouldn’t be enough to pass the bills that would end the loopholes.

Republicans are expected to oppose many, if not all, of Biden’s measures. The party has positioned itself as defender of the Second Amendment and tried to paint the opposition as gun confiscators. Before he went into his plans, Biden dismissed the notion that his measures were a threat to the Second Amendment — calling it a “phony argument.”

While enhanced background checks are generally popular with the American public — even with some conservatives — Congress has so far not been able to find compromise on gun control as a whole, thus the president’s reliance on executive action.

“Universal background checks are supported by the vast majority of American people — and I might add the majority of responsible gun owners,” Biden said. “Let me be clear: This is not a partisan issue among the American people. This is a view by the American people as an American issue. And I’m willing to work with anyone to get these done.”

But of all the ideas Biden presented, the removal of gun manufacturers’ immunity to lawsuits sits closes to his heart, he said.

“If I get one thing on my list, the Lord came down and said ‘Joe, you get one of these,’ give me that one,” Biden said. “Because I tell you what: There would be a come to the Lord moment these folks would have real quickly.”

RELATED: House passes bill to expand background checks for gun sales

Thursday’s news conference also served as an introduction of David Chipman, Biden’s nominee to direct the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Chipman is a former federal agent and adviser to the gun-control group Giffords. He spent 25 years with ATF where he worked to stop a trafficking ring that sent illegal guns from Virginia to New York.

Gun-control advocates have long stressed how crucial the director of the ATF is in enforcing gun laws. John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, lauded Chipman as an “invaluable point person” in the fight against illegal gun trafficking.

Feinblatt also applauded Biden for his upcoming gun control measures.

“Each of these executive actions will start to address the epidemic of gun violence that has raged throughout the pandemic, and begin to make good on President Biden’s promise to be the strongest gun safety president in history,” Feinblatt said.

This story was reported from Atlanta. The Associated Press contributed.

Source: https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/enough-prayers-time-for-some-action-biden-introduces-executive-orders-on-gun-control

The post ‘Enough prayers, time for some action’: Biden introduces executive orders on gun control first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

In recent years, data has shown a U.S. shift away from religious institutions and toward general disaffiliation, a trend that analysts say could have major implications for politics, business, and how Americans group themselves. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque. The polling firm also found that the number of people who said religion was very important to them has fallen to 48%, a new low point in the polling since 2000.

For some Americans, religious membership is seen as a relic of an older generation, said Ryan Burge, an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and a pastor in the American Baptist Church. Gallup’s data finds that church membership is strongly correlated with age: 66% of American adults born before 1946 belong to a church, compared with 58% of baby boomers, 50% of those in Generation X, and 36% of millennials.

Burge said many Christians still attend church but do not consider membership to be important, especially those who attend nondenominational churches. But no matter how researchers measure people’s faith – such as attendance, giving, self-identification – Americans’ attachment to institutional religion is on the decline.

Burge, who recently published a book about disaffiliating Americans called “The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going,” predicts that in the next 30 years, America will not have one dominant religion.

“We have to start thinking about what the world looks like in terms of politics, policy, social service,” Burge said. “How do we feed the hungry, clothe the naked when Christians are half of what it was. Who picks up the slack, especially if the government isn’t going to?”

The pandemic, which forced most churches to close in March 2020, has caused a major disruption to American religious life, with most people unable to join weekly mass gatherings. However, polls have not found a significant impact on Americans’ religiosity in the past year. Americans are more likely than people in other countries to say that their religious faith has become stronger during the pandemic, according to the Pew Research Center.

Tara Isabella Burton, author of “Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World,” attributes the national decline in religious affiliation to two major trends among younger Americans. First, she points to broader shifts suggesting a larger distrust of institutions, including police and pharmaceutical companies. Some Americans are disillusioned by the behavior of religious leaders, including the Catholic sex abuse scandal and the strong White evangelical alignment with former president Donald Trump.

The other major trend Burton describes is how people are mixing and matching from various religious traditions to create their own. Many people who do not identify with a particular religious institution still say they believe in God or pray or do things that tend to be associated with faith.

“Why shouldn’t I pray or meditate or attend a liturgy? Or perhaps I feel closer to the divine when I can do something privately rather than something that’s prescribed for me,” she said. “It’s my own spin on it.”

Younger generations that grew up with the Internet have a different kind of relationship with information, texts, and hierarchy, Burton said.

“Existing trends in American religious life were exacerbated by generations that grew up in Internet culture that celebrates ownership, the idea that you can re-create a meme or narrative,” she said. “You have ownership over curating your own experience.”

Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in a recent essay for The Atlantic that what was once religious belief has been replaced by political belief in many communities.

On the political right, he said in an interview, conservative Christians focused on Trump as a political savior rather than focusing on their traditional questions of morality. Christians in the Republican Party, he said, are being less defined by their faith than by a set of more narrow concerns.

And on the political left, Hamid said, people have taken up religious notions such as sin and ex-communication and repurposed them for secular ends. Hamid said that because there are not clear leaders, such as priests or imams, or a transcendent source that defines belief, the standards for what is considered “woke” continues to change.

“The vacuum [of religion] can’t just remain a vacuum,” Hamid said. “Americans are believers in some sense, and there has to be structures of belief and belonging. The question is, what takes the place of that religious affiliation?”

—

The Washington Post’s Scott Clement contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.stripes.com/news/us/religious-membership-in-the-us-falls-below-the-majority-1.667768

The post Religious membership in the US falls below the majority first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The bill’s proponents argue it would simply codify a recent Supreme Court decision in which the justices agreed that the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and “transgender status,” rather than just gender. But the bill does not just expand equal protection rights to the LGBT community, as Democrats have said. It would also gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, undermine gender-inclusive groups, such as women’s sports teams, and give leftists license to punish anyone who does not conform to their gender ideology.

The Equality Act would make sure people of faith are forced to comply. The bill literally contains a statute that says religious exemptions that normally apply to federal law would not apply to the Equality Act. This means if a transgender person took a Baptist church to court for refusing to hire him, the church could not use its religious beliefs as the justification. Or, if a baker refused to serve a gay couple based on his religious beliefs about marriage, he would have a much harder time making his case in court because the law would be stacked against him.

In other words, the Equality Act makes it impossible for religious groups and persons to appeal any penalties imposed under the law. It takes away one of their most important lines of defense and leaves them open to attacks from anyone who might disagree with their beliefs.

By erasing gender as a distinct legal category, the bill would also undermine the rights of gender-exclusive groups and spaces. This is a particular threat to the safety of women. Female sports teams would be forced to accept men who identify as women, as would female prisons, locker rooms, bathrooms, shelters, and salons. This leaves women of all ages, but especially young girls, vulnerable to abuse. Any boy could claim to identify as a girl, walk into a public school female locker room, expose himself to young women, and get away with it. We used to call that sexual harassment. Now it’s called equality.

Put simply, there is nothing inclusive, fair, or just about the Equality Act. Its only goal is to make the Left’s radical ideas about sex the new legal standard. And to do this, the bill would trample religious rights and force the rest of the country to go along with it. Lawmakers must reject it soundly.

Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/equality-acts-radical-gender-ideology-threatens-religious-freedom-womens-rights

The post Equality Act’s radical gender ideology threatens religious freedom and women’s rights first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Attorney General William P. Barr – (Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

The Justice Department signaled Saturday night it may intervene against local governments that are cracking down on religious ceremonies during the pandemic, warning that action could come as early as next week.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec used her Twitter account on the eve of Easter to announce that Attorney General William Barr was monitoring efforts to stop Easter religious ceremonies.

“During this sacred week for many Americans, AG Barr is monitoring govt regulation of religious services,” Kupec tweeted. “While social distancing policies are appropriate during this emergency, they must be applied evenhandedly & not single out religious orgs. Expect action from DOJ next week!”

The statement comes as numerous municipalities across the country have been reportedly taking actions to stop churchgoers from celebrating Easter together, including in Louisville where the mayor threatened to track license plates and fine anyone who attends a public ceremony.

A federal judge Saturday actually blocked Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer from enforcing his ban on drive-in church services on Easter, calling it unconstitutional.

“An American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter,” U.S. District Judge Justin Walker wrote while issuing a temporary restraining order. “That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion.

”The Mayor’s decision is stunning. And it is, ‘beyond all reason,’ unconstitutional,” the judge added.

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/doj-signals-possible-intervention-pandemic-crackdowns-religious-ceremonies-m

The post DOJ threatens to take action against pandemic crackdowns on religious ceremonies first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

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Religious leaders are expressing concern after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio threatened to close places of worship if they violated the coronavirus stay-at-home order.

Days before a pastor in Florida was arrested for holding crowded services, de Blasio singled out synagogues and churches saying he would shut them down if they continued to meet during the coronavirus outbreak.

“[Law enforcement] will inform them they need to stop the services and disperse,” de Blasio, a Democrat, said at his March 27 press briefing. “If that does not happen, they will take additional action up to the point of fines and potentially closing the building permanently.”

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He added: “It’s the last thing I would like to do because I understand how important people’s faiths are to them, and we need our faiths in this time of crisis, but we do not need gatherings that will endanger people. No faith tradition endorses anything that endangers the members of that faith.”

Advocates of religious liberty expressed concern at the mayor’s comments.

“For any leader to threaten to close a church permanently is a matter of great concern,” Ronnie Floyd, Southern Baptist Conference Executive Committee president, said in a statement to Fox News.

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Floyd encourages churches to honor government orders to help stop the spread of the virus but says “constitutional protections are unchanged by current circumstances.”

Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville, Texas, tweeted that the mayor should “clarify or correct your threat to close churches and synagogues permanently if they do not comply with your demands.”

Jeremy Dys, special counsel for litigation and communications at First Liberty Institute, a religious freedom law firm that issued guidance for churches and religious institutions faced with legal questions regarding closure and work with government entities, condemns the mayor’s threat.

“The American people will tolerate a lot during a time of a national pandemic. They will not tolerate government threats to permanently close Houses of Worship,” Dys told Fox News. “Such careless talk by Mayor de Blasio harms the ability of church and state to work together, not only to provide calm and comfort during a global pandemic, but to strengthen religious freedom.”

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Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis, also spoke out against the mayor.

“It’s a warning for the future when one person claims they have the power to close churches permanently,” Ham tweeted. “That’s what we’ve seen in China & Cuba.”

“It’s scary what happens when people start exercising the police power,” former U.S. attorney Brett Toleman told “Fox & Friends” Wednesday. “It has to be limited. It has to be narrowly tailored to the situation.”

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Dr. Rodney Howard-Browne was arrested at his home Monday after holding two services Sunday at his Tampa church, charged with “unlawful assembly” and “violation of public health emergency order.”

Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel who is defending Howard-Browne, argues the commercial exemption is “not narrowly tailored to achieve its underlying objective.”

The post Pastors object to NYC mayor’s threat to shut down churches first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.