Faith – HillFaith

A SONG OF JOY: ‘Who You Say I Am’ By Hillsong Worship

It’s Sunday morning, June 16, 2019. No matter what you did last night or where you were, the problems, hopes, doubts, suspicions, dreams, fears, ambitions and worries you faced yesterday are likely all still here today.

No, that’s not a negative, that’s a statement of reality. I know how it feels to wake up and either know too well what I did the night before or wish that I didn’t know. That’s how a lot of us live for many years.

And then Jesus Christ on the morning of March 1, 1991, opened my eyes to myself, to Him, to the reality of my need for His saving grace. That was the moment my life changed forever.

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RELATIONSHIPS: New Survey Finds Married Couples, Parents Have Fewer Barriers To Forgiveness

All of us have done things to others for which we want forgiveness, but finding it can be difficult for those working in a hyper-competitive environment like Capitol Hill where “what have you done for me today” is heard far more often than “I forgive you.”

This will likely come as a shock to those steeped in the stereotype of Christians as judgmental, overbearing and narrow-minded, but guess who finds it easier to forgive? Married Christian couples, at least according to the results of a recent survey by the Barna Group, one of the nation’s pre-eminent social science research groups.

“For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. Whatever the wording of a couple’s wedding vows, there’s generally an acknowledgment that tough times will come.

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New Study Debunks Conventional Wisdom That Millennials Don’t Care About Spiritual Issues

It’s become something of a truism that the Millennials are far less interested in spiritual matters and thus much harder to talk to about things like what it means to be a “Born-Again” follower of Jesus Christ.

But a new study jointly conducted by the Barna Group and Alpha USA finds that while there is truth to Millennial resistance to some forms of Christian evangelism, there is much more to the issue.

Compared to older generations, Millennials, according to the Barna/Alpha study, “report many more faith conversations or even evangelistic encounters than older non-Christians. Though this could be partly due to the greater diversity that exists for young people among their family and friends, this isn’t the whole story. For at least some young adults, there appears to be deeper interest in spirituality in general, and in Christianity specifically.”

More on this to come here on HillFaith, but for now, check out the study and this accompanying graphic for a host of data-driven insights that ought to be a source of tremendous encouragement.

Huge Surveys Of 11 Countries Find ‘Religious’ Couples Are Happiest

Conventional wisdom says liberation and autonomy are keys to happiness, but new study says better think again

A study by three scholars of data from two large surveys conducted in 11 countries encompassing the Americas, Europe and Oceania found that the happiest couples are the most religious.

Screen shot of cover of Institute for Family Studies report

“In many respects, this report indicates that faith is a force for good in contemporary family life in the Americas, Europe, and Oceania. Men and women who share an active religious life, for instance, enjoy higher levels of relationship quality and sexual satisfaction compared to their peers in secular or less/mixed religious relationships,” the authors report.

The study — “The Ties That Bind: Is Faith A Global Force For Good Or Ill In The Family?” — by co-authors W. Bradford Wilcox, Jason S. Carroll, and Laurie DeRose examined data from the World Values Survey (WVS) and the Global Family and Gender Survey (GFGS).

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Kristina Baum Is Running The Race Of Her Life

Imagine yourself fielding calls from journalists on your job while receiving cancer treatment in the hospital.

Spend a little time on Capitol Hill and odds are good that sooner or later you will see Kristina Baum running, either literally on one of her regular jogs or professionally as the Republican staff communications director for the House Natural Resources Committee.

To look at her striding along, you would not know she is battling cancer. And I don’t choose that term “battling” by chance. You will quickly see why in this superb interview with Baum by Roll Call’s Heard on the Hill reporter Kathryn Lyons.

Why Do You Persecute Me?

By Bret Bernhardt

How are we to respond when various threats are made against us as believers?

Bret Bernhardt, former chief of staff for senators Don Nickles and Jim DeMint.

One such threat was discussed in this space — “TOLERANCE TODAY: Harvard Keynoter Said Jews, Christians Should Be ‘Locked Up’ For Their Views” — regarding a recent symposium in which a speaker previously advocated imprisoning Christians and Jews for their beliefs.

In today’s hyper-charged environment, these type of statements are becoming more frequent. It’s understandable how one would react when hearing something like this. For me, a sense of indignation, fear, and anger are the emotions I typically feel.

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Palm Sunday: There Was A Time When Christians Were Dismissed As Atheists

Believe it or not, early in the decades following Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection, His followers were considered unpatriotic atheists by the most powerful government in the world, Rome.

As Ryan Leasure writes on The Poached Egg on this Palm Sunday, Roman Emperors expected subjects to bow down to the Roman pantheon of gods in an act both of loyalty to Caesar and religious piety.

Christians — in a dramatic act of separation of church and state —refused to worship the Roman gods and were thus viewed officially and by many Romans as atheists. But there was also an economic angle involved, as Leasure explains:

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