CP Year in Review: Top 10 Christian News (Stories) of '07

The year 2007 was a year in which Christians had to up their guard amid increasingly frequent and vehement challenges. Whether it was defending against atheism, Mormonism, negative stereotypes, or liberal agendas, believers across the nation found themselves needing more to stand up for what they believe. The following is a list of the top 10 trends and events of 2007 that marked the year:

Atheism has nearly always been with us in one form or another, but the atheists we’ve been hearing the most from lately – chiefly Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris – are a new breed, as prominent conservative Chuck Colson noted earlier this year. Unlike the old-school humanists, the new atheists – or anti-theists, as some of them prefer to be called – don’t want to just deny the existence of God, they want to wipe religion off the map.

As New York Times bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza explained, part of the reason why society is seeing an emboldened atheism is that a lot of these outspoken atheists were hoping religion would disappear as society became more modern and developed.

"Religion was seen as more of an ancient form of belief that would go away as science progressed and as we all became more successful, educated and affluent," said D'Souza in an interview this year with The Christian Post.

"But this has not happened,” he continued. “And, in fact, religion is booming in countries around the world," including the most modernized ones such as India and China.

The 2008 presidential campaign kicked off earlier than usual and with more candidates than usual, making its mark in history more than a year before the elections. And like the last presidential race, faith has been playing a significant role.

Unlike the last race, however, Christians across the nation are very much divided.

In July, an Associated Press poll found that the majority of Republicans, when given the choice on who they want as the next GOP candidate, answered “none of the above.”

As September rolled around white men, conservatives, evangelicals and other pivotal blocs were still divided among the Republican Party's leading contenders for president, leaving the race for the 2008 GOP nomination highly fluid, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

“Overall, the survey underscores that no contender has yet to convincingly make the case that he is the candidate for change that so many voters want as the party searches for its identity and a successor to Bush,” AP reported.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s bid to become president of the United States put his Mormon faith in the spotlight and has been for many Mormons, a historic moment of arrival.

But even for the many Mormons who support Romney, the moment has been fraught with anxiety because of fears that his candidacy will bring intense scrutiny to their church.

Mormons believe in a false gospel and are not Christians, concluded one of the nation’s preeminent evangelicals in what appeared to be the close of an online debate over Mormonism.

“Here is the bottom line. As an Evangelical Christian – a Christian who holds to the ‘traditional Christian orthodoxy’ of the Church – I do not believe that Mormonism leads to salvation,” wrote Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, during a monthlong “blog dialogue” sponsored this past summer by the Web site Beliefnet.com.

“To the contrary, I believe that it is a false gospel that, however sincere and kind its adherents may be, leads to eternal death rather than to eternal life,” he stated.

Debates over Mormonism were more frequent and more heated in 2007 than in past years.

As always, homosexuality was a large issue this year and fueled a number of persistent debates within and outside the Church.

The American Psychological Association (APA), which is currently reviewing its 10-year-old policy on counseling homosexuals, commenced discussion in July on whether therapists should be allowed to offer counseling to persons wanting to rid their same-sex desires.

Pro-gay groups are pushing for a complete ban of any type of reparative therapy while evangelical Christians urge respect for religious diversity.

"There are many men and women who have unwanted same-sex attractions. Those persons should have the option to get a form of treatment or counseling that parallels their value system, their faith beliefs, their religious convictions, particularly Christians who hold to a view that homosexuality is outside God's created divine," argued Tim Wilkins, a former homosexual who heads Cross Ministry and speaks at more than 120 events each year, telling Christians how to deal with the issue of homosexuality.

Notable gay-to-straight “converts” this year included Charlene E. Cothran – formerly a prominent black homosexual activist who ran a quarterly magazine that has targeted black gays and lesbians for the past 13 years – and Michael Glatze, former editor of Young Gay America (YGA) magazine.

According to researchers of a study released in September, change for homosexuals is difficult, but still possible.

Meanwhile, church bodies continued to be bogged by the issue of homosexuality. Most notably, The Episcopal Church witnessed for the first time in its history the departure of an entire diocese. Despite warning from the head of the national church, delegates of the Diocese of San Joaquin voted 173-22 to secede and realign with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. The break came after years of conflict over what the diocese and other conservatives contend is The Episcopal Church's departure from Scripture and traditional Anglicanism. While dozens of congregations have already disaffiliated from the national church, the Dec. 9 vote marked the first time an entire diocese has chosen to secede. The Episcopal Church – U.S. arm of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion – had widened rifts when it consecrated openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire in 2003.

The largest Lutheran body in the nation also caused a stir this year after controversially deciding not to punish homosexual clergy who are in sexual relationships.

At its annual assembly in August, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) passed by a vote of 538-431 a resolution urging bishops to refrain from disciplining pastors who are in “faithful committed same-gender relationships.”

The debate over creation and evolution picked up more steam this year with the opening of the controversial $27 million Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky.

The 60,000-square-foot museum, which depicts a literal six-day interpretation of creation from the Bible, is packed with high-tech exhibits designed by an acclaimed theme-park artist, animatronic dinosaurs and a huge wooden ark. The museum’s founder, like many other Young Earth creationists, believes dinosaurs appeared on the same day God created other land animals.

Both non-Christians and Christians who are against a literal interpretation of the Bible on life origins protested and spoke out against the anti-evolution display, worried that their children would be affected. The controversy garnered the new exhibit a large amount of media coverage.

Clockwise from top left, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Ruth
Bell Graham, Dr. D. James Kennedy, and Rex Humbard

A number of prominent Christians this year concluded the final chapters of their lives and ministries in this world as the torches they once carried passed over to younger generations of believers.

The year 2007 witnessed a number of global efforts toward unity. One of the most prominent was perhaps the unprecedented open letter signed in October by 138 representative Muslim leaders. According to Newsweek, signers of the letter hailed from all branches of Islam – Sunni and Shia, Salafi and Sufi, liberal and conservative – and included no fewer than 19 current and former grand ayatollahs and grand muftis.

The Muslim clerics, scholars and intellectuals had signed the letter calling for peace between Muslims and Christians. The letter, entitled “A Common World Between Us and You,” urged followers of the two faiths to find “common ground” and not simply just for “polite ecumenical dialogue” between certain religious leaders.

Young Americans today are more skeptical and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago, claimed a new study this year.

Negative perceptions toward the Christian faith have outweighed the positive as a growing percentage of younger Americans associate with a faith outside Christianity.

Only 16 percent of non-Christians aged 16 to 29 years old said they have a "good impression" of Christianity, according to a report released in September by The Barna Group. A decade ago, the vast majority of Americans outside the Christian faith, including young people, felt favorably toward Christianity’s role in society.

Criticism, furthermore, was not limited to young people outside the Christian faith. Half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical and too political. Also, one-third said it was old-fashioned and out of touch with reality.

The "prosperity gospel," a highly criticized theology that teaches wealth is a sign of God's blessing, drew greater attention from the media this year, especially as the 2007 drew to a close.

Six prosperity preachers are currently under investigation for allegedly abusing their non-profit status to shield lavish lifestyles. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has requested financial statements and responses to questions about personal and organizational finances from ministries led by Paula and Randy White, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, and Kenneth and Gloria Copeland. The deadline to turn over the papers was Dec. 6.

"More and more people are desperate and grasping at straws and want something that will alleviate their pain or financial crisis," said Michael Palmer, dean of the divinity school at Regent University, according to AP. "It's a growing problem."

Dr. Robert M. Franklin, author of Crisis in the Village, which released this year, says the greatest threat to many black churches is the "prosperity gospel" movement.

"I am convinced that the single greatest threat to the historical legacy and core values of the contemporary black church tradition is posed by what is known as the 'prosperity gospel' movement," he writes in his book, explaining that the black church has assimilated into a culture that is hostile to marginalized people, such as the poor, the HIV-infected, homosexuals and immigrants.

According to Franklin, one-fourth of the black community lives in poverty. But many churches are devoting more time to "building their local kingdoms" and less time aiding and uplifting the poor.

South Korea’s largest Christian organizations were forced to re-evaluate their overseas mission efforts after being harshly criticized by the international community for sending inexperienced Christian workers into a high-risk area in Afghanistan – resulting in what was the largest abduction of foreigners in the country since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

On July 19, a team of 23 Christian volunteers was abducted by Taliban militants as their luxury bus drove through Afghanistan’s insurgency-prone Ghazni province.

Over the course of the hostages’ nearly six weeks of captivity, two male captives were killed. The leader of the group, Bae Hyung-kyu, was found dead on July 25, and the body of 29-year-old Shim Sung-min was found July 30.

The remaining 21 workers were eventually released in a series of handovers in August after the Taliban and the South Korean government struck a deal that included the withdrawal of Korean troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and Seoul promising to pull out and bar all Christian mission groups from Afghanistan.

It is precisely BECAUSE science has progressed that evolution has become untenable and large numbers of people are returning to Christianity of one form or other.

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