Posted on 08/06/2009 10:56:57 PM PDT by TaraP
What if America's greatest enemy is not al Qaeda or Iran, but America itself?
The United States is hailed as a melting pot of ethnic and religious diversity. But could this trait actually stand in the way of a common vision that once made our nation so great?
Researcher George Barna has spent 25 years analyzing faith and culture in America. In his new book "The Seven Faith Tribes," he breaks the nation down into seven belief groups:
1.Casual Christians 2.Captive Christians 3.Skeptics 4.Jews 5.Mormons 6.Pantheists 7.Muslims To renew America, each tribe must seek common ground, open dialog, and shared moral values with the other tribes, Barna writes.
And he has a firm -- and somewhat controversial -- message for Christians from his own tribe: It's time for Christians to accept the realities of multi-culturalism and religious pluralism.
Doctrine is out and tolerance is in. We are being told that for the sake of unity, doctrine should not be tested or contested.
We are not supposed to declare any absolutes but to tolerate every wind of doctrine. Doctrinal and moral issues, which were once seen as black and white, are now being painted gray. The state of the church is in a state of confusion.
Paul forewarned of this when he wrote: “The time will come when they [the people in the church] will not endure [tolerate] sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
When “Christians” turn to popular teachers who tickle their ears with messages on selfesteem and self-improvement, they are also turning away from God’s Word. Without a steady diet of Scripture, they will not hear sound doctrine and therefore be unable to discern truth from error. Ultimately, they will not know if they are following Jesus Christ or His adversaries.
Without discernment, the 21st century church is headed for serious trouble because the enemies of the Gospel are more determined than we are. What the Body of Christ needs now are soldiers of the Lord who are committed to battle for truth! We all need to do our part to reverse the pending death of discernment in the church.
No, I think Christians are just fine with pluralism. It's another religion that seems it wants to fight, to the death, with the unclean infidels.
What an arbitrary set of divisions. Where do the Zoroastrians fit in?
Wonder if Barna polled God before his little pronouncement.
Barna seems like a loon. Claims to be Christian but speaks anti-Christian agit-prop constantly.
I don’t have a problem with other religions...as long as they don’t advocate blowing stuff up and cutting off people’s heads.
Remind me again which of those 7 “faith tribes” do that?
Now what was the reason the House of Israel got sent into captivity to that Assyrian king? Paul says what happened to them was written for our admonition as to what would be again to bring in the end of this 'age'.
To the author of this blasphemy, NO! A true Christian adheres to the Word and John 1:1 tells us just who the “Word” is and that is Christ Jesus.
This is similiar to the garbage that almost destroyed some of the early churches I suggest this individual read Pauls letters to the Churches.
Hey Charles,
The German pagans simply wanted champagne (732, a good year). The Saracens only wanted baguettes.
Take a chill pill will you?
Good thing Martel wasn’t a liberal.
NEVER EVER EVER EVER! This man is a wolf among the sheep and he must be thrown out! Dispicable!
Muslims: “accept us now!... we kill you later!”
this reads like a Steven Waldman piece
The more “diverse” our nation becomes, the worse this will get. Anyone with the ridiculous notion that “diversity is our strength” hasn’t looked at the fate of diverse nation’s through history.
Diversity merely leads to infighting and dumping the values a society holds dear, largely a result of the actions of weak individual in the face of this infighting
Yeah, The new preacher at our Methodist church just informed us that saying “You are in my prayers” or “I’m praying for you” to people who are not Chrisitan is incredibly offensive and as good Christians, telling them we are praying for them will drive them away from the church.
Probably turned into Formaldehyde
Uh, this author (whether it is Barna or the "journalist" I do not know) needs to understand history. The truth is that Christians DO accept multi-culturalism and pluralism. That is how America got started...not perfectly, to be sure--but steadily.
The ones who are INTOLERANT are the atheists and liberals who gain power.
Facts are stubborn things. :)
From what I know of Barna, he is decent. I think this take on his findings are liberal spinning...
I might be wrong, but based on Barna’s history he isn’t a kook.
A delusion. There never was a melting pot. The idea was what 19th century "progressives" wanted to happen but never did.
There was never any common vision except that the Federal government should not interfer with state religions or individual beliefs. The country nearly broke apart immediately along religious lines. Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut said in 1796 the north should leave the union if Jefferson were elected president. He was prescient. Jefferson attempted to foment a second American revolution to break the Congregational power structure in New England.
Fisher Ames, who drafted the 1st amendment, wrote in 1805 that the American republic was a failure. Federalists had overestimated the virtue of the people and a corrupt aristrocracy (Jefferson and his Jacobins) allied with an ignornant underclass and aided by a venal press had destroyed the vision of those who pushed for the constitution.
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