The old Puritan colonies of New England drove out dissenters, true enough, and Christianity was as official as could be, and those places are now as burned over and secular as it gets in the United States.

The New Atheists, on the other hand, seemed to gain a boost by labeling all pious citizens as potentially dangerous fanatics. Optimism faded for a short while (notice the darker colors and military surplus style in fashion or the pre-2008 cynicism in both political parties).

“The travails of a handful of Trappist monks in Israel — or Dalit and tribal Christians in India, or Nigerian Christians menaced by the Boko Haram, or the 150,000 new Christian martyrs every year generally — simply have a hard time breaking through the media filter in the West"

Nadarkhani - who grew up in a Muslim home but never embraced Islam - refused multiple offers of release over the last three years. Iranian authorities had promised to free him if he recanted Christianity and affirmed Islam. Nadarkhani repeatedly refused, answering in court with two simple words: "I cannot."

Among constituents of (the 10 largest) denominations, however, only 44 percent say their church offers official membership. Nearly 40 percent of attendees believe these churches do not offer membership, while 17 percent are unsure.

Christians who had taken refuge in churches were burned to death as the buildings were locked and set on fire. Churches that remained had their crosses taken down and crescents put up in their place. All of this was part of a move to exterminate Christianity from the lands of the old Byzantine empire, to “liberate” Asia Minor from Christian influence and put it into the hands of Islam.

5. Don’t call your pastor on his day off, unless it is an emergency. If someone has had a heart attack, if the church is on fire, go ahead and call him. Otherwise, leave him alone for things that can just as easily be handled on another day.

Although the conservative confessional Reformed world is unified under the North American and Presbyterian Reformed Council (totaling roughly 500,000 Christians), that body is itself divided into no less than 12 different denominations. These denominations profess the same basic doctrines and hold to the same confessional documents, they observe the sacraments in the same way and have the same form of church government, and they even worship in broadly similar forms, but due to various cultural or theological distinctives they cannot seem to join themselves together as one church.

In addition to the fact that the best known pastor in the PCA, Dr. Tim Keller, is hosting these BioLogos workshops and is calling for pastors to promote the BioLogos view, the Stated Clerk of the PCA, Dr. L. Roy Taylor is the Chairman of the Board of the NAE. That means that my denomination, the PCA, is not only a member of the NAE, but has someone in the executive leadership of the organization. That makes their decisions, our decisions

Brenda was vocally defensive of her husband when he had a bad game, even calling into radio stations to criticize the Rams coaching staff. That zeal and her on-camera postgame kisses for the star quarterback had some fans calling her the Yoko Ono of football.