This Week's 66/40 Radio Broadcast

Articles and Commentary

• Muslims Now Outnumber Catholics - (Read)
• Thinking Outside The Box - (Read)
• Predestination vs. Free Will - (Read)

Important News Headlines

Memory Verse of the Week

MUSLIMS NOW OUTNUMBER CATHOLICS - (Print)

For the first time in history Muslims outnumber Catholics, according to statistics released by the Vatican. Muslims have overtaken Roman Catholics as the single largest religious group, in part because of high birth rates. Islam is the world's fastest growing religion, and it is second in size only to Christianity. According to the Vatican, Muslims make up about 19 percent of the world's population. Catholics make up about 17 percent. While the total of all Christian groups, including Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, and Orthodox churches, make up 33 percent of the world's population - or about 2 billion people.

Muslim populations are growing in Europe, Russia, South America and elsewhere throughout the world. High birth rates among Muslims, increased immigration, and new converts to Islam are all factors that some experts believe could radically transform the Western World.

Nowhere is this perhaps more true than in Europe, where Islam is quickly becoming a significant part of the cultural and political landscape. There are between 9 and 15 million Muslims living throughout Europe today, and Islam has become the largest religious minority. Considering current population trends and the need for immigrant labor it is likely that the number of Muslims in Europe will continue to grow exponentially. The Muslim birth rate in Europe is three times higher than the non-Muslim one. If current trends continue, the Muslim population of Europe will nearly double by 2015, while the non-Muslim population will shrink by 3.5 percent. Bernard Lewis, a former history professor at Princeton and the respected author of more than a dozen books on the Middle East, is quoted as saying that "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century."

Meanwhile, church attendance has been falling all across Western Europe. In Great Britain, for example, only 6.3 percent of the population attends Christian services on a weekly basis. The group also projects that around 4,000 churches will close over the next 15 years. However while church attendance is on the decline, religious participation among Muslims has increased dramatically. According to the study, even though Muslims only comprise around three percent of the British population, in 35 years there will be twice as many Muslims in mosques on Friday as there are Christians in churches on Sunday. This trend can be seen throughout Europe. In France there are now more than 4,000 mosques, and new mosques and Muslim prayer centers have been popping up at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, it has been projected that Muslims will be the majority population in Germany by 2046.

The Muslim population in Russia is also growing by leaps and bounds. Rising immigration and low birthrates among ethnic Russians have contributed to this trend. Russia's Muslim population has increased by 40 percent since 1989, to about 25 million. By 2015, Muslims will make up a majority of Russia's conscript army, and by 2020 they will constitute one-fifth of the population. Fifteen years ago, Russia had about 300 mosques, today there are approximately 8,000. Experts say that if current trends continue, nearly one third of Russia's population will be Muslim by the mid-century.

A study conducted last year by the Population Research Institute examined birth rates around the globe and concluded that the Western world is facing a crisis. Virtually every Western nation has birth rates well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. The study also revealed that, for the most part, only Muslims have high birth rates. A spokesman for the organization said that if this trend continues "Muslims are going to inherit the Earth."

If you want more information on the origin and true nature of Islam we have a numerous resources available, such as The Sword of Allah, this week's special offer. See the links below for more information.

Related Links:

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - (Print)

"If you separate out the ethical message from religion, what have you got left? You've got a bunch of fairy tales."
            - P.Z. Myers, professor of biology at the University of Minnesota

FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process…

Related Links:

PREDESTINATION VS. FREE WILL - (Print)

"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever..." - Deuteronomy 29:29

From the beginning of time, thinkers have puzzled over the paradox of fate vs. free will, or predestination vs. free choice. In theological terms, this leads to the struggle between Calvinism and Arminianism. As we explore this paradox, we find that examining the fruit of each position reveals that the River of Life seems to flow between these two extremes, and that once again, truth involves a careful balance.

At the heart of the controversies between Calvinism and Arminianism is the emphasis on the sovereignty of God by the Calvinists and on the sovereignty (free will) of man - or human responsibility - by the Arminians. Calvinism emphasizes that God is in total control of everything and that nothing can happen that He does not plan and direct, including man’s salvation. Arminianism teaches that man has free will and that God will never interrupt or take that free will away, and that God has obligated Himself to respect the free moral agency and capacity of free choice with which He created us.

Both doctrinal positions are reasonable and both have extensive Scriptures to back them up. Both are, in our opinion, both partially right and partially overextended. As Philip Schaff has put it, "Calvinism emphasized divine sovereignty and free grace; Arminianism emphasized human responsibility. The one restricts the saving grace to the elect; the other extends it to all men on the condition of faith. Both are right in what they assert; both are wrong in what they deny. If one important truth is pressed to the exclusion of another truth of equal importance, it becomes an error, and loses its hold upon the conscience. The Bible gives us a theology which is more human than Calvinism and more divine that Arminianism, and more Christian than either of them."

Certainly, the Bible does teach that God is sovereign, and that believers are predestined and elected by God to spend eternity with Him. Nowhere, however, does the Bible ever associate election with damnation. Conversely, the Scriptures teach that God elects for salvation, but that unbelievers are in hell by their own choice. Every passage of the Bible that deals with election deals with it in the context of salvation, not damnation. No one is elect for hell. The only support for such a view is human logic, not Biblical revelation (which John Calvin did teach).

The concept of total depravity is consistent with Scripture, but the doctrine of limited atonement, that Jesus did not die for the sins of the whole world, is clearly contrary to Biblical teaching. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus died for everyone’s sins and that everyone is able to be saved if they will repent and turn to Christ. Limited atonement is a non-Biblical doctrine.

Election and predestination are Biblical doctrines. God knows everything and therefore He cannot be surprised by anything. He is beyond the constraints of mass, acceleration and gravity, therefore He is outside time. He knows, and has known from “eternity past,” who will exercise their free will to accept Him and who will reject Him. The former are “the elect” and the latter are the “non-elect.” Everyone who is not saved will have only himself to blame: God will not send anyone to hell, but many people will choose to go there by exercising their free will to reject Christ.

On the other hand, no one who is saved will be able to take any of the credit. Our salvation is entirely God’s work, and is based completely on the finished work of the Cross. We were dead in trespasses and sins, destined for hell, when God in His grace drew us to Himself, convinced us of our sin and our need for a Savior, and gave us the authority to call Jesus Lord. Is this grace, this wooing, this courtship, irresistible? No, we have free will and we can (and do) resist, even to the damnation of our souls, but God does everything short of making us automata (preprogrammed puppets) to draw us into His forever family.

For a more detailed discussion on this topic, listen to our briefing titled The Sovereignty of Man.

Related Links:

Student Sues Wisconsin School After Getting a Zero for Religious Drawing - April 01, 2008
A high school student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference. The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw "demonic" images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional. FOX News

Researchers Say Asteroid Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah - April 01, 2008
A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness's account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across. FOX News

High School Graduation Rates Drop - April 01, 2008
Seventeen of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland. Nationally, about 70 percent of US students graduate on time with a regular diploma and about 1.2 million students drop out annually. FOX News

UK's First Hybrid Embryos Created - April 01, 2008
Scientists at Newcastle University have created part-human, part-animal hybrid embryos for the first time in the UK. They were created by injecting DNA derived from human skin cells into eggs taken from cows. BBC

Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
James 5:19-20 KJV

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32

Print Friendly Version Available Here