SURVEY REVEALS U.S. CHURCH ATTENDANCE ON THE INCREASE AFTER YEARS OF DECLINE

Posted on by

The church is the last bastion of truth in many communities, as most institutions have been captured by the ideological Left. A recent survey reveals many Americans apparently now recognise the bankruptcy of ideologies pedalled by the Left and are truly searching for truth — truth found in gospel-preaching churches. So long as the church stays committed to God’s revealed truth in His word, the church offers a counter-narrative to much of what the world has sold.

According to research from the Barna Group released earlier this month, weekly church attendance reached a peak in 2009 with a 48% attendance rate among American adults. Since then, it has dropped and remained in the upper 20% range. However, preliminary data from 2025 suggests a potential uptick in weekly church attendance to approximately 32 percent.” Additionally, and perhaps more notably, 65% of the surveyed American adults disagree with the claim that “Church is not relevant in today’s world” — with 41% saying they “definitely disagree” and 24% saying they “somewhat disagree.”

Breaking it down between practicing and non-practicing Christians, 88% of those who are practicing said they either “definitely” or “somewhat” disagreed that church is irrelevant, followed by 67% of non-practicing Christians who “definitely” or “somewhat” disagreed as well.

Beyond attendance, the report highlights the social fabric of churchgoing. As The Christian Post summarised, “A majority of those surveyed (57%) said they talked to clergy before, during or after services. … 53% of churchgoers interact with ‘other attendees’ when going to church. … Exactly one-half of churchgoers (50%) reported they usually talk with a church staff member while at church,” and “one-third (33%) of those surveyed reported usually talking to church volunteers when they go to church.”

As the report emphasised, “These simple interactions represent important entry points for deeper discipleship community and leaders can help congregants consider how to strengthen those moments and take their Sunday engagement a step further.” In a deeper analysis, Family Research Council’s David Closson, the director of the Center for Biblical Worldview, shared with The Washington Stand, “As someone who has been around church for as long as they can remember, and as someone who has worked at and for the church for years, I am encouraged by recent reports that suggest most Americans reject the claim that church is irrelevant.” “As a Christian,” he added, “nothing could be more relevant than the church.” In fact, “Matthew 16 teaches that the church is God’s idea, and Jesus promises that even the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Closson explained how a glance at what’s taken place over the last few years reveals the “variety of cultural developments that have likely demonstrated the importance of the church to many Americans who may have been disinclined to view the church favourably.”

Especially in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, Closson observed, “I think many of our friends and neighbours realised that when you shut the doors of the church, you release a host of social pathologies into the community. As such, perhaps “in large response to shutting down the church, many people realise just how important the church actually is.” Beyond this, Closson also pointed to how “the true church is the last institution that has consistently taken a stand against radical ideologies such as LGBT activism and critical race theory. And as long as a church stands on the Bible as authoritative, it is a countercultural influence that testifies to the created order and how God has set up the universe.”

“My hope,” Closson concluded, “is that this report points to a burgeoning revival that will draw more of our friends and neighbours into our churches where they will encounter the living gospel that alone can change their lives and save their souls.”

Sadly, most of the mainline denominational churches have compromised with the world on homosexuality, gay marriage and even transgenderism.

BONHOEFFRER MOVIE IS BOUND TO ‘INSPIRE AND ENCOURAGE’

Posted on by

Many of us want to believe that, in the face of severe adversity and risk, we would try to prove worthy of a memorable legacy. Indeed, should circumstances ever turn sour, we hope to fancy ourselves as brave, courageous, and willing to stand firm no matter the cost. And yet, for the vast majority of those who have not been severely challenged in such ways, how could we know for sure the way we would react? This is why examples of people who did stand firm amid trial are not just important, but necessary.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer is one of those examples. Maybe you’ve heard the name — maybe you haven’t. Nonetheless, it’s a name worth knowing. Bonhoeffer was a German theologian, pastor, and author. But what makes him stand out in ways not many can is that Bonhoeffer was also a spy and an assassin who sacrificed his life to take apart Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime’s Third Reich as they sought to exterminate the Jews. Bonhoeffer’s story is powerful, and at its very heart is the call to boldly oppose what is wicked — a call applicable to all.

For these reasons (and more), a team has been working tirelessly for over a decade to create the film, “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” According to one of the producers, Camille Kampouris, the hope behind this movie is “to raise up men and women, old and young, to be like Bonhoeffer, to speak out when there’s evil.” According to The Christian Post, “Releasing in theaters this Thanksgiving weekend, the movie explores the theologian’s decision to shift from preaching peace to allegedly plotting murder, a crime that could alter the course of history.”

The film is unavailable for streaming as it has not yet been released. Check back in December 2024 for online viewing options.

Angel Studios has brought Bonhoeffer back to life by taking viewers on a cinematic journey of danger and determination. As Kampouris added, this movie also highlights both the failures of the church as well as “what a real Christian should be like.” Filmmaker Todd Komarnicki explained how “Bonhoeffer is unlike who we are today.” He added that this movie is not targeted specifically at a Christian audience, as Bonhoeffer’s story could impact anyone. He stated, “His singular courage, his willingness to lose everything, and he had a lot to lose, really stands out in a time where I don’t see a lot of political courage now. The way he grappled with his faith, in the way he was honest about his doubts … [and] followed his calling from God, all the way to the foot of the cross. This man’s life is so extraordinary.”

On Friday’s episode of “Washington Watch” with Family Research Council’s guest host Jody Hice, another producer of the film, John Scanlon, unpacked this striking narrative. According to Scanlon, “The movie is a beautiful production by top Hollywood talent about an amazing story.” More than that, Bonhoeffer is “an inspiring character and someone that will make you come out of the movie wishing that you could be a better version of yourself.”

Hice asked, “What was the experience like in filming a movie like this that you know is true?” For Scanlon, “[T]he experience every day of being on set was deeply spiritual.” He continued, “Bonhoeffer’s life is so rich and … he wrote so many wonderful works. … He was a very prolific author. And, of course, his experience in Harlem in the United States [and] his experience in Germany traveling around the world, all changed him and influenced his thinking.”

Ultimately, Scanlon emphasized, “the Bonhoeffer that we bring to the screen is complex. He’s a man of action as well as a man of thought and words. … I think that he can be an inspiration.” He concluded that for anyone of any worldview “who’s facing evil … I guarantee … they’ll find something in this film to inspire and encourage them. And that’s what we’re hoping for everyone in the audience.”

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THE DECLINE IN AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY?

Posted on by

Reports of American Christianity’s death are wildly exaggerated, according to a new Gallup poll. The problem however is that most American Christians (94%) no longer hold to a Biblical Worldview.

Despite years of coverage that Americans have lost their faith, three out of four Americans not only believe in God but belong to a specific religion, according to a Gallup poll released on Good Friday.

“By far the largest proportion, 68%, identify with a Christian religion, including 33% who are Protestant, 22% Catholic and 13% who identify with another Christian religion or simply as a ‘Christian,’” Gallup reported on March 29. Another seven percent “identify with a non-Christian religion, including 2% who are Jewish, 1% Muslim and 1% Buddhist, among others.” 22% said they did not identify with any religion.

Faith exercises a pivotal role in most Americans’ lives, with 71% saying that religion is “very important” (45%) or “fairly important” (26%) to them. The share of Americans who placed a high premium on their faith fell below a majority for the first time in U.S. history in 2019.

That does not mean that church membership has rebounded completely: 45% of Americans formally belong to a church, synagogue, or religious congregation. That number fell below a majority during 2020. “Slightly more than one-third of U.S. young adults have no religious affiliation. Further, many young adults who do identify with a religion do not belong to a church,” noted Gallup. “But even older adults who have a religious preference are less likely to belong to a church today than in the past.”

Yet even these numbers may overstate the number of unbelievers, as 69% of Nones (people who do not identify with any particular faith) believe in God, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Still, a separate poll from the left-leaning Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released on March 27, found, “While the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as ‘nothing in particular’ is similar to a decade ago (16% in 2013 to 17% in 2023), the numbers of both atheists and agnostics have doubled since 2013 (from 2% to 4% and from 2% to 5%, respectively).”

The most liberal churches have experienced the steepest losses in membership, numerous reports found. Ryan Burge, research director at Faith Counts, tracked the membership of the major U.S. denominations between 1987 and 2021. “The mainline is just a bloodbath,” wrote Burge last June. “Five traditions are down by at least 30%. The ELCA is down 41%. The United Church of Christ is less than half the size it was in the late 1980s. The United Methodists are already down 31%, but with over 15% of their churches disaffiliating just this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if membership is down 40% or more by this time next year.”

Overall, the data paints a complicated picture. “The trends are clear that we are secularizing in some sense, particularly Gen Z. There is a decline in participation in organized religion and in belief in God, but those are not necessarily the same thing,” Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “The one clear thing is that some belief in a higher power is persistent. People can’t shake the idea that the universe didn’t create itself.”

David Closson, director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at FRC, made these assertions. “What we’ve learned from FRC’s own research, as well as George Barna’s research with the Cultural Research Center, is that the percentage of those who hold a consistent biblical worldview is around 6%,” “Thus, it is probably more accurate to say that Gallup is helpfully illustrating the loss of cultural Christianity. But this is an important observation in itself; the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian is decreasing rapidly, which means that basic Christian beliefs will increasingly be seen not only as outdated or old-school but dangerous and subversive. We are still living on the fumes of a post-Christian culture, and this is reflected in the large percentages of Americans who still identify as Christian even though many of them don’t go to church or profess any specific theological viewpoints.”

All parties conceded that America’s religious atrophy and eroding biblical worldview will likely impact the policies enacted at a national and local level. “Compared with all Americans, the unaffiliated are notably more likely to identify as Democrats (35% vs. 29%) and independents (38% vs. 30%), and substantially less likely to identify as Republican (12% vs. 29%),” PRRI noted.

The declining share of Americans who hold a Biblical worldview “shouldn’t matter” when it comes to public policy, but it “ultimately will,” said Backholm. “The First Amendment requires that we treat small groups of religious individuals the same as big groups, but in reality cultural dominance, or the lack thereof, matters. That’s why we see pro-life activists being punished for public speech and business owners repeatedly sued for behavior that was uncontroversial 20 years ago.”

“Being a minority religion has always come with challenges, even in America,” Backholm told TWS. “The politically dominant religion in America is becoming a hybrid of secularism and progressive Christianity defined by the belief that people should be free to do whatever makes them happy.”

“Those who don’t embrace those creeds will have problems,” he warned.

The seven churches in Revelation reveal the church as it is in the last seven years before Jesus returns to Earth first to rapture the Saints to Heaven and then pour out His wrath upon an unrepentant world with the Trumpet (Revelation 8) and Bowl (Revelation 16) judgements.

The seventh church, the Church of Laodicea represents the church left behind to face God’s judgement. (Laodicea is a combination of two Greek words (LAO, meaning “God’s people”; and DIKE, meaning “justice or judgment”) Judgement of God’s people).

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:15-20

It is obvious from this Scripture that those churches preaching the prosperity gospel are in for a great shock when they realise that they will face God’s judgement, but notice that they still have the opportunity to repent.

The church of Philadelphia represents the church that is raptured at the trumpet blast at the opening of the seventh seal. At the sixth seal, we see the celestial signs that precede Jesus’ return. We read “the great day of their (God’s) wrath has come“: “Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” Revelation 6:15-17 The trumpet and bowl judgements follow once the final, seventh seal is removed and the scroll is opened.

How different is the message to the church (Church of Philadelphia) that is raptured and protected from the wrath of God

Philadelphus the “love for a brother” What remains of the faithful Church will be bound in brotherly love by the persecution of earth-shaking proportions.

“He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens, and no one will shut, and who shuts, and no one opens, says this.”  Revelation 3:7

Jesus who is about to rapture His church reminds them that He is God, He is true, and they can trust Him to save them at the appointed time.

Jesus has nothing but compliments for these survivors of the Great Tribulation, his faithful remnant

“Jesus says, I have set before you an open door, no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name. Because you have kept My command to persevere, I will also keep you from the hour of trial (Rapture) which shall come upon the whole earth (wrath of God).” (Revelation 3:7-13)

“hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown” (Rev. 3:11 NASB). There is yet time to fall away and lose their rewards.

The concepts of the Key of David, the pillars in the Temple, and being kept from the hour of trial found in the letter to the Church of Philadelphia are references to the Rapture, happening at the end of the Sixth Year of the 70th Week.

SPIRITUAL PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS: AMERICA IS AT WAR

Posted on by

A great article by S.A. McCarthy. He serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

Every doctrine that Christianity preaches, leftism preaches its own perversion of it. The love advocated by Christianity is rooted in absolute truth, in “Love Himself,” as C.S. Lewis once put it. Leftism advocates “love” unmoored, anchored by nothing more absolute than the weight of fickle feelings and emotions — though, when those emotions are felt, they do reign supreme.

Christianity upholds sacrifice as virtuous — the giving of oneself for the sake of love is the zenith of the virtue of charity. Christ Himself tells His followers, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Leftism also values sacrifice, but never sacrifice of the self, only the sacrificing of others. Abortion is the ultimate example of this warped anti-virtue: sacrificing one’s own child for… financial comfort, a career, no responsibility, or even just consequence-free sex.

Christianity mandates submission to the will of God, accepting His design no matter how painful or difficult. Again, Christ Himself prayed, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). Leftism demands obeisance to the only god it recognizes: the self-centered self. Transgenderism is demonstrative of this: just as Christian martyrs have willingly suffered torture for the sake of their faith, so the confused, self-centered, and self-loathing suffer mutilation and torture for the sake of their own wounded and twisted egos.

Like the dominant Christianity of the Middle Ages, leftism even has its own office of the Inquisition. Those who do not toe the leftist line, who dare to question the new religion’s dogmas, are hounded out of the anti-church. The famed “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling is indicative of this. A multi-millionaire and self-declared feminist, Rowling was once a darling of leftist media and political activists. She supported the Labour Party in the U.K. and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Yet as soon as she voiced her concerns over transgenderism, she became a “heretic” to the church of leftism, targeted for disbarment from all the institutions controlled by leftism.

Although leftism is a uniquely 21st century phenomenon, its fundamental principles are nothing new. In fact, God has been dealing with the motivating mindset behind leftism since before the world began. The chief and unifying tenet of the leftist religion — indeed, that of all its precursors and predecessors, also — is naturalism. When first Lucifer said, in the words of the poet John Milton, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,” naturalism was born. Naturalism is the belief, the assertion that the creature can replace the Creator, that the peasant may, if he slays the King, rule in His stead. It is the hubristic declaration that “God is dead, I am god.”

Satan was the first to declare thus, in his immense pride, galled by the humility of God’s plan to become a man, to take on the form of a mere creature — “these disgusting little human vermin,” as Lewis called them in the character of Screwtape, a hateful demon. He has declared it ever since, leading countless souls astray. In the Garden of Eden, that was the temptation offered by the Serpent: “You shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5). Throughout Scripture and, certainly, throughout human history, that has been the great temptation, the great sin: to be as gods. When Moses ascended Mount Sinai, after God led the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt, that temptation reared its head and the Hebrews made for themselves an idol (Exodus 32). Even then, the Hebrews fell to worshipping the demon Baal, until the prophet Elijiah proved the supremacy of God and slayed the Baalite priests (1 Kings 18).

Whether in the twilight years of the Roman Empire, throughout the Middle Ages, into the age of discovery, or even now in the modern day, men are tempted to declare themselves God, to worship their own selves over the crucified and resurrected person of Christ, to adhere to their own principles or preachings as supreme. Leftism is simply the culmination of this evil, this unbridled, unrestrained pride, brought to the fore via political prowess and instituted in American culture via institutions long ago captured by the prophets of leftism: Marxists, communists, perverts, abortionists, eugenicists, atheists, relativists, and countless other little ideologues subservient to the Luciferian sin of naturalism.

The current division in America is not ultimately a matter of Left versus Right, of Democrat versus Republican, of communist versus capitalist, but of good versus evil, of naturalism (in the form of leftism) versus Christianity, of the fallen angel Lucifer and his minions versus the crucified and resurrected Christ and the forces of Heaven. The war being waged over America at present is not a matter of differing political opinions but of diametrically opposed religions.

One side says that unborn babies, the most innocent of all persons, may be executed at will, torn apart and unceremoniously vacuumed out of the wombs of their mothers; that children may, on a whim, decide to ingest hormones foreign and unnatural to their bodies before subjecting themselves to irreversible surgeries so horrific that not even the most warped and depraved authors of the 19th and 20th centuries could have imagined them; that procreation is wholly unrelated to the conjugal act, that two men might sodomize one another and call it “love”; that sex-trafficking and child sexual exploitation are just the price to be paid for virtual images of increasingly perverted sex acts, readily available to young and old at the mere click of a button; that a nation has no sovereignty and must be subjected to millions of unvetted, unrestricted immigrants.

The other side says that innocence is worth preserving, that unborn children and their mothers must be cherished and protected from the evils of the abortion mill; that children must be raised to think and think critically, think well, think deeply; that the family is the basic and fundamental unit of society, that the very fabric of civilization would unravel without the family as its basis; that love necessitates self-sacrifice, not self-gratification; that nations have a God-given right to defend their borders and preserve the safety and security of their own people; that Christ is indeed King.

This present war is not between two ideological factions but between powers and principalities, between leftism and Christianity, between good and evil, and between God and Satan. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve… As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).