His (Trump's) concern was and remains the de-Christianisation of Europe. As mass Muslim immigration coincides with the EU's ascendant secularisation, the historic spirit of Europe is changing; it is patently being lost, and there is understandable disquiet about the transformation. As the Archbishop of Canterbury has made clear, "Fear is a valid emotion at a time of such colossal crisis. This is one of the greatest movements of people in human history. Just enormous. And to be anxious about that is very reasonable."-Trump to Europe: “You are losing your culture”by Archbishop Cranmer
Praise band culture, turning worship services into overt concerts (with applause after songs), has overturned one of the cherished evangelical symbols, without, it seems, anyone much noticing. I don't just mean the frankly postmodern music, with tuneless repetitions of musical fragments; or the postmodern words which never tell much of a story but repeat bits and pieces of Christian devotion more or less at random; or the endless highlighting of a kind of romantic falling-in-love-with-Jesus spirituality which never seems to realize that romantic love is a match designed to light a more long-lasting candle. No: I mean the near absence of the reading, or the singing, of scripture. . . . The clear, public reading of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, so that the congregation can hear it and understand it, is a performative celebration of what the Reformation was all about. The Psalms are not a strange old set of poems, detached from where most people are today. They were Jesus' prayer book and they should be at the heart of ours.
The anti-sacramentalism of some earlier Evangelicalism (a position not shared, of course, by some of the great older evangelical heroes like the Wesleys, or the great Reformers themselves) has come to full and dangerous fruition. - N.T. Wright
The God of Islam is not the same God. He's not
the son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian
faith. It's a different God, and I believe it is
a very evil and wicked religion.
--Franklin Graham (1952- )
(At a North Carolina chapel dedication event, 2001)
_Examiner.com_ [December 15, 2009],
"Evil Wicked Religion: Franklin Graham's Attack On Islam"
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