For the past three weeks, Christians in northern India have been the victims of violent assaults. It started on August 23 when the leader of the radical Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) was assassinated. VHP supporters have blamed Christians for the assassination, and for the last three weeks have smashed Christian property, and intimidated, injured and killed Christians.
Even the secular Indian media Hindustan Times and Times of India report that the violence is totally unjustified. It's the classic case of an established power base being threatened by successful Christian evangelism.
Please pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters - and for their persecutors, who will have to answer to the risen Jesus for how they treated his children.
The Nones Project is an ongoing study into the belief systems of people who call themselves non-religious. A few weeks ago one of the project leaders, Ryan Burge of Washington University, posted some really interesting preliminary results on his Substack. 1. We've probably heard of people who are spiritual but not religious (SBNRs). SBNRs were "the largest group of nones" in the sample. They believe in the supernatural realm but not necessarily in "a God." They are "deeply skeptical of religion but highly interested in spirituality," therefore individualistic and anti-institutional. 2. But this study differentiated SBNRs from people they called Nones In Name Only, NiNos. They different to SBNRs by being religious about their spiritual. They believe not just in the supernatural but in "God." And they tend to engage in traditional communal religious practices while SBNRs practice individualised eclectic bespoke spiritual practices. The s...
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