Sunday, September 16, 2007

A Sad Headline..A Sad Testimony

While I was working in Toronto this past week, the Ontario Newspaper, "The Globe and Mail", had a sad headline that read, "Canadians redefine the family". The article started off,...

..."Canada is a place where married couples are in the minority, grown children cling to the family nest, grandparents are moving in and there are more childless couples." The report is based on a study of families by Statistics Canada in their 2006 census data. The census found that married couples are now in the minority with 51.5% of the adult population never married, living in common-law relationships, divorces, or widowed.

The report continued that same-sex relationships are growing at five times the pace of opposite-sex ones. 2.8 million people were found to live together without marriage (common-law).

It's interesting that the writer of the article attributed the decline in marriage rates to the decline of religion in the lives of the people. Marriage and religion are viewed as "archaic institutions".

Incidentally, there have already been some pastors arrested for publicly reading the Scriptures that pertain to sexual activity with one of the same sex. It's called "hate language". Yes, it is now illegal in Canada to read certain portions of the Bible publicly. I'm delighted that there are Bible-believing Christians who are leading an effort to repeal that law, but right now, it is the law in Canada.

How long will it be before we see this in the USA? I'm concerned that it might not be that long. There are already active campaigns to ban any speech contrary to homosexual activity as hate language. Of course we've seen the campaigns to legalize homosexual marriage. And of course we regularly see the decline of interest in religion, using that word in it's widest form that includes something about a person and the God they do or don't believe in.

There's not much we can do. But there is SOMETHING we can do. We can make sure our own personal faith is strong. And that it shows in some way -- that we regularly participate in some form of worship or fellowship or Bible Study activity to help our faith grow stronger. And we can pay attention to the multitude of candidates for public office and see what kind of faith they have and practice and how it impacts their political decisions.

Just my thoughts on a sad Canadian headline from last week.

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