Believe it or not, the King James Version of the Bible remains the most read in America

The NIV is second most read version of the Bible.

It must be true. I read it here in The Washington Post, which also says 88% of Americans own at least one copy and that 40 million Bibles are sold here annually:

'The Bible business is booming. There are annual sales of 40 million Bibles — from study Bibles to family Bibles to pocket Bibles. That’s not even counting foreign markets. As journalist Daniel Radosh observed, “The familiar observation that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time obscures a more startling fact: The Bible is the best-selling book of the year, every year.”'

Why is God silent?

Because God is light.

"This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."

-- 1 John 1:5

"Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,

Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;

Thy justice like mountains high soaring above

Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love."

-- "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise", Walter Chalmers Smith, stanza two (1867)

Elite wannabes like Thomas Kidd of Baylor are so pissed off over evangelicals' support of Donald Trump they're denying reality

'Why in the world would so many Christians support a rude and crude candidate like Trump, whose pro-life credentials seem obligatory at best, and who specializes in vilifying Hispanics? ... I frankly do not believe that most of the people identifying as “evangelicals” in these polls are evangelicals (or conservatives) in any useful sense. The sympathy for Trump is, instead, a holdover of the worst aspects of American civil religion and Bible Belt culture.'

Well, that clears it up. Y'all must be fundamentalists.

You would think that an historian worthy of the name would take care to identify Trump more accurately as a critic of law-breakers and those who excuse them, but that would get in the way of the elite agenda, wouldn't it? I mean, Christian America must forgive, must it not? Separation of church and state my sweet German-American ass!

More at the link.

The sun will swallow the earth

Reported here:

According to experts from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA), the universe is only churning out half as much energy as it did 2 billion years ago, and is gradually approaching a state of entropy. The study confirmed something researchers have suspected for decades: the stars that populate countless galaxies are slowly burning themselves out. ...

The study, which was jointly led by Simon Driver and Andrew Hopkins, was an international effort that harnessed technology both on land and in space to study 200,000 galaxies and the energy they generated. Basically, it found that stars have lost roughly half their firepower over the last 2 billion years. ...

There is one type of cosmic body largely responsible for emitting galactic energy, and it's slowly losing steam, experts said. "Those emissions are dominated by stars," said Adam Burrows, professor in the astrophysical sciences department at Princeton University. The galaxy gas that creates these stars "is being depleted, and is not being adequately replenished." ...

[O]ne scientist contends it could be 100 billion years out before the universe fizzles. For perspective, the universe is just 14 billion years old, according to NASA. ...

Meanwhile, there might be more immediate challenges for the universe—and again, those too are much further on the horizon. "In 5 billion years, the sun will expand and swallow the Earth," said Driver. "In 10 billion years, our galaxy will merge with Andromeda." ...

Astronomers estimate there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, said David Kaiser, a physics professor at MIT whose work focuses on Early-universe cosmology.

But reported here previously:

[T]he heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. ... the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat . . ..

-- 2 Peter 3:10,12

Abortion just in the US approaches 60 million but Christians still wring their hands over Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Here.

If I didn't know better I'd say all these children killed in the United States since 1973 have been a guilt offering for the horrors of World War II in which we participated.

What morality can there possibly be in war, Christian or otherwise? All such thinking is a rationalization of war. All's fair in it. Who cares that millions of lives were spared by the atomic bombings? Certainly not Americans, who have gone on to kill millions of their own whose only crime was to have the temerity to begin existing as a consequence of someone else's pleasure-seeking.

In truth all such thinking about just war is actually an attempt at rationalizing Christianity itself, not simply war. It is an attempt to reconcile good and evil on the grand scale instead of on the puny stage we all occupy, where a beautiful life is tragically ended by a criminal, an accident, or a disease, and there's no explaining it.

The message of Jesus made perfect sense until it didn't, when the kingdom of God did not come as he thought it would, when God's justice failed to appear on earth as it is in heaven.

God's justice. The scoffers among us ridicule him for being wrong about this when we should be honoring him for showing us how far we are from it, the more now than in 1945 over Japan.    

Theologian seems completely unaware of the teaching of Jesus about becoming the poor

Robin Lane Fox in 2013

Here, for whom it is also news that rich ancient luminaries were expected to be benefactors of their cities and so on, something Robin Lane Fox discussed way back in the 1980s. Patron-client relationship and all that.

What do they teach the Christian theologians these days? Obviously not classical antiquity, its milieu.

The whole thing is quite astonishingly uninformed really, until you realize this theologian is a Paulinist and wouldn't know much about the teaching of Jesus anyway because Paul didn't, which is the relevant point lost on one who is going to worship an unknown Jesus whilst pondering voting Labour in the 21st century.

You can't take the Jew out of the apostle to the Gentiles: "Don't walk like Gentiles walk"

Don't walk like an Egyptian

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.

-- Ephesians 4:17

Christianity obliges one to be a communist

SOAMES.  "My advice to you all is to do your duty by taking the Christian vows of celibacy and poverty. The Church was founded to put an end to marriage and to put an end to property." ...

SOAMES.  "I am a Christian. That obliges me to be a Communist."

-- George Bernard Shaw, "Getting Married" (1908)

Catholic priest tells Cardinal Dolan to apologize to Donald Trump for calling him a nativist

Here:

"I am no big fan of Trump’s, and I want someone else to be our next president. But it is unworthy of a high Church official to casually accuse this man of being aligned with the most bigoted and violent elements of the Nativist movement, people who literally burned down Catholic Churches and killed Catholics, as well as opposed their immigrating to this country. Where’s the proof? It’s common now for Churchmen to apologize for past wrongs. Cardinal Dolan owes Donald Trump an apology for this present wrong."

To inherit eternal life Jesus wanted people to do something, but Paul wanted people to believe something

And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? ... Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

-- Matthew 19:16, 21

And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? ... Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

-- Mark 10:17, 21

And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?... Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.

-- Luke 18:18, 22

Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

-- Acts 16:29ff.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

-- Romans 10:9

. . . it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

-- 1 Corinthians 1:21

By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

-- 1 Corinthians 15:2

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

-- Mark 16:16 (from the longer ending verses 9-20, clearly not original but in keeping with the apostolic emphasis)

Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.

-- Luke 8:12 (the last clause is missing in the versions by Matthew and Mark and is perhaps evidence of the influence of Paul et alia upon Luke)

A millennial's lights are on but nobody's home

Rachel Williams, here:

"It is encouraging to remember the United States remains the most Christian nation in the world.  After all, 7 out of 10 Americans claim some to follow some form of Christianity.  Even better, two-out-of-three Americans believe Jesus was the Son of God and rose from the dead."

And you thought 70% was better than 66%.

Roman Catholics, Orthodox and fundamentalists fear Donald Trump's Protestantism

Here, here, and here, just to name three recent examples: Trump can't be a good Christian according to Cardinal Dolan because he supposedly doesn't welcome the stranger, or doesn't have a high enough view of the Lord's Supper, or hasn't repented and been born again.

Mitt Romney's Mormonism was supposed to be off limits in 2012, but suddenly fellow Christians get to pile on Trump.

Better watch out. He's been known to fight back.