News Update

Study: A Spanked Child May Be a Better Adult
The National Post reports that a U.S. study states that spanking children up to six years old made them more successful in school, more optimistic about life, more likely to take voluntary work, and more keen to attend a university than their never-spanked counterparts.

Young children spanked by their parents may perform better at school later on and grow up to be happier, according to the controversial new study that is drawing scorn from critics.

The findings were drawn from interviews of more than 2,600 people, including a core group of 179 teenagers. The teens were asked how old they were when they were spanked and how often it happened. Their answers were compared with information they gave about their behavior that could have been influenced by spanking.

Lead researcher Marjorie Gunnoe, a psychology professor at Michigan's Calvin College, said her research is not a green light for parents to spank their children, but rather a red light for those groups who want corporal punishment banned.

“There isn't enough evidence that kids who are not spanked look better than kids who are spanked,” said Prof. Gunnoe, a mother of two children (she has spanked only one). “Some need the extra deterrent…for young children, the external motivator is more effective.”

The National Post

Millions in Tanzania Receive Scripture in Heart Language
The Christian Post reports that Wycliffe Bible Translators finished a special project just in time for Christmas in Tanzania.

The Wycliffe team had to develop an alphabet for nine languages in northwest Tanzania before beginning translation of the book of Luke in 2008. The translation will provide about two million people with Scripture.

“This is about transforming communities. My people will for the first time read God's word in their own language and I'm praying that their lives will be touched by the story of Christ's birth,” Pastor Albinus Waynse, who is part of the Wycliffe team of 18 Tanzanians translating Scripture, told CBN News.

More than 20 denominations helped support the work. English and Swahili are Tanzania's official languages but 124 other minority languages are spoken throughout the country.

Religion Today Summaries

Most Senior Pastors Work at Least 50-Hour Weeks
The Christian Post reports that most senior pastors are putting in plenty of overtime, according to a new LifeWay Research survey. The median number of work hours for Protestant pastors is 55 hours, but 42 percent say they work 60 or more hours.

The survey of 1,000 pastors also included bivocational, part-time and volunteer senior pastors. About half of these pastors say they spend five to 14 hours a week preparing their sermon. Nearly half of pastors (48 percent) say two to five hours a week go to visitation—less than they spend in meetings. Almost three-quarters of pastors say they spend up to five hours each week in meetings. Slightly more than half spend the same amount of time in personal devotions.

Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research, says the research shows many pastors' commitment to teaching and prayer, but may also show that pastors need help covering ministry responsibilities.

Religion Today Summaries

Pakistani PM Promises Property Rights to Christians
Assist News Service reports that Pakistan's Prime Minister, Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, is finally delivering on some long-standing promises to minorities in Pakistan.

At a ceremony on Dec. 18, Gilani vowed to give land property rights to Christian slum dwellers of Islamabad. According to one source, “The announcement sent a wave of joy among slum dwellers and infused them with hope of becoming owners of houses they have been living in for several years.”

Gilani also announced construction of non-Muslim prayer rooms in Pakistani prisons; a shortened sentence for minor crimes committed during religious festivals, extending a law that already exists for Muslims; and the official classification of “Masihi,” Christians' preferred term for themselves, instead of “Essahi” in the future.

Religion Today Summaries

South Korean Doctors Organize Pro-Life Groups to Discourage Rampant Abortion 
A group of South Korean doctors are hoping to motivate the people of their country to reexamine the catastrophic pro-abortion culture in which they live. They are hoping to force the government to enforce the existing abortion laws, by organizing groups to discourage women from having abortions and to report clinics that perform them illegally.

Dr. Choi Anna and her colleagues held a news conference in November to ask “forgiveness” for having performed illegal abortions, and have since formed the group Gynob which calls on other doctors to declare whether they have performed illegal abortions.

 “We see a tendency to have one perfect child and abort the rest,” Dr. Choi said. “We had women demanding an abortion simply because they had taken cold medicine or drunk too much while pregnant.”

South Korea's Mother and Child Health Law permits abortion only when the mother's health is in serious danger, or in cases of rape, incest or severe genetic disorder. It is illegal after 24 weeks of pregnancy. However, due to past government promotion of population control by abortion, the government turned a blind eye to the illegal abortion trade and the law was almost never enforced.

This has resulted in a fertility rate of just 1.19 children per woman, one of the lowest in the world. The government has abandoned the population control policy, and is now frantically moving in the opposite direction to save the nation from a self-inflicted demographic implosion that threatens to undermine the nation's economic and social survival.

LifeSiteNews

Survey: Evangelical Pastors Cite Abortion, Moral Relativism as Top Issues
A poll taken before the end of 2009 found that America’s evangelical pastors and church leaders cite abortion and moral relativism as the two most pressing moral issues faced by America today.

An Evangelical Leaders Survey released Monday from the National Association of Evangelicals asked Evangelical pastors last October, “What is the greatest moral issue in America today?” Respondents said abortion was their number one concern.

“The moral scandal of abortion tops my list,” said Jeff Farmer of the Open Bible Churches in Des Moines. “Not because murder is worse than other moral evils, but because of the massive numbers of this killing field and intentionality of so many to put self-gratification, greed and political advantage above life itself.”

Following as a close second, pastors cited the crisis of moral relativism and frequently quoted Judges 17:6:“every man did that which was right in his own eyes,” referring to the crisis of morality that once beset the society of ancient Israel. NAE board member Ron Carpenter stated the problem in the United States is “a non-belief in Absolute Truth which permeates every other arena of our society.”

Evangelical Leaders Survey is a monthly poll of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Evangelicals and includes the CEOs of denominations and other representatives of the broad array of Evangelical churches, missions, universities, publishers, etc. in the United States.

LifeSiteNews