3 religion and ethics headlines for your Wednesday

By W. Scott Lamb - Wednesday, November 16, 2016

(1) Is this the key to growing Mainline Protestant churches? |Macleans

An exclusive remarkable study finds that mainline Protestant churches that focus on the Gospel and prayer are growing, while those that don’t are in decline

…Answers in accord with traditional Christian orthodoxy—basic articles of faith (the ancient Creeds), the authority of Scripture, God’s visible working in the world today, the exclusivity of Christianity (Jesus as the door to eternal life), the importance of daily prayer—were tightly bound to growing life in individual churches. As well, conservative churches had a lower mean age among attendees (53 to 63), emphasis on youth groups, the presence of young families, wide participation by congregants (not only on Sunday mornings) and a commitment to evangelism.

(2) University of Virginia students & faculty ‘deeply offended’ by Thomas Jefferson being quoted at school he founded |The Washington Post

…Politics professor Lawrie Balfour, who also signed the letter, said that a simple mention of Jefferson is enough to undo progress — a cycle that’s oft repeated during her decade and a half with the school.

“I’ve been here 15 years,” Balfour told the Cavalier Daily. “Again and again, I have found that at moments when the community needs reassurance and Jefferson appears, it undoes I think the really important work that administrators and others are trying to do.”

(3) Restroom law likely safe despite N.C. election saga |Baptist Press

The election’s outcome “should not affect [H.B. 2] at all,” said Mark Harris, a Charlotte pastor who has run for both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives as a Republican.

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, a vocal H.B. 2 supporter, was reelected by a 52-45 margin, and the legislature that drafted and passed H.B. 2 retained a veto-proof Republican majority.

The legislature’s composition makes any repeal of H.B. 2 unlikely, Harris said. If a Cooper administration refused to defend the law against legal challenges — which Cooper has already done as attorney general — the legislature could hire its own legal counsel.

“Some in the media would love to say” a McCrory loss would be “due to H.B. 2,” Harris, pastor of First Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., told Baptist Press. However, “the evidence proves” that such a claim is inaccurate.

“If you look at the results of the election,” Harris said, “H.B. 2 probably did more to help turn out conservatives and Christians and help put them over the finish line than hurt anybody in this election.”