by | Jun 23, 2023 | Uncategorized
Millions have downloaded YouVersion’s new “lite” app, designed for mobile users without access to broadband internet.
Bible apps have brought a trove of resources to anyone with a smartphone—and an internet connection.
But after hearing feedback from Christians in places where people can’t access or afford high-speed broadband, the team behind YouVersion’s Bible app recently launched an app that doesn’t need a connection.
Designed for users in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, the Bible App Lite is a space-saving app that, once downloaded, can be used entirely offline. It still includes YouVersion’s key features: the Bible reader, audio Bibles, verses of the day, and prayers.
So far, more than four million people have downloaded the lite version of the app, and it has reached the top 10 in the Google Play store in 17 African countries and the No. 1 spot in Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to YouVersion.
Globally, more than a billion people don’t have access to affordable broadband internet, according to a 2020 report published by the Alliance for Affordable Internet. Though mobile broadband prices are dropping, Africa remains the region with the least access, the report found.
While most towns have internet connectivity, many of Africa’s rural areas still struggle with it, said Kevin Muriithi Ndereba, a lecturer at St Paul’s University and a pastor in Kenya.
He told CT that sermons, Bible plans, and Bible commentaries can be difficult to retrieve online. He listens to Bible podcasts only to have them cut off midway through his drives.
Muriithi Ndereba has encouraged “offline pastors” to remember their pastoral care does not depend on whether their phone has a strong internet connection. “Do not be anxious about your lack of technological tools,” …
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by | Jun 22, 2023 | Uncategorized
Evangelical-led movement offers family atmosphere and biblical values increasingly attractive to the beleaguered nation.
As air raid sirens blared down the hallways, Tetiana Garkun hurried her middle school students outside the My Horizons Christian School campus into the designated bomb shelter.
Located in Khmelnytsky, 200 miles southwest of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, the school’s children moved in orderly fashion—a sign of how accustomed they’ve become to Russian missiles targeting military installations in nearby Lviv.
They prayed, waited for the all-clear signal, and returned to their Bible class.
Garkun’s own children, daughters aged 16 and 17, were similarly composed. Confident high schoolers who only a few years earlier were sharing their faith in Ukraine’s secular education system, they follow after their great-grandfather, a Pentecostal pastor sentenced to death by magistrates in the Soviet Union.
Times have changed, as have education authorities.
“The government encourages us to teach our students how to be Christians and live godly lives,” said Garkun. “They see that we are needed in these horrible days.”
She had earlier led the students in a discussion prompted by the official state health education curriculum: What helps us live a long life?
Model answers included a good diet, avoiding smoking, and participation in sports. But amid war, these answers no longer apply, she said, and even her prepared integration of Christian material hardly satisfied her own soul. In years past, she recited Ecclesiastes 7:17: “Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time?”
However, she pondered, what about when the righteous are killed by Russian evil?
“When we follow God’s rules and truth, we lead happier and healthier lives,” Garkun said. …
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by | Jun 22, 2023 | Uncategorized
Officials blame fighters targeting “ethnoreligious minorities as well as houses of worship and religious ceremonies.”
At least 450 Christians have died in a series of attacks on Christian villages in three northcentral Nigerian states since May, according to reports from religious freedom advocates.
Christian death tolls include at least 300 in several attacks in Plateau state spanning May 15–17, according to reports from Morning Star News (MSN) and CSW (Christian Solidarity Worldwide); more than 100 in attacks spanning May and June in Benue state, MSN and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) reported; and 43 in Nasarawa state in mid-May, MSN reported.
Tens of thousands were displaced, according to MSN and CSW. Whole villages, dozens of church buildings and thousands of homes reportedly were destroyed. Grain was looted.
MSN quoted Christian leaders in blaming the attacks on militant Fulani herdsmen.
“As our people are fleeing, herders are occupying these areas and grazing freely on our farms,” MSN quoted a press statement signed by Samuel Door and Ephraim Zuai of the Shitile Development Association in Benue. “Though due to the fear of general insecurity it is difficult to move from village to village to gather exact statistics, hordes of lives have been horrendously eliminated in several villages across the land, such that the whole land is thrown into wailing and mourning.”
USCIRF referenced many of the attacks as ethnonationalist in a report it released June 9.
“Nigeria is home to a plethora of armed actors committing violence with dire implications for religious freedom. In several regions of the country assailants have targeted ethnoreligious minorities as well as houses of worship and religious ceremonies with violence,” USCIRF said in the report, “Ethnonationalism …
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by | Jun 22, 2023 | Uncategorized
Surveying the spectrum of Christian views on the traditionally Hindu practice, from wellness to spiritual caution.
Today’s observance of the International Day of Yoga, proclaimed by the United Nations since 2015 and led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India during his visit this week to New York, underscores yoga’s global popularity.
Although not a religion, the ancient Eastern practice is mentioned in the sacred scriptures of Hinduism such as the Bhagavad Gita. A Sanskrit word meaning “union” or “yoke,” yoga aims to unite the body, mind, soul, and universal consciousness, allowing its practitioners to experience freedom, peace, and self-realization.
The practice of yoga involves various physical, mental, and spiritual techniques, including breathing exercises, postures, relaxation, chanting, and meditation. Different styles of yoga exist, each with its own focus and approach to achieving a “unitive state.”
The roots of yoga can be traced back to the Rigveda and the Upanishads. One of the most well-known texts is the Yoga Sutras, written by Patanjali around 200 B.C. In this foundational text, the ancient scholar describes yoga as the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.
Yoga holds spiritual significance, aiming to control the mind, attain a detached witness consciousness, and liberate oneself from the cycle of birth and death, as stated on one yoga website.
Since assuming office in 2014, Modi’s government has actively promoted yoga as both a cultural and spiritual practice. Yoga has been a prominent soft power tool for India’s foreign policy.
However, a massive study conducted by the Pew Research Center of almost 30,000 Indian adults found that 6 in 10 said they never practice yoga—including 6 in 10 Hindus. Only 35 percent of respondents reported having “ever” …
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by | Jun 21, 2023 | Uncategorized
Offering food and shelter, Russian evangelicals are caring for the Donbas’s displaced. But in the face of Ukrainian frustration, dare they offer pastors for its empty pulpits?
Disoriented and disheveled, the elderly Ukrainian woman stayed put in her seat. After several hours in a Temporary Accommodation Center (TAC) in Taganrog, Russia, 70 miles east of her month-long basement shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine, officials encouraged her to get on the bus—to somewhere else.
Earlier that day, she had been discovered by Russian soldiers and ushered through a humanitarian corridor to the first processing location east of Mariupol. From there she was dispatched to one of 800 such sites established throughout Russia, which are located anywhere from nearby Rostov to Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast.
Official papers registered her for temporary residency in Russia and access to its medical system. She was given a warm meal, new clothes, $142 in rubles, and a SIM card—though not a mobile phone. She could apply for citizenship if she desired.
All she wanted was to die.
Grandma, where are you going? Is someone coming to meet you?
No one is coming. Nobody wants me.
You have to go to a shelter. You can’t stay here.
I don’t want to live any longer. I wish I had died in the shelling.
Where are your children, or grandchildren?
I don’t know. They left. I can’t find them.
Government employees had done their duty. But after this exchange, a Russian evangelical volunteer sprang into action. After a few phone calls, she placed the woman with a local church family. The next day, she located the granddaughter.
“When we are genuinely involved in their lives, they see the love of Christ,” said Tanya Ivanenko. “They hug us, kiss us, and remember our names. Against the backdrop of war, we give them a little hope.”
Ivanenko did not provide the care, but she shared the grandmother’s …
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