World News and Trends: Never on Sunday?
The Daily Mail's social affairs correspondent Steve Doughty recently summarized a somewhat surprising Anglican Church report.
It said: "Sunday should be abandoned as the Sabbath day because nobody wants to go to church at the weekend ... Britain is no longer a Christian country and most of the population would rather spend Sunday with their families."
This is a rather sad assessment. While Sunday is, in fact, not the biblical Sabbath (as it is an ancient substitute for the true Christian Sabbath, Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, as explained in our free booklet Sunset to Sunset: God's Sabbath Rest ), the grounds for Sunday's rejection in the above report have nothing to do with that. Indeed, the same thinking would also rule out the true Sabbath as a day of worship.
This development comes in the wake of years of declining adult and child church attendance. As an example, in the 20th century attendance at Sunday school collapsed from 55 percent to 4 percent of children. The team of clergymen producing this report recommended that the church rebuild itself by having meetings at other less-formal times.
The fact of the matter is that one of God's Ten Commandments tells us to remember and observe the Sabbath day, which comes on the weekend (Exodus 20:8-11; Deuteronomy 5:12-15). Indeed, the Sabbath is the holy day that ends each week. And on it God commands His people to assemble before Him (Leviticus 23:3). One day, the whole world will learn this important truth and live by it (Isaiah 66:23). (Source: Daily Mail [London].)
An Article from:
Good News Magazine: May - June 2004
Course Content
Jerold Aust
Jerold Aust has served in the ministry for 52 years, as a public speaker for 58 years, a published writer for 38 years, and is employed by UCG’s Media and Communications Services. He is a Senior Writer, interviewer, and editor for Beyond Today Magazine and has taught Speech Communication for UCG’s ministerial online program and the Book of Revelation for ABC.
Jerold holds a BA in theology from Ambassador College, Pasadena (1968), an MA in Communication from California State University, Fullerton (1995), a distance-learning Ph.D (2006), and a Famous Writers School diploma in non-fiction writing (1973). Additionally, he studied post-grad communication at University of Southern California (1995), radio, TV, voice-overs, and Public Relations at Fullerton College (1995-1996), and graduate communication at Wichita State University (1978). Jerold has taught communication at the University of South Alabama (7 years) and ABC (17 years). His published works include, Ronald Reagan’s Rhetoric: Metaphor as Persuasion and EZSpeakers: Public Speaking Made Easy in 7 Steps. Jerold's overarching goal is to share with humankind its incredible destiny!
John Ross Schroeder
John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.
Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.
John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.
In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.
John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world.
