World News and Trends: Will the Pope, Habermas turn Germans to religion?
Pope Benedict XVI's recent message in Germany urged Europe to rethink the notion that secularism and economic progress is the answer to the European Union's future.
Pope Benedict XVI's recent message in Germany urged Europe to rethink the notion that secularism and economic progress is the answer to the European Union's future. As a matter of record, some EU parliamentarians have resisted the notion that Christianity should be in the EU charter as the primary religion, thinking this is a veiled strategy to make Catholicism the EU religion and give the Vatican greater influence within the EU.
Europe's dark history of church-state relations has not been forgotten. Still many Germans are now beginning to turn back to religion. "The recent shift of Jürgen Habermas, one of Germany's foremost philosophers, shows evidence of the potential for a rethinking of the public role of religion. A professed secularist who has spent nearly half a century arguing against religiously informed moral argument, he made some arresting statements in his 2004 essay, 'A Time of Transition'" (Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 15).
Remarkably, Habermas wrote that "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [from which to derive these]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter" (ibid.). To understand how a religious revival will play a dominant role in Europe's future, request or download your free copy of The Book of Revelation Unveiled. (Source: Christian Science Monitor.)
An Article from:
Good News Magazine: November - December 2006
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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.
