President Obama connected his faith with his policies toward the poor at the National Prayer Breakfast today, a subtle but sharp contrast to remarks made by presidential hopeful Mitt Romney the day before.

“Living by the principle that we are our brother’s keeper. Caring for the poor and those in need,” Obama said before an audience of about 3,000 at the Washington Hilton. These values, he said, “they’re the ones that have defined my own faith journey.”

Specifically, Obama said, they translate to policies that support research to fight disease and support foreign aid. His faith, he continued, inspires him “to give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy.”

Romney has come under fire for telling CNN on Wednesday that “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” but is instead focused on the middle class. He later said his remarks were taken out of context, and promised to fix any holes in the safety net protecting the impoverished.

Romney, who made a fortune as the CEO of Bain Capital, is seeking to counter critics who portray him as a “vulture capitalist.” Recently he released his tax returns, which showed his income at nearly $21 million last year and that he paid a lower tax rate than most Americans.

The 60th annual prayer breakfast is a bipartisan event sponsored by members of Congress who meet weekly for prayer when Congress is in session.

Flanked by first lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, Obama talked about his largely secular upbringing, and “finding Christ when I wasn’t even looking for him so many years ago.”

Obama did not mention recent tensions between the White House and Catholic and evangelical leaders over new rules that will mandate nearly all religious institutions to offer coverage for contraception to their employees.

Late Wednesday, Celia Munoz, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and a former staffer for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sought to clarify what she called “confusion” over the contraception mandate.

“The Obama administration is committed to both respecting religious beliefs and increasing access to important preventive services,” she wrote in a White House blog post. “And as we move forward, our strong partnerships with religious organizations will continue.”

Obama shared the dais with Christian author and humorist Eric Metaxas, who asked the audience to forsake “phony” religiosity and to recognize the humanity in their political foes.

“If you can see Jesus in your enemy, then you know you are seeing through God’s eyes and not your own,” Metaxas said.

With 2.18 billion adherents, Christianity has become a truly global religion over the past century as rapid growth in developing nations offset declines in Christianity’s traditional strongholds, according to a report released Monday (Dec. 19).

Billed as the most comprehensive and reliable study to date, the Pew Research Center’s “Global Christianity” reports on self-identified Christian populations based on more than 2,400 sources of information, especially census and survey data.

Findings illustrate major shifts since 1910, when two-thirds of the world’s Christians lived in Europe. Now only one in four Christians live in Europe. Most of the rest are distributed across the Americas (37 percent), sub-Saharan Africa (24 percent) and the Asia-Pacific region (13 percent).

“In two out of three countries in the world, the majority of the population identifies as Christian,” said Conrad Hackett, lead researcher on the “Global Christianity” report. “I had no idea about that. … I was surprised.”

The report confirms Christianity’s standing as the world’s largest religion, with 32 percent of the global population. Islam is second with about 23 percent, according to a 2009 Pew report.

A close look at the details reveals a few ironies:

— Although Christianity traces its beginnings to the Middle East and North Africa, only 4 percent of residents in these regions claim the Christian faith today.

— Meanwhile, the faith has grown exponentially in sub-Saharan Africa, from just 9 percent of the population in 1910 to 63 percent today. Nigeria, home to more than 80 million Christians, has more Protestants than Germany, where the Protestant Reformation began.

“As a result of historic missionary activity and indigenous Christian movements by Africans, there has been this change from about one in 10 (sub-Saharan Africans) identifying with Christianity in 1910 to about six in 10 doing so today,” Hackett said.

For its part, Europe is more religiously diverse than it was in 1910, when 94 percent was Christian. Still, Europe hasn’t abandoned its Christian heritage, according to the report. Today, 76 percent of Europeans self-identify as Christian.

“Many people may have the impression that a smaller percentage of Europe claims to be Christian” than is actually the case, Hackett said.

The report also sheds light on the difficult question of how many Chinese are Christians. Researchers have struggled to get reliable numbers since China’s policies on religion are thought to discourage Christians from self-identifying as such in official surveys.

Adjusting for such variables, Pew researchers believe Christianity has flourished despite a policy forbidding Christianity among Communist Party members. Researchers estimate the Christian community in China includes 5 percent of the population, or 67 million.

In the town of Madison, Florida, you can find the Colin P. Kelly memorial, a striking sculpture of four angels, their wings unfurled in the wind. The memorial was dedicated in 1943 to the name and heroics of a B-17 pilot whose plane was shot down just days after Pearl Harbor.

Pilot Kelly did not survive the crash, but thanks to his courage and skill, all his crew did, jettisoning safely from the plane. After the memorial was dedicated in Madison Square Garden, it was then moved to Kelly’s hometown – Madison – where it remains today. Few people know the angelic statue’s namesake, however. It is better known as the “Four Freedoms Monument.”

The statue is a representation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms that he articulated in his 1941 State of the Union address. Roosevelt said, “We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms: Freedom of speech, freedom of every person to worship God in his own way, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.”

As idealistic and as hard as all these freedoms are to achieve in this world, that last one maybe the hardest: The freedom from fear. There is plenty to be afraid of today, everything from terrorist attacks and spiders to economic collapse and newly harvested cantaloupes. Getting free of fear seems to be a pipedream.

I have no political, social, or economic plan to achieve freedom from fear, no one does; not even an esteemed statesman such as Roosevelt. Fear is the currency of the world in which we live, but as citizens and people of a kingdom “not of this world,” we have at our disposal a peace that displaces fear, a peace that “surpasses all human understanding.”

From where does this peace come? Better fiscal policy? More powerful weapons? A hulking stockpile of canned food, bottled water, and ammunition? I doubt it. No, the only source of peace is love. When you know you are perfectly and completely loved, there is nothing left to fear, for perfect love dispels all fear.

The Apostle Paul once asked a rhetorical but significant question: “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?” In other words, will God’s love for us really last? Can we count on it in face of multifarious threats and dangers? When the world seems to be flying off its axis and the fabric of everything we ever trusted is in shreds, will God’s love be there for us in the end?

The answer is an emphatic “yes!” With some of the more magnificent words in the Christian Scriptures, Paul responds to his own question with a comprehensive list of possible dangers: Trouble, calamity, persecution, hunger, destitution, threat of murder, violence, life and death, angels and demons, fears for today and worry for tomorrow, the power of hell, powers above and below – it is as broad and as exhaustive a list as one could construct.

And then he concludes, “Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing in this life or the life to come; no spiritual powers, good or evil; nothing in the present moment and nothing tomorrow; nothing now, and nothing later; the powers that be – governmental, spiritual, judicial, religious, economic, earthly or otherwise – none of these have the power or ability to take God’s love away.

It is sure. It is strong. It is eternal. It is ageless. It will not wax and wane. It is the one unvarying element in the cosmos, able to overcome everything, including our fears. If the created universe can contain it, God’s love can outlast and defeat it.

This includes the worst of your sufferings, the worst of your personal failures, the worst crimes you have committed, the worst of your decisions, your divorce, drug abuse, emotional baggage, arrest record, selfishness, adultery, rebellion, addiction, dishonesty, stupidity, your bone-headed decisions – fill in the blank – nothing can separate you from God’s love. That will set you free from fear.

Germans are famous for their love of fast cars. But for those needing a little respite from the country’s high-speed highways, autobahn churches offer a unique brand of peace and sanctuary for the modern traveler.

“We seek to care for our guests fully — not just for their cars but also for their body, soul and spirit,” said Anna Isabell Strohofer, whose parents opened the ecumenical Light on Our Path Church ten years ago at the family-run Strohofer service station close to Nuremberg in southern Germany. “It was the aim of our family to create a place where drivers can recover mentally.”

A family tragedy also played a role in the decision. “My mother’s brother died aged 18 in a car accident,” said Strohofer in an interview. “My family had always been very religious but this accident made our faith much stronger, and was also a reason to build the church: to remember him.”

The church now draws all kinds of travelers from bus charters to long-distance truck drivers, and even hosts ceremonies where bikers come to have their motorcycles blessed. The tradition of roadside crosses and chapels where pilgrims and other travelers pray for divine protection on the road dates back to the Middle Ages, and seems very much alive at today’s autobahn churches.

“Thank you for your protection over 5,000 accident-free kilometers home to my family,” wrote one visitor in the message book at the Protestant community and autobahn church at the village of Werbellin. “Thanks for this oasis on our path of life,” reads another.

Still, the chance to pause and reflect that these “rest stops for the soul” offer is hardly a throwback to the past, say advocates, but caters to a very modern need.

“What is new is the speed of life today,” said Guenter Lehner, of the Akademie Bruderhilfe-Pax-Familienfuersorg, a Christian insurance company that coordinates Germany’s 38 autobahn churches. “Now we need to slow down, to have a break during the journey because the cars are very fast, and life is very fast,” he said.

The first autobahn church, the Roman Catholic Mary, Protection of Travelers, opened in 1958. It was intended as a monument to be seen from the road, opening just once a week for Sunday Mass. But drivers demanded more.

“People started to visit it and rub their noses at the closed doors,” Father Wolfram Hoyer explained in an interview. “So the church was opened and people flocked in … They wanted simply to get out of traffic, to have a place where they could rest — psychologically, physically, religiously — and then drive on. So these are kind of spiritual filling stations.”

Now, Hoyer says, supermarket-style automatic doors allow the faithful access 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and more autobahn churches continue to open across the country.

Some, like Mary, Protection of Travelers, and St. Christophorus Himmelkron on the main route between Berlin and Munich — with a rocket-like spire and dedicated meditation room — are purpose-built. Others stood in the same spot long before the autobahn thundered past. All are clearly signposted from the highway, and the Bruderhilfe Akademie estimates they attract around one million visitors a year.

“Everyone who drives ends up in autobahn churches,” Hoyer said. “From our message book, I know that we have had several Jews, several Muslims and people who say that they are not faithful — but they are in some way; they stop and pray or meditate.”

Some believe the popularity of autobahn churches at a time when ordinary parish congregations are declining is not only the result of modern modes of transport but also a changing approach to worship.

“Increasingly, people aren’t attracted to the religious service on Sunday but they need and they enjoy the silence of churches,” said Lehner. “I think this is a very modern use of churches.”

A new book will be released in September that takes a deeper look into the faith of teen icon Justin Bieber.

The book, Belieber! Faith, Fame and the Heart of Justin Bieber, is penned by Cathleen Falsani, an award-winning journalist with a specialty on the intersection of spirituality and pop culture. It is being published by Worthy Publishing.

Bieber’s cultural influence on today’s generation is seen to equal—if not exceed—that of the Beatles 50 years before. Despite his overwhelming success, he has remained consistent in his talk of his Christian faith.

Falsani covers Bieber’s story of fame from the time he was spotted on YouTube and also writes about behind-the-scenes observations she has had of the star.

Of her subject, Falsani says, “Justin has a message beyond what many critics quickly dismiss as ‘puppy love’. It is above love, God’s love for everyone. And his fans are listening.”

Bieber is consistent in interviews and TV shows in expressing his beliefs regarding his Christian faith, and talks of hope, gratitude and believing to his millions of fans, including some 11.6 million Twitter followers.

At the recent Teen Choice Awards, Bieber collected his trophy, then told the crowd, “I wanna say that anything is possible if you set your mind to it. You gotta keep God first and always remember to keep family first.” He then made a sweeping gesture to the audience and added, “Jesus loves every one of you!”

While it is not unusual for celebrities to mention God during award shows, it is rare that stars will specifically mention Jesus. This is because there is often a consciousness about image.

To mention God is considered to be more inclusive, and helpful to a celebrity’s image and career. To specifically mention Jesus means the risk of drawing a line.

Bieber, 17, has talked of his faith in Jesus with Rolling Stone, on television, on the red carpet. And it seems that as he matures, he becomes more confident of his own voice—beyond the singing voice, the voice that talks of what is on his mind and what he thinks.

This is a voice that is not worried about image, or about appealing to as wide an audience as he can. Bieber seems unworried about alienating his fans. Because of this, Falsani perceives Bieber to be a new breed in the celebrity world.

Falsani wrote in her RNS column that she perceives Bieber as someone who can express his faith in a way that does not offend others, and he is not defensive in doing so. He comes across as authentic and humble, and his millions of fans around the world are listening when he says, “Jesus loves every one of you.”

Pattie Mallette, Bieber’s mother, is a woman of deep faith who has said in interviews that she believes her son has been called to speak as a voice for this generation.

Falsani, who has done personal interview profiles of Barack Obama, Elie Wiesel, Anne Rice, and Studs Terkel among others, has written the critically acclaimed books The God Factor, The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers, and Sin Boldly.

Falsani said on the book website that in light of the fact that music and film remain the language of today’s generation, she is hopeful that faith leaders and parents will view popular culture with new insight and see it as a means to enhance communication with their children.

A new book is on the market that tracks the history of Christianity from a global perspective—a diversion from the normal coverage of the faith as primarily a Western phenomenon.

The book, Christianity: The Illustrated Guide to 2,000 Years of the Christian Faith, goes further back in time covering the little-known Nestorian Christians up to current Christian phenomena including the Evangelical movement, the First Vatican Council and televangelism, among others, according to its website.

Christianity: The Illustrated Guide is published by Millennium House and authored by various religious experts. Its chief consultant is Prof. Ann Marie Bahr, Department of Philosophy and Religion, South Dakota State University, Newswise said.

The book is an illustrated guide to 2,000 years of history in Christianity, featuring miracles, martyrs, major figures, ideas, faith, events, literature, music, feasts, festivals and mysteries, according to the website.

The book also has superb illustrations including art, architecture, and detailed maps. There are also special features on prayer, church music, Christian tradition, Christian experience and the bible, the website said.

Bahr, who was with the Religion in the Schools Task Force of the American Academy of Religion until 2008, told Newswise the reference book is the first of its kind with its comprehensive coverage. “Millennium House came to me with the idea of doing a high-quality illustrated reference work for libraries on Christianity,” she said.

However, she felt the original book outline focused too much on Christianity from the western historical viewpoint, and suggested that it instead provides a global history of faith, “something that would show how Christianity came to different parts of the world, and when, and how it developed there, and what the status is of Christianity in all parts of the world now,” Bahr told Newswise.

Noting that academics today are more interested in a global picture of Christian history, Bahr told Newswise, “[A]s far as I know, this is the first reference book to use this approach anywhere in the world to telling the history of Christianity.”

Because of this, readers see beyond the misconception that the Christian faith is only a phenomenon of the West. Bahr told Newswise, “It was definitely an attempt to break down this monolithic sense of what the history of Christianity has been and to incorporate the different perspectives of Christians around the world. The story of Christianity cannot be told from a single geographic vantage point.”

Nestorian Christians

Bahr told Newswise that Christianity reached China earlier than what is commonly known through the efforts of the Nestorian Christians, among the earliest and lesser-known missionaries who no longer are in existence today.

Bahr said to Newswise, “Christianity went east before it went west, to a great extent. It’s very relevant to us today because it was along that route that they first met, for example, with Buddhists.”

Noting that religions play a major role in shaping society, Bahr said understanding faith is a major task for 21^st century globalism. She told Newswise, “[W]hat we will be in the future really depends upon whether these traditions can talk to each other, both internally — their differences within each tradition — and externally — the differences between them.”

According to the website, the reference book includes writings on the more recent developments of Christianity including the Evangelicals, radical Christianity, the First Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, the spread of the others.

Alabama Rep. Gov. Robert Bentley stirred up a hornet’s nest among critics when he spoke at a church recently and said that Americans who are not part of the Christian family are not brothers and sisters.

In his Martin Luther King Jr. Day message, Bentley told parishioners at the King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery that Christians accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and are part of the Christian family, according to CBS News.

Bentley said, “There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit. But if you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have, if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister,” CBS News reported.

Bentley added, “Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother,” according to CBS News.

Bentley, who is a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, said that although he was elected as a Republican, he will be “the governor of all the people. I am colorblind,” according to UPI.

Atheists upset

Bentley’s comments drew the ire of atheists, including David Silverman, president of American Atheists. Silverman said Bentley’s comments are “bigoted,” and show that Bentley “puts his bible above the Constitution of the United States,” CBS News reported.

Silverman added, “Being the governor of all people means that you are a representative of all people. It certainly does not mean that you abuse your position to push your religion on people who differ from your faith,” according to CBS News.

Bill Nigut, southeast regional director of ADL told CBS News Bentley’s comments are “offensive,” raise the question of whether “non-Christians can expect to receive equal treatment during his tenure as governor,” and “suggest that he is determined to use his new position to proselytize for Christian conversion.”

Nigut told CBS News that if this is the case, “He is dancing dangerously close to a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids government from promoting the establishment of any religion.”

Choice of words

Rev. David Freeman, senior pastor of Weatherly Heights Baptist Church questioned Bentley’s choice of words saying it “points to one of the greatest failures of fundamentalist Christian theology. The greatest Christian theology entreats us to see all human beings as our sisters and brothers,” UPI reported.

Bentley said, after his speech, that he had no intention to insult anyone, the AP reported.

Gil McKee, a senior pastor at Bentley’s church said, “strong Christian faith is what causes [Bentley] to love other people, no matter who they are, black, white, rich, poor, Christian or not,” according to the UPI.

Immigrants from China are hearing the gospel for the first time in the U.S., and they are embracing it.

World Magazine said Chinese immigrants find love, acceptance and community in Christian churches which become a refuge in a new country. Li Rong Liu, of Fujian, South China says the spirituality seems more real, too.

Liu told World Magazine, “When I was in China, I had heard of Christianity, but I didn’t think I needed it. Now in the U.S., when I’m alone and facing new hardships, here is where I find God.”

When travel restrictions eased in China in 1978, Chinese immigrants to the U.S. rose from 200,000 in 1980 to 1.4 million in 2006. Chinese churches in the U.S. increased from 366 in 1980 to more than 800 today, World Magazine said.

Liu, like many Chinese immigrants, worked as a busboy from early morning until midnight, seven days a week in a New York Chinatown restaurant. After six years he was promoted to sushi chef and works 10 hour days, World Magazine reported.

Two years ago a friend invited Liu to Church of Grace, where he met and bonded with many others from Fujian immigrants. He told World Magazine that he also saw a joy and love that he hadn’t known before.

At a Church of Grace service, Pastor Matthew Ding bases his sermon on Nehemiah 11:6-24, a genealogy of the Israelites who travelled to Jerusalem. The Chinese also treasure lineage and the passing down of teaching, World Magazine said.

Ding told the church, “You came to the U.S. to give your kids a better life, but if you don’t teach them about Christianity, what good will it be? Nothing else will last for eternity,” World Magazine reported.

Chinese culture and grace

The Confucian ethic of hard work and discipline as necessary for success may be admirable, but it does not rest easy with the concept of salvation through faith rather than works. Ding spends a lot of time talking of ‘un dian,” or grace, to drive the point home, World Magazine said,

To get more restaurant workers to church, Ding also holds late services for those working overtime, and has a telephone ministry for some 1,000 Chinese immigrant workers nationwide employed in restaurants, World Magazine reported.

California churches

In San Jose, former restaurant owner Esther Lou founded The Herald Restaurant Gospel Ministry for Chinese immigrants working as waiters, dishwashers and busboys. Today she has over a dozen branches in cities across the U.S., according to World Magazine.

Taiwan, China and communism

But more ironic is Taiwan pastor Matthew Liu of California’s San Gabriel Valley who has a church catering to Chinese immigrants. He is often told, “We have no family here and when we come to your [house church] we feel like we are home,” World Magazine reported.

Perhaps the most compelling story is that of Joshua Yu, 84, who lived in China before and after it turned communist. Yu was reared as a Christian, but when he was 23, Communism came to China, according to World Magazine.

Yu discerned the disingenuousness of the government-controlled Three-Self Church which permitted no one under 18 to enter (Jesus said, “let the children come to me”). Teachings about revelation and lessons about being in the world but not of it, were also censored, World Magazine said.

Then in 1958 Yu and 2,000 others were sent to a “reeducation camp.” They were overworked and underfed (dinner would be one small onion). When Yu was freed in 1979 only 800 had survived, World Magazine reported.

A church in America offered Yu a job (because of his facility with English). In the U.S. he founded the Chinese Christian Testimony Ministry, a publishing firm which translates Chinese testimonies into English, World Magazine says.

According to World Magazine, many books that Yu publishes find their way back into China, where they are reproduced.

A small village in Haiti is enjoying prosperity, education and spiritual wealth because of a Christian ministry that was founded in 1999.

The village of Gramothe, one hour away from Port-au-prince, today has schools, a clinic, a church, water system and homes—a great change from 10 years before, when all they had were five voodoo temples, The Christian Post said.

In 1999, Willem Charles founded Mountain Top Ministries which challenged voodoo in the village where there was no clean water, not enough jobs, and no hope at all, according to The Christian Post.

Give Your Best, a book authored by Andrew DeWitt, tells the story of Charles. DeWitt told The Christian Post, “There are pockets in Haiti that are actually transforming from poverty and voodoo to prosperity and Christianity.”

Charles grew up in a one-room home with nine other people. However, he grew up to become a CNN interpreter, and helped to convey to the world the chaotic presidency of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, according to The Christian Post.

Other successes Charles enjoyed before founding MTM, according to The Christian Post, included joining Haiti’s national soccer team, plus personal success as a businessman.

Charles started MTM in Gramothe because it was the village on the hill across his childhood home. He knew that 90 percent of its people were jobless, and the teacher in the tiny school had only a third-grade education. Villagers walked a mile to get drinking water from a river where they also bathed and laundered their clothes, The Christian Post said.

Today, there are spigots near the homes of the villagers delivering clean water, reducing disease, and enabling farmers to plant year round instead of depending on rain, increasing their produce fourfold, The Christian Post reported.

Changes with MTM

Today villagers can save money to remodel their homes, and children study up to 12^th grade at the village’s Christian school. According to The Christian Post, a high school diploma is deemed a huge feat in Haiti.

In the book Charles says, “What Haiti needs is freedom and security. Along with that, education will bring jobs, which will bring overall prosperity,” The Christian Post reported.

Voodoo culture

A former colony of France, Haitian slaves of the French colonizers were required to become Catholics. However, the people instead incorporated the Catholic icons into their voodoo religion, according to The Christian Post.

In the book DeWitt wrote, “As a result, Catholicism has a different meaning to the people here in Haiti. In some ways it is synonymous with voodoo.” Charles understood this, and through MTM villagers learned to let voodoo go, The Christian Post said.

For example, a man in the village complained to Charles about the rats in his home which bit his children leaving sores on them. Charles raised money to build the man a new house and told him to keep it clean, according to The Christian Post.

He also told the man, “Voodoo is like the old house. It’s full of a bunch of spirits that are just like rats. You’ve seen the damage the rats do to your children. Voodoo does the same thing to our spirit. But God is a jealous God. He won’t allow any voodoo at all in your life,” The Christian Post reported.

The Christian Post noted that Haiti has had a succession of corrupt rulers and some 200 years of near chaos. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, rendered even poorer with the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Quoting DeWitt, The Christian Post noted that Haiti could still reshape itself into a new, prosperous country. DeWitt said, “If MTM can display the village of Gramothe as a model for other villages to follow, then all over Haiti villages can do what we are doing, and we can defeat generational poverty village by village.”