Just in time for Holy Week, Newsweek’s April cover proclaims, “The Decline and Fall of Christian America.” In its Easter issue in 1966, Time asked “Is God Dead?” on its cover. Yet only 5 years ago, mainstream media trembled at the vast popularity of “The Passion of the Christ” and warned of an imminent takeover by Christian theocrats. Ongoing speculation and raging public debate on big questions of life, death, God and eternity may signify new beginnings for Christian America, not its “decline and fall.” Today’s poll numbers show that America remains remarkably religious by the standards of other advanced countries – with three-quarters of the country still firmly Christian.

Topping off Easter Week 2009, The Washington Post/Newsweek “On Faith” blog featured a post that belittled the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Discovery Channel aired a documentary that painted Jesus as little more than an opportunistic politician who caught a bad break in a trial. The assault on Christian beliefs and morality is ongoing, so with Easter upon us, a secular attack is of no surprise to the Christian community. Despite the fact the data the Newsweek article presents from the American Religious Identification Survey was available many weeks earlier, the magazine timed the cover story perfectly for the Christian celebration of Easter, thereby making a profit off religion while biting the hand that feeds it.

Newsweek editor, Jon Meacham keyed his article around the March 2009 American Religious Identification Survey results that showed 76 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians, compared to 86 percent in 1990. He also noted the rise in number of Americans who now state they have no religious affiliation, 15 percent compared to 8 percent in 1990. Meacham goes on regurgitating statistics: He points out that the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen ten points in the past two decades and that, in the same period, the number of Americans who describe themselves as atheists has increased from 1 million to about 3.6million. And while Meacham’s general tone appears at first to be sympathetic to the Christian reader who would see these numbers as a negative trend, he eventually reveals his hand, by following up the data with his own opinion – a rather secular one – rather than with journalistic analysis: “…our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing – good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance.”

But Christians have numbers, too: According to a recent Gallup survey, there are currently 82% of Americans that currently identify with a Christian religion. That includes 51% who said they were Protestant, 5% who were “other Christian,” 23% Roman Catholic, and 3% who named another Christian faith, including 2% Mormon. Because 11% said they had no religious identity at all, and another 2% didn’t answer, these results suggest that well more than 9 out of 10 Americans who identify with a religion are Christian in one way or the other.

Tangle.com (formerly known as GodTube) is the largest content safe, family-friendly social network which saw 2,761,561 unique visitors in its debut month of March. The site boasted 3,797,804 total visitors in March and 25,202,636 total page views.

Women of Faith is the nation’s largest event for women and has attracted more than 4 million from across the country. With a focus on providing women with hope and inspiration, the 2009 “Grand New Day” tour slated to hit 28 cities in March-November is expected to attract 300,000 women nationwide.

Hillsong United is an Australian rock and worship band, a part of Hillsong Church’s youth ministry, Hillsong United formed in the nineties. Today, Hillsong Music topped Australian charts, with albums achieving gold and platinum status. Hillsong has released over 40 albums since 1992, many of them achieving gold status in Australia, and one of them, People Like Us achieving platinum status. Hillsong has also made its mark internationally with many traveling to Sydney for the annual Hillsong Conference, which attracts over 260,000 people. The Hillsong Television program is seen in over 160 countries and Hillsong International Leadership College is attended by over 900 students from many different countries. Hillsong Church currently claims that it is attended by over 20,000 people each week. The song “Shout To The Lord” has become one of the best selling songs of all time, since first recorded by Hillsong worship leader, Darlene Zschech and was performed on the current season of American Idol repeatedly due to the fans response and request for the song.

The Los Angeles based Dream Center is a non-profit where 22,000 people are fed weekly, 750 people are housed on a daily basis, 1 million pounds of food is distributed a month and 5,000 people are clothed in a month on their 8.8 acre campus. Matthew Barnett has spearhead change and transformation in the Los Angeles community by dropping the prostitution and gang violence by 73%, the homicide rate dropped 28% and rape dropped 53% since the opening of the Dream Center 14 years ago. The mayor and city council have publicly acknowledged the dramatic impact of the Dream Center and praised its efforts.

Pastor Matthew Barnett, who founded the Los Angeles based Dream Center at 20 years old has been ministering to thousands of people for the past 14 years, impacting hundreds of thousands of people throughout America with Dream Centers in over 60 cities throughout the U.S. and nearly 4000 people coming to hear Matthew speak and worship band Press Play minister each week at the famed Angelus Temple in L.A. The L.A. Dream Center alone delivers 1 million pounds of food each month, houses 1,500 homeless people free of charge every month on the 8.8 acres campus of the Los Angeles Dream Center. Jan – March 2009 were some of the strongest months of support that the ministry has seen.