Fox News Channel's chief religion correspondent, Lauren Green, believes that the third millennium will be a "coming together" of Christianity as different denominations learn from each other today — especially at a time when the culture has become increasingly secular.
"This is my theory," Green told Fox News Digital in a phone interview this week. "The first millennium of Christianity was, ‘Let’s try to figure out who Christ is, and everything."
The second, she said, was "everybody's just breaking up, thrown away" — with thousands of different denominations emerging since the Protestant Reformation.
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"I do think this third millennium is really the coming together," she said. "It's coming back. It's the apologetics. It is not just breathing the air of Christianity in a culture that's sort of immersed in it and not understanding why we believe what we believe."
She continued, "I think there's this movement to really educate people, to understand who God is and who Jesus is."
Non-Protestant churches are adopting similar teaching ministries commonly found in Protestant congregations, noted Green — just as some Protestant churches are adopting more traditional liturgical practices as proof of how Christians see the value of each other's practices.
With her new book, "Light for Today," a 365-day devotional, Green hopes to help people see the work of God in their everyday lives and not just during religious services — and grow in a deeper understanding of God as as result.
She did not initially set out to write a book of devotionals, said Green. Instead, she thought she was just posting thoughts and positivity each day on her Facebook page.
After writing her last book, "Lighthouse Faith: God as a Living Reality in a World Immersed in Fog," she realized that she had much more to say — so she kept writing.
"I spent so many years researching and reading, but I was still in my mind, researching and reading," she said.
"I wanted to increase my faith through writing," she said. That eventually took the form of reflections she shared on social media.
Years went by, and Green estimates that she published over 450 of these thoughts on her Facebook page.
Eventually, a publisher asked her if she would consider writing a devotional — and Green realized that she had already done a lot of the work.
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"I said, ‘It just so happens that I have these thoughts for the day that probably could be edited very well into a 365-day devotional,’" she told Fox News Digital.
With the devotional, Green aims to drive home the point that "God is a living reality."
This "means you're molding your life to the reality of God," she said, something she considers "an incredible challenge — to be a person of faith, to really understand who God is, and to mold my life to this God."
Green also hopes to remind people that God is in control of the natural process. So even if miracles such as the parting of the Red Sea are not an everyday occurrence, that does not mean that God is not there.
"I think that's where it fascinated me to actually look at the everyday parts of life and to see, if every day, I could challenge myself to move closer to God, instead of moving further away from God," said Green.
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Sometimes in today's world, she said, people of faith have a tendency to "want to put God in a box."
Rather, "this devotional is this way of getting back into seeing God in the everyday," she said — not just an hour or two on the weekends.
Instead, there needs to be a mindset in which "God is central, God is foremost," she said.
There must be an effort to resist the temptation to "make God a concept" that can be controlled, rather than "the living reality that we have to mold our lives to," she said.
Everything, Green explained, goes back to putting God first.
"All of the laws, all of the Ten Commandments, hang on keeping God first," she said. "They relate first to the First Commandment, and then, second, to each other."
Said Green, "The First Commandment is ‘I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.' That is a key to understanding who this God is."
"Light for Today: 365 Daily Devotions from the Lighthouse – Hope and Wisdom for Life" (Feb. 2024), follows Green's earlier book "Lighthouse Faith," which was released in 2017.
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Green joined Fox News Channel in 1996. She is also host of the weekly podcast "Lighthouse Faith."
She reported live from Rome in 2013 on the election of Pope Francis, as well as on the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. Additionally, she provided live coverage of the beatification of Pope John Paul II from Rome in 2011 and Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States in 2008.
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