(ANALYSIS) The number of individuals in the U.S. who do not identify as being part of any religion has grown and “the nones” are now larger than any single religious group. According to the General Social Survey, religiously unaffiliated people represented only about 5% of the U.S. population in the 1970s. This percentage began to increase in the 1990s and is now around 30%.
Read More(ANALYSIS) While drama with the United Methodist Church continues to develop, the sexuality spotlight shifts to America’s Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)., which has already approved gay clergy and marriage but is heading into a different sexuality fuss that carries some risk of another church split.
Read MoreNeighborly Faith studied academic publications addressing this issue and created a detailed, 14-point compromise definition stating, in part: “Christian Nationalism is a movement advancing a vision of America's past, present, and future that excludes people of non-Christian religions and non-Western cultures. Christian Nationalists romanticize Christianity's influence on America's development, attributing the nation's historical provenance to God's special favor.”
Read MoreNo doubt about it. Quite a few students up north are taking their talents, and tuition dollars, to Southern states. For a conservative take on the statistics, see this Daily Mail piece: “Why college kids are abandoning Ivy Leagues to go to Southern schools.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) A new report offers another data point in the abiding struggle between Christianity and culture, suggesting further changes ahead if these trends continue. With fewer people consulting the Bible for spiritual growth or guidance in their daily decisions, societal norms once influenced by Scripture are evolving into an array of moral perspectives, many of which are incompatible with its teachings.
Read More(ANALYSIS) “Father Justin,” a 3D AI character created by the San Diego-based Catholic Answers network, offered biblical advice for wrestling with anger. That’s when legions of cyberspace believers pounced.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The U.N. Security Council recently heard a new report on sexual violence in conflict (conflict-related sexual violence, also referred to as CRSV) prepared by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The report, which covers the period from January to December 2023, suggests that CRSV is on the rise. If the previous years were bad, the situation only got worse.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The United States is experiencing one of the most significant shifts in Protestant Christianity in its history. What do I mean by that?
Read More(ANALYSIS) During his 2,454 days in captivity — between strategic moves among 20 or more hiding places in Lebanon — journalist Terry Anderson was often allowed by Hezbollah leaders to read a Bible.
Read More(ANALYSIS) If someone asks me who the most famous preacher in the United States is, the answer is honestly quite simple. It’s Joel Osteen, by a mile. He leads Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. His congregation meets in what used to be the home of the Houston Rockets basketball team. Its seating capacity is nearly 17,000.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The United Methodist Church’s General Conference will meet in Charlotte, North Carolina from April 23 to May 4, 2024. Originally scheduled for 2020 and delayed three times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this meeting of the church’s legislative body comes at a critical time for the United States’ second-largest Protestant denomination.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Like the crowd that followed Jesus, do we miss an important sign pointing to the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist? Maybe.
Read MoreActually, we do need to talk about terms like “liberal” and “conservative” since the struggle to define these kinds of journalism labels was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The Congress of the XXV World Russian People’s Council, headed by Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, issued a document on March 27 entitled: “The Present and Future of the Russian World.” In the document, the leadership of the XXV World Russian People’s Council describes the conflict in Ukraine as a “Holy War.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) Close observers of Eastern Orthodox Christianity were not surprised when the recent World Russian People’s Council bluntly rejected “abortion propaganda,” efforts to promote LGBTQ rights and this age of “sexual licentiousness and debauchery.” It wasn’t surprising when that Moscow conference urged the defense of traditional families, “strong with many children,” during an era where birth rates are falling.
Read More(ANALYSIS) One of the most important components of the Democratic coalition is the Black church. But I have to wonder if there are not cracks beginning to form in the alliance between the Democratic Party and Black Protestant Christianity.
Read More(ANALYSIS) “Judaism Is About Love” is a new book that thoroughly and poetically shatters the misconception that the God of the Hebrew Bible is about law, while the God of the New Testament is about love. As a result, it creates healthy parameters for disagreement between Jewish and Christian believers.
Read MoreSomething to ponder: One of the earliest known uses of the noun madness is in an early version of Wycliffe’s Bible in 1384. In the wider world, madness meant insanity, lunacy, irrationalism, folly, delusion. In scripture, individuals — as well as nations and faith traditions — with only a shallow sense of the past and genuine tradition are given to delusion, which happens to be how Iain McGilchrist describes our current state of affairs.
Read More(ANALYSIS) It has been more than 500 years since Vatican decrees gave European colonizers permission to carve up the “New World” – and just one since Pope Francis disavowed them. The repudiation can hardly undo centuries of oppressing Indigenous people and stealing their lands. Yet the statement is monumental in ways that signal cultural and political shifts within the Catholic Church.
Read More(ANALYSIS) I read a story a few weeks ago in the Free Press that had an intriguing title, “Latinos are flocking to evangelical Christianity.” The piece was an excerpt from a book called “Latinoland: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority.” The book is based on over 200 interviews with Hispanics from all facets of American society in order to develop a clearer picture of what Hispanic culture looks like in the United States.
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