When Americans lose confidence in their institutions, what needs to be done? The answer is in individual relationships, not high-level marketing.
Category: USA
Race and Theology Define Different Views of the Decline of Christianity in the US
Whether defined by race or by theology, we discover not only different views of Christianity’s place in the American culture, but of different narratives of what it means to live in the United States.
Missional Musings for Post-GC 2020 Methodists
The United Methodist Church is prepared to split so that traditionalists and progressives can be missional without the distraction of battling each other over sexuality. Will either new denomination be missionally effective in the current American culture?
Public Trust and the Prophet
Religious leaders are not garnering high levels of trust among Americans. This requires them to think carefully about how they will participate in the public square. A rethinking of what it means to be “prophetic” is in order.
New Challenges to Christian Witness for Evangelical and Mainline Protestants
New research shows that Evangelical Protestants are more knowledgeable about the Christian faith than Mainline Protestants, but are much less liked. They are about equally knowledgeable about other belief systems. This presents challenges for both.
Disrupting Happiness
Disrupting Happiness: If there is so much evidence linking religion to a greater sense of well-being, why are so many people walking away from the Mainline Protestant Church?
What if Evangelicals and Liberals Want the Same Salvation?
As we head into the Christmas holiday, we have become accustomed to the culture wars starting up again about whether it is appropriate to say “Merry Christmas” or whether religious symbols can be displayed on public land. These issues are usually set up as examples of conservatives (Christians) vs. liberals (non-religious). Predictable, right? The conservative…
Who Is the Audience? To What End?
The Pew Research Center came out with a new report on 29 August entitled “The Religious Typology.” In an attempt to develop a new way of categorizing Americans as related to religion, this study asked people a series of questions about such items as their beliefs, religious activities, and sources of meaning. Researchers then used…
Unexpected Commonalities: White Evangelicals and Nonwhites in America
Pew Research Center has just released a new report on what Americans believe about God’s nature and activity. The report begins by reminding us that Americans are still a religious people with 56% believing in the God of the Bible and 33% believing in some spiritual force or higher power. (Notably, these are much higher…
The Mainline’s Missing Liberals
Pew Research has come out with new data with discouraging news for white mainline Christianity in the United States. In a previous post, I reviewed data showing that white mainline denominations are skewing more liberal, something that it has consciously chosen to do over the past century. This means that the white mainline denominations should…