In 1922, a Baptist minister serving a Presbyterian church in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village kicked a hornet’s nest with his Sunday message. Far from the first, or for that matter, last Baptist preacher to do so, he pleaded to those packed…
‘Our new pope has aura’: Why are Americans enamored with Pope Leo?
The recent election of Pope Leo XIV, born as Robert Prevost, has roused the attention of many around the world, including those who don’t identify as religious. “Our new pope has aura” read one comment on a Tik Tok video…
Religion in 2024: The Plateau Is Real
There’s this very much overused saying in my line of work – data is the new oil. When you hear someone giving a ‘hype’ speech at a data science conference that line usually comes up one way or another.
Is Christianity’s statistical decline slowing?
Between the New Atheist movement of the 2000s, clergy shortages in the Catholic Church, and the demographic collapse of Mainline Protestant sects in the United States, the story of religion for the past 35 years has been one of persistent…
The guest preacher who was a fortune teller
You don’t often get fortune-telling in a Baptist church, so when it happens, you sit up and take notice. Perhaps “prophecy” is a better descriptor. I was about 13 years old, slightly more concerned with whether a boy was going…
Are Young Women Leaving Religion Faster than Young Men?
Here’s what I think the value of pursuing a PhD is – it gives someone time to think about a single topic a whole lot. I know that sounds so incredibly basic and simplistic, but in my experience there’s no substitute…
Trends Suggest Gen Z Experiencing Both Religious Revival And Retreat
Carey Nieuwhof recently released a video discussing five disruptive trends in the church, which included some sobering statistics. In this article, I’ll highlight one of these trends and offer thoughts on potential solutions from the front lines of reaching the next…
What Really Happened to Religion in the 1990s?
I’ve got a lot of data visualizations in the post today, and I don’t want to make it overly long. So, let me just get right to the graph that started me down this rabbit hole. It’s from the General…
Are Young Nones Further From Religion Compared to Older Nones?
What does the future of American religion look like? It’s a question that I don’t think about that much – I’m more focused on describing what it looks like right now. But I can understand the urge, especially for folks…
How Trump and Harris fared with faith voters in 2024
When Donald Trump won reelection last week, exit polls show he was propelled to victory by gains in a wide swath of demographic groups and buffered, once more, by strong support from Christian voters. In fact, Trump made gains in…
Burge sees danger in ‘political monoculture’ of evangelicalism
The problem with white evangelicals isn’t their close affiliation with the Republican Party but the homogeneity of their political thinking and culture, sociologist of religion Ryan Burge said during a conference hosted by Denver Seminary. “When a religious movement becomes…
Ryan Burge explains ‘casual dechurching’
The majority of Americans leaving the church do so for rather humdrum reasons, sociologist of religion Ryan Burge said during a recent episode of the “CBF Podcast.” This phenomenon is known as “casual dechurching” and is typically overlooked because it’s…