Protestant churches are experiencing a complex pattern of growth and decline across the world, with Western nations – particularly the UK – emerging as key areas of concern, according to new findings from the Pew Research Center.
The Moral Reasoning Gap in American Christianity
One of the books I’ve read in the last couple of years that has really stuck with me is Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. It’s a distillation of a lot of his work on how people manage to puzzle their way…
6 in 10 US adults say they’re Christians
Six in 10 adults living in the United States today identify as Christian, according to Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study. This percentage has decreased gradually as Pew’s longitudinal survey has tracked it over time, dropping from 78% in 2007…
Understanding the background to today’s battles over the Department of Education
In March, Donald Trump dismissed half the workforce at the U.S. Department of Education and signed an executive order calling for the department’s elimination as part of his effort to “send education back to the states.” “Ultimately, the Department of…
White evangelicals stand out again in survey of immigration attitudes but other surveys show more openness to a solution
White evangelicals outpace other Christian groups in assuming the worst about immigrants and immigration, Pew Research Center found in a new study. The March 4 report also found Christians overall have more negative attitudes about immigration than those who claim…
Americans think more highly of their religious practice than those looking from afar see
Most of the world doesn’t consider the United States to be nearly as religious as many Americans do, new research shows. According to data from Pew Research Center, 41% of U.S. adults describe faith as essential to them while only…
Is the dramatic global rise in unhappiness correlated with the continued drop in church attendance?
Unhappiness has been on the rise around the globe across the past 10 years, Gallup reports. This rise in unhappiness runs deeper than the worldwide dread felt during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been brewing for quite some…
He Gets Us, Part 1: The men and money behind the movement
Comingling faith and football has been a feature of the NFL experience for decades, but this year’s Super Bowl included something different. A group calling itself He Gets Us tweeted: “On February 12, the world’s biggest influencer is coming to…
Most Americans oppose high court’s decimation of church-state separation, surveys show
Despite recent Supreme Court cases that chopped chinks in the “wall of separation” between church and state, most Americans believe government and religion should butt out of each other’s business, according to polls conducted by the Pew Research Center. The…
Optimism returning to Americans as they see pandemic threat fading, but some sober realities remain
Americans are feeling a whole lot better about the COVID-19 pandemic and are more willing to venture out to places they shied away from for the past two years, according to new data published by both Gallup and Pew Research…
Most Christians don’t feel adequate for sharing their faith or making disciples
Feelings of inadequacy or a case of the jitters seem to be keeping many Christians from sharing their faith with others, according to a new report by Barna Research. “Not feeling qualified or equipped (37%) is the main barrier” to…
The U.S. wealth gap presents both a political challenge and a spiritual problem
In November 2012, a YouTube user known as “politizane” created a viral video about wealth inequality in America that animates research conducted by Dan Ariely and Michael L. Norton using a series of graphs produced by Mother Jones magazine. Ariely…