Since learning of Samuel Alito’s leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, I have emersed myself in the resulting tidal wave of news reports, opinion pieces, blogs and podcasts. The New York Times podcast The Daily has been one of…
‘It’s still the economy, stupid’
Think what you will about the raging culture wars, but that’s not the major driver of public opinion today any more than it was when Bill Clinton first ran for president in 1992. That’s when Clinton campaign analyst James Carville…
The return to church has hit a plateau
The post-COVID return to church has plateaued, according to new nationwide data from Pew Research. After most houses of worship closed to in-person gatherings in mid-March 2020 due to the initial threat of coronavirus, there has been a slow return…
One in 10 Black Americans are now foreign-born; here’s why that matters to the right-wing backlash against immigration
When Americans debate about immigration, they most often think of people coming from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Seldom do they first think of Black migrants. Yet Pew Research Center reports that today one in 10 Black people in…
More people are moving to my city, but fewer are going to church
It’s like I don’t recognize my own neighborhood. It happened overnight. Who are we? Where are we going? What are we becoming? And … what’s next? I have been a pastor for two decades, and so much has changed in…
Two kinds of people see good and evil two kinds of ways
It turns out that once again, there are two kinds of people in the world: Those who believe most everything can be classified easily as good or evil, and those who believe it’s not that simple. Pew Research reports that…
Survey asks how Americans prioritize marriage and childbearing
Among all Americans, white evangelicals are most likely to say that prioritizing marriage and having children is better for society, but in real life they are not more likely to be married than other Christians — and previous studies have…
What does the rise of the ‘nones’ have to do with the future of the Republican Party?
America’s shifting demographics portend doom for the modern-day philosophy of the Republican Party, according to a leading social researcher. But democracy still could be “doomed” while waiting for those demographic shifts, according to a national columnist reflecting on the data….
Americans growing less religious and more strictly religious at the same time
In the current sociology of American religion, there are two trends moving in opposite directions. The “nones” are growing in number, while among those who identify as Christian, varieties of fundamentalism are growing. Religion researcher Ryan Burge recently summarized this…