Posts in The State of Religion
Religion Has Become A Luxury Good For The Middle Class, Married College Graduate With Children

(ANALYSIS) Religion in 21st century America has become an enclave for people who have done everything “right.” They have college degrees and marriages and children and middle-class incomes. For those who don’t check all those boxes, religion is just not for them.

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Alliance University’s Closure Is A Major Loss For Minority Students In New York

Alliance University, a Christian college in lower Manhattan that primarily served minority students, announced it will close this year after losing its accreditation amid other hurdles.

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Bridging the Gap: How a Greek University is Supporting Thessaloniki’s Muslims

Some Muslims, Jews and other religious minorities in Thessaloniki also believe the city has found harmony between Abrahamic faiths in the past and can do so again. And one such olive branch toward religious understanding is taking root at the School of Theology in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, which is the first Greek university to implement an academic program on Islamic studies.

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A Tale of Two New Yorks: Secularism and Spirituality in the Big Apple

(OPINION) It's hard to consider the Big Apple a truly "secular city" when considering the rising number of New Yorkers who are Muslim, Orthodox Jewish, Hindu and evangelical and Pentecostal in Latino, Black, Asian, White and interracial flocks.

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How Are Houses of Worship Like Retail Stores? Changing Channels Of Distribution

(OPINION) Houses of worship are in decline. One reason is Americans’ waning interest in religious institutions. Another may be the change in consumer behavior away from the “average” and toward the large, the online and the small but specialized. Houses of worship can develop hope by learning from the experiences of the retail, financial-services and health care industries.

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Religious Liter-AI-cy: An Interview With ChatGPT About God, Part 1

This week, the next step of our Talking to Tech series was a “conversation” with ChatGPT, one of today’s most popular AIs. This was the first in a multi-part series exploring the depth of ChatGPT’s knowledge of and skillset concerning religion and religious topics. 

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Religion Data Wonk: Just How Bad Is Denominational Decline?

(ANALYSIS) The mainline is just a bloodbath. Five traditions are down by at least 30%. The ELCA is down 41%. The United Church of Christ is less than half the size it was in the late 1980s. The United Methodists are already down 31%, but with over 15% of their churches disaffiliating just this year, I wouldn’t be surprised in membership is down 40% or more by this time next year.

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The Past Is Dead? Time For News Analysis Of America's Scrambled Protestant Marketplace

(OPINION) Starting with a band of Anglicans landing at Jamestown in 1607 and then Pilgrim dissenters at Plymouth in 1620, various forms of Protestantism collectively dominated what became the United States. But the Religious Landscape Study from the Pew Research Center tells us the U.S. population is now only 46.6% Protestant.

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Did Siri Go to Sunday School? An Interview with Apple’s AI

Artificial Intelligence programs such as ChatGPT continue to become more popular and accessible. With many questioning the future of AI and its implications, we asked Apple’s Siri a series of questions about different religious faiths.

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Did The Election of Donald Trump Drive People from the Pews?

(ANALYSIS) There is no doubt in my mind that politics is one of the main culprits for the emptying out of American religion. That was my starting point for this piece. What follows is a peek inside how I think through a problem like that.

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A Closer Look at North Korea’s Deadly Regime

(COMMENTARY) When we think of North Korean armed forces, most of us envision a formidable parade of clean-cut, perfectly uniformed soldiers marching in lock-step. However, like the “Potemkin Villages” a few tourists manage to see, those tidy uniforms are nothing more than window dressing for the bankrupt regime.

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