(OPINION) To the shock of the state of North Carolina, where my wife Nancy and I have lived in 2003, Hurricane Helene wreaked massive devastation, taking at least 118 lives with at least 92 still missing. No one saw this coming, and it has brought unimaginable suffering to whole communities living in the mountains of our state, where horrific, unprecedented flooding wiped out little towns and destroyed countless homes, businesses and roads.
Read More(ANALYSIS) If you’ve spent time on Facebook, you may have noticed photorealistic images that are too good to be true: children holding paintings that look like the work of professional artists, or majestic log cabin interiors that are the stuff of Airbnb dreams. Others, such as renderings of Jesus made out of crustaceans, are just bizarre.
Read MoreA new study found 66% of U.S. Protestant pastors say the economy is very or somewhat negatively impacting their church. The two in three pastors who report a negative economic impact is the highest since 2011, and the 14% who say the impact has been very negative is the highest ever recorded in the 15-year history of the study.
Read More(ANALYSIS) It was the rare Trump quote that caused groans as it rocketed through conservative media. But this soundbite came from an upcoming memoir from former first lady Melania Trump: “Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman's fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy.”
Read MoreHurricane Katrina’s destruction in 2005 to New Orleans and surrounding areas prompted a yearslong response by Southern Baptist churches and Disaster Relief personnel, with volunteer recruitment for the latter spiking up to 80,000. Coy Webb, director for Send Relief Crisis Response, wouldn’t be surprised to see something similar for the damage from hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Read MoreAcross the U.S., churches are closing or merging by force — no longer able to maintain membership numbers or funds to support their buildings and staff. But for Northside and Sunrise Churches of Christ, union was borne out of a love for each other and a desire to combine their strengths — and put aside their differences — to point more people to Jesus.
Read More(ANALYSIS) A sculpture of the Virgin Mary showing her giving birth to Jesus was recently attacked and beheaded. Called “Crowning” by the artist Esther Strauss, the sculpture had been part of a temporary exhibition of art outside the Catholic St. Mary Cathedral in Linz, Austria. The sculpture was controversial for its explicit depiction of birth; an online petition seeking its removal received more than 12,000 signatures.
Read More(ANALYSIS) At University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture, we decided to bring together our collective research on evangelicalism to develop a broader template to understand the dynamics of American evangelicalism.
Read MoreThe nonpartisan groups reported the numbers of refugees and asylum seekers the U.S. has accepted in recent decades, including Christians and others fleeing religious persecution, and explored how U.S. presidential platform policies will impact the ability of those persecuted for their faith to find refuge here after the November elections.
Read MoreOver the past few months, Republicans have been crisscrossing rural parts of Pennsylvania with one mission: Turn this reluctant and reclusive religious group into MAGA voters. This untapped pool of 80,000 voters — the same number by which Trump lost to President Joe Biden in 2020 — could result in the former president winning the crucial battleground state.
Read MoreNearly 20 years after responding to Katrina, a 44-year-old preacher in Asheville, North Carolina, is putting that experience to use. His city of nearly 100,000 was devastated by Hurricane Helene — part of a trail of destruction the storm left through six states in the Southeast.
Read More(ANALYSIS) To discover that Christopher Columbus, long whispered to have Jewish heritage, had markers of Sephardic DNA is to me about as monumental as learning the Earth is round circa 1492. In other words, it’s a belated conclusion that should effectively change little about how we understand the world today — even if some would have it otherwise.
Read MoreThe pandemic was brutal on churches, but even the year before, the number of Protestant congregations in the U.S. had gone backward by approximately 1,500. The Southern Baptist Convention lost more than 1,000 churches in 2020, 2021 and 2022 each. Although the 2024 ACP survey also reported a loss, it was a significantly lower figure at 292.
Read More(OPINION) I’m getting inquiries from folks about the broadening war among Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah and now Iran. Folks are asking, Is this it? The Big One? The End Times? My typical answer, year after year, crisis after crisis, is “Not to worry.” But this time I’m not saying that. This time might — I emphasize the “might” — be different.
Read MoreResponding to a lawsuit accusing Dallas-based Gateway Church of financial fraud, Gateway Elder Tra Willbanks assured congregants over the weekend that the church has “independently audited financial statements since 2005.” However, a “seasoned CPA,” told The Roys Report (TRR) that Gateway did not conduct any audits during his time on staff, from 2011-2014.
Read More(OPINION) By his own admission, C.S. Lewis grew up a rationalist, shaped by a naturalistic viewpoint characteristic of the modern West. Naturalism holds that Nature (usually capitalized) is all that exists. Religion is nice, perhaps even inspiring, but it isn’t the stuff of real life.
Read MoreAnyone who has been paying attention to religion news has heard of the “Nones” — the “religiously unaffiliated” people who have little or no connection to any form of institutional religion. Then there are “Nons,” the term that religion-data expert Ryan Burge has pinned on the other big trend (“The Future of American Christianity is Non-Denominational”) that is reshaping the religion marketplace.
Read More(REVIEW) The England–Wales border is dotted with ancient churches, many of which have not heard a sermon or hymn in decades. They are the lonely stone relics of declining rural communities where faith has all but faded away. Since 1957, Friends of Friendless Churches has cared for many of these places of worship, working to protect their rich history and architectural legacy.
Read MoreThe U.S. Supreme Court failed to intervene during this session in a dispute over whether the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires doctors in the anti-abortion state of Texas to perform abortions to stabilize patients seeking emergency room care.
Read More(ANALYSIS) I don’t know if you have heard or not, but there’s an election coming up. And it may be “the most important election in the history of the cosmos.” Or it may just be like every other presidential election we’ve had in the last 50 years. This election also gives me the opportunity to do something that I have always wanted to do, but just never had a great reason.
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