(ANALYSIS) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has spent the past few weeks in a moment of both mourning and transition. On Sept. 28, a shooting and arson at a Latter-day Saints meetinghouse in Michigan killed four people and wounded eight more. What’s more, Russell M. Nelson, president of the church, died the day before at age 101.
Read MoreSix-time Grammy winner Amy Grant, who gained much of her notoriety through her Christian songs, has agreed to a legal settlement about a church founded by her great-grandfather in downtown Nashville. The boarded-up building, now worth at least $11 million, served for decades as the Central Church of Christ, founded in 1925 by A.M. Burton.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Here’s a stat that, to this day, I still can’t quite believe: the share of Americans who had a passport was 5% in 1990. According to data from 2023, that had risen to 48%.
Read MoreThe estate of A.M. Burton has reached a settlement agreement with the Nashville Church of Christ after years of dispute over the downtown Nashville, Tenn., church building formerly known as the Central Church of Christ.
Read More(ANALYSIS) I can’t imagine I will ever teach a course on Research Methods again, but it’s something that I actually really did enjoy at EIU. I led our incoming graduate students on a tour of how political science tries to answer questions every fall for at least eight years. It was a difficult course, no doubt. But I think that many of my students left with a lot of really practical skills and a much better understanding of research design.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Starting in the 1880s, two groups rushed into the central Appalachian Mountains: Industrialists seeking coal, and missionaries seeking moral reform. Both changed the region forever, and their stories were intertwined.
Read More(ESSAY) In a world where sports and spirituality don’t often intersect, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt stood as a remarkable exception. Best known as the chaplain and No. 1 fan of Loyola University Chicago’s men’s basketball team, Sister Jean captured the hearts of millions during the team's improbable March Madness runs.
Read MoreThe bottom line: Weiss (a liberal Jew who is married to another woman) has demonstrated a strong belief that real religious believers, acting on real religious beliefs, can shape real news events in the real world.
Read MoreThe ongoing federal government shutdown furloughed 57 members of The Commonwealth of Faith Church in Michigan, where a third of the 350 attendees are federal workers, including bivocational Pastor Torion Bridges and his wife Jasmine.
Read MoreIn the early 2000s, women were more regular churchgoers than men, and according to researchers, it is unclear whether this new shift “is a story of women stepping back or men stepping up.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) A reporter asked the Pope about the decision to give a U.S. Senator Dick Durbin a lifetime achievement award. The problem: Durbin consistently backs abortion rights and remains barred from receiving Holy Communion in Springfield, Illinois, his home diocese.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The question of whether Christianity is under attack, especially in the United States, is a complex and deeply polarizing one. Is it discrimination? Is it part of an overall decline? Is it a cultural shift? It could very well be a combination of all three.
Read MoreMost pastors are confident their churches are helping people grow as Christians. Just don’t ask them how they know that. In the second part of the State of Discipleship study from Lifeway Research, U.S. Protestant pastors describe their congregations’ discipleship approaches and reveal data behind some key spiritual growth metrics.
Read More(ANALYSIS) If Charlie Kirk’s movement accomplishes its ambitious goals, it would rival America’s significant evangelical youth revival that erupted after World War II. “Parachurch” organizations formed during that era, like InterVarsity, The Navigators, Cru and YoungLife are all active today.
Read MoreU.S. adults are nearly equally divided on how much of a role religion should play in public schools, according to a YouGov poll. A third (34 percent) say it doesn’t play enough of a role, a quarter (26 percent) say it’s involved about the right amount, and a quarter (26 percent) say religion plays too much of a role.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Days after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi poured gasoline on raging national debates about social media chatter celebrating the 31-year-old activist's death. Prominent conservatives immediately rejected her words, noting that her use of the term “hate speech” is one that, historically, has been used by the hard left.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The world went into lockdown in March and April of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic forced Americans to stay home on a scale unseen in our lifetimes. Now, nearly four years removed from the height of the crisis, it’s clear that if life were going to snap back to “normal,” it would have already happened.
Read MoreDead Sea Scroll fragments and hundreds of other artifacts will be on display starting Nov. 22 at the Museum of the Bible’s “Dead Sea Scrolls: The Exhibition,” brought in partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Read MoreIt’s time to play “spot the headline,” a game that I have — for decades — watched mainstream journalists play as they cover the papacy.
Read MoreInterest in communicating with the dead has continued to thread itself through contemporary American life. For a medium in Pennsylvania, communicating with loved ones helps bring her clients comfort. While the tradition of consulting seers and oracles is as old as the ancient Greeks, spiritualism in America really started to take off in the middle of the 19th century.
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