(OPINION) A Pew Research Center study found that most single U.S. adults were depressed about dating and building relationships. This past February, 70% of those surveyed said “their dating lives are not going well.” These trends should be of special concern to clergy, since religious faith plays a pivotal role in deciding who gets married and who does not.
Read More(OPINION) In Michael Gerson’s piece titled “Trump should fill Christians with rage,” he asks “where’s the rage over Trump?” I can think of one reason: ritual prostitution.
Read More(OPINION) Baylor University professor Rodney Stark passed away at his home in Woodway, Texas, on July 21, 2022. He is remembered for his alternative assumption that people employed rational choice in their religious identities, which more convincingly explained both the growth and decline of religion and ushered in a new paradigm in the scientific study of religion.
Read More(OPINION) Daniel Pipes penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed last month urging Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to end Islam’s long-standing ban against non-Muslims entering the faith’s two holiest locations, Mecca, where the Prophet Muhammad issued the Quran and founded the religion 14 centuries ago, and Medina, where he led the first Muslim state.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights the Christian themes seen in the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
Read More(OPINION) C.S. Lewis, in his lecture De Descriptione Temporum, noted that “somewhere between us and Jane Austen’s Persuasion in 1816 runs the chasm between Old Western Man and New Western Man — the Great Divide.” It represents a “vast change” between Jane Austen’s time and ours. That’s when he says the Western world entered a post-Christian age.
Read More(OPINION) The queen’s final, intimate Windsor Castle service began where her husband’s had ended 18 months earlier — with the “Kontakion of the Departed,” a tie to Prince Philip’s Orthodox roots in Greece — as if one rite was flowing into another.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in opens with the 50th anniversary of “The Waltons,” a family drama that incorporated religious stories when the TV networks tended to avoid them. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
Read More(ANALYSIS) With Lighten Group and RZIM shut down, important questions remain unanswered. First, how much money went from RZIM to Lighten Group? How was that money spent? How much remains? Meanwhile, American Bible Society has been plagued with turmoil for years. The organization has had five presidents in the past 10 years.
Read More(OPINION) While the queen delivered thousands of public addresses, her Christmas talks — surrounded by family pictures and holiday decorations — were the occasions when she most openly discussed her faith and the challenges facing the nation and even her own family.
Read More(OPINION) Author Katelyn Beaty’s new book “Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits are Hurting the Church” diagnoses a problem that’s pretty much absent in mainline Protestantism, Black Protestantism (there are some glaring exceptions in the health-and-wealth world), Catholicism and other U.S. religious bodies. Why is celebrity culture so magnified in White evangelicalism?
Read More(OPINION) Britain’s monarchy stands as the world’s only remaining state religious institution. The coronation is more than “mainly a religious ceremony” according to the BBC’s anchor on Saturday, as if that remaindered it for everyone not religious. It is a symbol among much else of the world’s oldest and only global narrative: God’s story.
Read More(OPINION) The Scriptures are far more specific about biblical virtues than about biblical justice. The doing of justice — David French calls it the “what” of politics or the specific policies Christians support — can evolve differently in different countries at different times. But the “how” of politics doesn’t evolve at all. The how requires genuine kindness and humility in all places at all times.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in explores religion in the life of Queen Elizabeth II, the 96-year-old monarch who died after 70 years on the throne. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
Read More(OPINION) Since the Taliban assumed control in Afghanistan, it has slipped more deeply into a humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by a tanking economy, skyrocketing poverty and widespread unemployment. The Taliban’s ideology and system of government solidifies their view that non-Muslims are disloyal enemies and infidels, which the Taliban use to justify killing and violence.
Read More(OPINION) A balanced coalition of leaders in the large United Methodist Church developed a treaty for mutually respectful separation that’s currently degenerating into a wasteful fight like other groups have suffered. The current maneuvers by the North American UMC establishment may well limit the number of dropouts joining the Global Methodist Church.
Read More(OPINION) It isn’t every day that one of the creators of a political thriller gets to ask its real-life protagonist to evaluate the novel’s plot. But that happened when the late Billy Wireman, president of Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, handed the last Soviet Union leader a copy of “The Secret Diary of Mikhail Gorbachev.”
Read More(OPINION) President Biden’s refusal to pursue a calculated diplomatic and military procedure for the U.S. departure inspired the Taliban’s terrorist leaders, who immediately seized lethal power over Afghanistan’s hapless, hopeless population. Today, Afghanistan is the world’s No. 1 worst persecutor of Christians.
Read More(ANALYSIS) This month President Joe Biden signed a new bill into law, the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at lowering the deficit, reducing inflation, knocking down prescription medicine prices, taxing the profits of large corporations and significantly addressing climate change. At first glance, this legislation does not immediately appear to be a law that intersects much with religious freedom. Yet there are surprising connections worth considering.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in starts in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s the capital of the country music universe. But it’s also sometimes called “the buckle of the Bible Belt.” Also, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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