This brings us to megastar Taylor Swift and her decision to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 White House race, which was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. Legions of “Swifties” from in America (and around the world) received this news via Instagram (Swift has 280+ million followers), where her much-anticipated post triggered celebratory mainstream media coverage.
Read MoreA coalition of civil society groups, activists, social media influencers and ordinary citizens launched a multi-faith protest movement earlier this summer against what they described as the #EndBadGovernance to address Nigeria’s rising inflation, unemployment and insecurity. The result has also resulted in an unprecedented cooperation between Christians and Muslims.
Read More(OPINION) Politics are very important. Politics played a role in the abolition of slavery and segregation and in the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Conversely, it was because of a political vote that Hitler came into power, resulting in the deaths of multiplied tens of millions of lives.
Read More(ANALYSIS) It was the kind of quote that, when said by the right person under the right conditions, would inspire bold headlines. “Your country ... has families with three, four or five children,” Pope Francis told President Joko Widodo of Indonesia. “Keep it up, you’re an example for everyone, for all the countries that maybe ... these families prefer to have a cat or a little dog instead of a child.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) So let me visualize how the two major parties have diverged on these metrics over the last couple of decades. Let’s start with belief in God, a question that has been included in the General Social Survey with regularity since the early 1990s.
Read MoreThroughout the United States, Christian nationalism has left in its wake broken communities and churches. Both those who subscribe to it and those who disagree are often left hurt and embarrassed. As the movement grew within his own church, Pastor Caleb Campbell set out to understand Christian nationalism’s appeal and how to help Christians minister to their friends and family committed to it.
Read More(ANALYSIS) For many Americans, it’s a challenge to focus on much news beyond the raucous national and local political campaigns till November 5. But late this year or early in 2025 we’ll get something completely different and fascinating — a batch of new findings from the Global Flourishing Study. Through 2026, this unprecedented academic project is investigating what factors create human happiness, well-being and life satisfaction in 22 widely varied countries, based upon surveys with 240,000 people.
Read MoreSOF Missions helps veterans who — like retired Air Force Lt. Col. Damon Friedman — struggle with PTSD and other challenges from military service. At the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, many of those who served their country overseas still fight a war at home. “I’m telling you, I was going to become a statistic,” Friedman said.
Read MoreThe city is preparing for a jubilee year, a time when the Catholic Church invites pilgrims to Rome. The events, which will officially began on Christmas Eve this year and end on Dec. 28, 2025, constitute a special time dedicated to prayer and pilgrimage. Italy’s capital, which already draws an estimated 25 million visitors each year, could see that number increase to 32 million in 2025.
Read MoreThe exemption, the appellate court affirmed, does not violate the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law or the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which prohibits the government from establishing a particular religion.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Keir Starmer's ascent as the U.K.'s first openly atheist leader marks a significant milestone in British political history. This development prompts the question: Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Unsurprisingly, the answer is rather complicated. Today's U.K. is vastly different from the country of Starmer's childhood.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Two-thirds of college students do not hold views toward Israel or Jews “likely to threaten their relationship with their Jewish peers,” a new study from Brandeis University found. But what about the remaining third? Researchers found that group split roughly equally between those who expressed hostility toward Israel (but not Jews) and those who thought poorly of Jews, not Israel.
Read MoreReports showing sustained increases in food and home prices alongside a cooling labor market highlight a continuing challenge for churches.
Read MoreOne of the world’s most important newsrooms just offered a finely detailed profile of Catholic convert J.D. Vance and, imagine this, the feature focused on the emotions and ideas that led him to swim the Tiber. This included his intellectual and spiritual attraction to the work of St. Augustine, one of the most important minds in Western culture.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Exorcism movies are making a comeback — and the reasons are more interesting than you might think. The likely reasons actually say a lot about the present and the future of religion in America and its intersection with the future of mass media. Here's a deeper look at why Hollywood is going all in on the genre.
Read MoreThe U.S. Supreme Court refused Sept. 3 to restore a $4.5 million family planning grant to Oklahoma while the state’s challenge to the termination of the grant works its way through the lower courts.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, women and girls have been banned from playing sports or participating in any form of physical activity. However, Afghan women have been defying the Taliban and competed at the 2024 Olympics and 2024 Paralympic, while flying the flag of the Refugee Olympic and Paralympic teams.
Read MoreOverwhelmingly, Americans think the moral values of the country are worsening. Around four in five U.S. adults (81 percent) say the state of moral values is getting worse, and only 14 percent say it’s getting better. That gives the future outlook a minus 67 score — down 24 points from 2002.
Read MoreIllegal bans on nonvegetarian food are increasingly being introduced in towns that attract Hindu pilgrims, like Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh and Haridwar in Uttarakhand. Since it is perceived as a manifestation of tradition and culture, it is difficult to challenge it in a court of law.
Read More(ANALYSIS) When the second installment in the blockbuster “Dune” franchise came out, it was hard not to see it as a not-very-subtle metaphor for the Israel-Hamas war. It was starnge to watch scenes of guerilla warriors in headscarves when I saw the same images on the news. Lately, people have been finding those same parallels in other movies or TV series about conflict.
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