Christian Persecution – Fact or Fiction
June 15, 2013 By George Yancey Leave a Comment
“Persecution!” is the cry that we hear from some Christians today. Detractors of those individuals complain about a “wahbulance” attitude these Christians have. Supporters of these individuals point out ways in which Christians have faced discrimination or are victims of unfair measures. The historical persecution of Christians is not an illusion. Knowing that Christians in [...]
Hmong, Indian, What’s the Difference?
June 14, 2013 By Jerry Park 1 Comment
Recent news on the higher education scene has turned attention to the Asian American case, or cases we should say. A team of education researchers led by Dr. Robert Teranishi used data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and the University of California higher education system to make the case that Asian American ethnic [...]
Flow: Let’s Get Serious about Leisure
June 5, 2013 By Margarita A. Mooney 2 Comments
Do you take your leisure seriously? If not, you aren’t going to get flow which I described last week. Contrary to popular belief, flow is not the easy-peasy feeling you get when plopping down on the couch to watch an old movie or the NBA Finals. Flow also is not the exclusive property of musical [...]
The Church, Immigration, and Advocacy
June 4, 2013 By Amy Reynolds Leave a Comment
As I also wrote about last summer, August 15th marked an important change in immigration policy, when young adults without official documentation were able to apply for two-year stays in the country, without fear of deportation. Today we also face the possibility of a significant change to the system. A bipartisan “Gang of 8” proposal [...]
Stupid is as Stupid Does – IRS Edition
June 1, 2013 By George Yancey 2 Comments
How quickly the second Obama administration has become scandal-plagued is astounding. Unfortunately, scandals seem to be commonplace in the second term of our presidents. In my humble opinion the controversy with the most potential to permanently damage his ability to govern is the IRS scandal. The IRS is one of the most feared departments [...]
Dialect Maps, Race and Immigration
May 31, 2013 By Jerry Park 1 Comment
News items are useful for teaching but they can sometimes provoke new research investigations. For example I recently found this item on my Facebook newsfeed (I created an interest page and jammed together all of the major news and national group organizations into a single feed; it’s fairly efficient most of the time). It illustrates [...]
Flow: Order in Consciousness
May 29, 2013 By Margarita A. Mooney 3 Comments
Did you know that you can actually increase your ability to enjoy the things in life that produce the greatest satisfaction? When I read Martin Seligman’s PERMA concept of human flourishing (Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement) I simply presumed that Type-A, achievement oriented people like me are too busy doing our work to [...]
Atheists in America – Part 4
May 19, 2013 By George Yancey 11 Comments
This is the last blog of my series on atheists which is based on a book, co-written with David Williamson, titled There is no God: Atheists in America (Rowman and Littlefield). You can see the first three entries of this series here and here and here. In the past blogs there has been a [...]
Denominational Change in American Protestantism since 1972
May 9, 2013 By Bradley Wright 12 Comments
One of the more robust trends in American Christianity–at least its Protestant side–is the decreasing significance of denominations in Christian’s identity and affiliation. To show this, I used GSS data to divide Protestants into groups by denomination. This the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians. In addition there is a “generic” category of Christians who [...]
Atheists in America – Part 3
May 5, 2013 By George Yancey 62 Comments
This is a continuation of my series on atheists which is based on a book I have coming out, co-written with David Williamson, titled There is no God: Atheists in America (Rowman and Littlefield). You can see the first two entries of this series here and here. The comments after those entries are of [...]
Are We Losing the Young? Evangelicals by Age Since 1972 (Part II)
May 2, 2013 By Bradley Wright 7 Comments
In my last post, I looked at the relationship between age and Evangelical affiliation here in the US. In this post, I want to revisit the topic but use a stronger form of analysis–cohort analysis. Using data from the General Social Survey, I divided respondents up into five groups–those born in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, [...]
“No More Choices, Please!”
May 1, 2013 By Margarita A. Mooney 2 Comments
Have you ever felt overwhelmed at the number of choices to buy a salad dressing at the grocery store? Have you ever failed to choose a health care or retirement option just because, well, there were so many options that you couldn’t pick one? Have you ever searched and searched for the perfect pair of [...]
Unethical Wealth
April 30, 2013 By Amy Reynolds 7 Comments
Last week, the Pew Research Center released a report showing wealth has dropped for the bottom 93% of Americans, but for those with wealth levels over about $890,000, wealth has risen by an average of 28% in the last two years. As the economy starts to recover, it’s clear who is winning and who is [...]
Faith and Ethnicity in West, TX
April 26, 2013 By Jerry Park 1 Comment
Despite nine years in residence here in central TX, I still feel like a Philadelphian exploring this new place. It’s probably why I remain fascinated by the many sociological and demographic curiosities here. In a recent post I mentioned some of the similarities between second-generation Americans and young white central Texans today. Both struggle with [...]
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