Fertility and Faith, Continued

Last updated on: July 14, 2016 at 9:38 am By Philip Jenkins

I have made the case that fertility and faith are intimately linked. Very generally, falling fertility rates correlate with declining support for organized religion, and growing secularization. (This is the total fertility rate, TFR). The key marker is the “replacement” rate, when a typical woman bears 2.1 children during the course of her life. When the rate falls below that, say to 1.5, it is highly likely that organized religion is moving into dangerous and uncharted waters. We can debate... Read more

The Crisis of Corporate Evangelicalism (Part 2 – Defining Evangelicalism)

Last updated on: August 11, 2016 at 7:51 am By Tim Gloege

[You can read Part 1 here if you missed it.] Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: what do I mean by the term evangelical? There are as many definitions as there are pundits trying to explain Donald Trump. And you can expect a new batch soon, now that Pew has reported 78% of white evangelical voters support the presumptive Republican nominee that many once found anathema. (Thirty-six percent “strongly support” Trump by the way, ten points more than did... Read more

The Gender Inclusive Bible Debate (Medieval Style)

Last updated on: April 27, 2021 at 5:29 pm By Beth Allison Barr

I remember this so well. It was 1997–the year I graduated from college, the year I got married, and the year I started graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was also the year that the world learned about Zondervan’s gender-neutral edition of the NIV (which eventually became known as the TNIV). The TNIV was an intentionally gender inclusive language Bible–not in terms of language about God; just in terms of language about people. “Brothers... Read more

What Makes for the Best Historical Movies? (part 1)

Last updated on: July 11, 2016 at 5:54 pm By Chris Gehrz

How should we evaluate historical movies like Free State of Jones? (part 1 of 3) Read more

Fertility and Faith

Last updated on: July 13, 2016 at 4:53 pm By Philip Jenkins

I have written a good deal about the relationship between demographics and religious loyalties, and this theme has critical implications for the future development of all the world’s faiths. This topic will probably be the theme of my next book, so let me take the opportunity offered by the blog format to lay out some of the core ideas and case studies here. Briefly, I will be discussing the direct relationship between the fertility rates of a community and its... Read more

Two Sides of One Coin? (Buddhist and Christian Decline, Part III)

Last updated on: July 8, 2016 at 7:02 am By Philip Jenkins

I have been comparing the decline of two once mighty religious systems, namely Buddhism in India, and Christianity in the Middle East. By the late Middle Ages, both were damaged irreparably, and had shrunk to shadows of their former selves. Indian Buddhism came close to extinction. Both the Christian and Buddhist stories raise the fundamental question of how a particular religious system fits into a given territory, provided that it is not an established part of the state mechanism (and... Read more

Forgeries and Schadenfreude

Last updated on: July 7, 2016 at 8:07 am By johnturner

Nearly four years ago, Karen King publicized a Coptic manuscript she had dated to the fourth-century. It contains the words, “Jesus said to them, ‘my wife.'” King did not claim the papyrus as evidence that the historical Jesus had married, but she did consider it evidence that early communities of Christians believed that he had. From the start, King encountered intense skepticism about the text and handwriting on the scrap of papyrus, but radiocarbon dating identified it as perhaps medieval... Read more

Evangelicals, Local Churches, and Transformational Advocacy

Last updated on: July 8, 2016 at 9:08 pm By David Swartz

Historically, evangelicals have hesitated to engage structures and systems. The book Advocating for Justice represents a new trajectory. This guest post, by Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy of Bread for the World, describes how one local congregation in Indiana is pushing for immigration reform. –David *** Evangelicals can effectively practice transformational advocacy in the local church. Here are three reasons why: First, local churches are embedded in communities. As institutions, local churches have a public presence that townspeople know and respond to.... Read more