I’ve been thinking about the differences between classroom teaching and pulpit preaching. When I teach, I use the work of many scholars to help students understand the material, with proper citation of course. Yes, I give my own ideas and analyses (and probably more than I need), but the the core of my material is the work of others. If I had to present *only* my own ideas, the class would be about an hour or two long, and then I’d... Read more
My research team and I are waist-deep in interviews of twenty-somethings for my next book project. Among the 90-some interviews we’ve conducted are about 15 (so far) with evangelicals. Between what they’re telling us and my own listening and reading, I’m detecting a subtle—yet significant—shift in how evangelicals talk about ideal mating scenarios. When I was a younger man, Christians of all stripes were counseled pretty straightforwardly to avoid marrying an unbeliever—that is, someone who didn’t share the basics of... Read more
Last weekend at the meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, I perused the book sale, wondering “What are other people buying? What should I be reading?” On the last day of the conference, I asked Theo, the religion editor for Oxford University Press, to tell me which of Oxford’s books were selling a lot. He pointed at Christian Smith’s Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood, and gave me a knowing look. Oh, yes,... Read more
On Thursday, I referenced the dramatic decline in Mainline Protestantism over the past century. Here’s some data from the General Social Survey that illustrate this change. I took the question asking respondents in which religious tradition they were raised, calculated in which decade they were 16 years old, and estimated American affiliation rates at that time. Note, this presents the religious affiliation of young people, not adults, and they are not the same since family size varies by religious tradition. Read more
While attending college, I occasionally participated in a largely Korean evangelical Protestant campus group that spent their Friday or Saturday evenings gathered together in an auditorium (because the group was remarkably large) doing the evangelical thing: singing, listening to a speaker about Christian living, praying and socializing. But sometimes I would also hop around to other groups of Christians that also had Asian Americans. I figured there was something perhaps shared in common among Asian ethnic groups that grew up... Read more
In the 1990s, a seismic shift occurred in religious America. During that period, the percentage of Americans who did not affiliate with any religion more than doubled. In the 1980s, about 7% of Americans reported being religiously unaffiliated, and by 2000, this was up to 14% (and has since increased to about 17%). To be clear, many of these religiously unaffiliated still believe in God, but they don’t associate with any particular religion or denomination. What happened, and why did... Read more
As a graduate student, I remember reading Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on Faith and Reason and reflecting on his claim that science, for all of its great advances, is insufficient by itself to answer questions about the meaning of life, questions better left to philosophy and theology. As he wrote, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to... Read more
I’m a sucker for maps, and this is one of my favorites. It charts the rise and fall of world religions over the past 5,000 years. It’s striking to me how relatively late it was that Christianity truly spread throughout the world. Enjoy! Link Read more
This week I find myself thinking and writing once more about my late colleague Norval Glenn, a versatile and thorough scholar whose work will long outlive his physical presence. Norval held that the family was, and remains, a cornerstone of the social order and a central element in fostering the common good. Unlike many, he felt no particular compulsion to bow down to emerging sacred cows. In preparing remarks for his memorial service several months ago, I stumbled across an... Read more
I just returned from the annual meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, where among other things, I met with “collabloggers” Regnerus, Park and Wright. I wanted to share some quick highlights of the meetings, topics you I will likely elaborate on more on this blog. No one in recent memory who sat next to me on a plane has ever known the sociology, theology or philosophy authors I tend to read in flight, but this time... Read more
Black, White and Gray
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