One of the most striking features of the Republican Party’s recent self-assessment, the “Growth and Opportunity Project” report, is the almost complete absence of religion. The moment of the Religious Right is undoubtedly over. But the largely secular Tea Party moment also seems to be fading. The Growth and Opportunity Project offers a plan to move forward. While its 99 page report offers reflections and recommendations on how Republicans can appeal to various racial and ethnic minority groups, minorities are (oddly)... Read more

I have seen the future of religion in America, and its name is “none.” Yet another survey just recently published and publicized is emphasizing what is now an undeniable trend on the American religious landscape: increasing, if not historic, numbers of Americans are claiming no religious affiliation when asked to state their religious identity, and more and more are embracing “spirituality” as an alternative religious brand that is not tradition-specific, but is more in line with the democratic spirit of individual tastes.... Read more

I’ve recently cracked open Matthew Hedstrom’s recently published The Rise of Liberal Religion. Hedstrom’s book is providing me with an opportunity to reconfigure my thinking and teaching on the respective trajectories of twentieth-century (and beyond) Protestant liberalism and evangelicalism. In recent decades pundits and some scholars have made much of the post-WWII evangelical resurgence, coupled with a precipitous post-1965 mainline decline. For evangelicals, the post-WWII religious boom kept going for the rest of the century, whereas in terms of membership, the mainline... Read more

Nearly 80 percent of Americans say they practice some type of religion, while approximately 20 percent, mostly younger people, say they do not, according to a 2012 Pew Research Center study. Whether a person is religious, spiritual or neither, the major influence religion has on American culture will be emphasized over the coming days with religious observances of Passover and Easter. Kenneth I. Pargament, PhD, is a leading expert in the psychology of religion and spirituality. Known for his scholarly... Read more

For a long time, American religion has been attempting to grapple in one way or another with the category of religion that usually falls under the heading of “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR). I can remember hearing Jim Wallis speak on a number of occasions and refer to it as “America’s fastest growing religion.” As an identifier, it seems to represent the point of view of someone who recognizes the value of religious sentiment, and perhaps a belief in some... Read more

(A Faith Embracing All Creatures is the second book in The Peaceable Kingdom Series being published by Cascade/Wipf and Stock. I reviewed the first book in this series, A Faith Not Worth Fighting For, here.) “The Peaceable Kingdom Series is a multi-volume series that seeks to challenge the pervasive violence assumed necessary in relation to humans, nonhumans, and the larger environment.” Each individual volume is set up in such a way so that each chapter is a response to a commonly asked question skeptical about the topic at... Read more

Re-visioning Gender in Philosophy of Religion: Reason, Love and Epistemic Locatedness.Ashgate, 2012. Pamela Sue Anderson has just published her second full-length book on the feminist philosophy of religion and I would argue that it has been well worth the wait! The ruling metaphor of the book is taken directly from an essay by poet/feminist Adrienne Rich (“When We Dead Awaken,” 1971) who wrote about the necessity of ‘re-visioning’ the past. Re-visioning indicates the vital life-giving work of looking back at... Read more

Remember the days when Christians used to blush over conversations about sex? Sermons on the Song of Solomon left us avoiding eye contact with our pastors and safe sex talks in public school meant guaranteed giggling after class. I guess we’re all grown up now. The generation of kids who once kissed dating goodbye and held fast to the promise that True Love Waits is no longer hanging its moral hat on the hook of sexual purity. According to the... Read more

I had a conversation with a man not long ago who has the unenviable task of sorting through his mother’s considerable estate, deciding what to keep, what to sell and what to throw away. While sorting, in an act of extraordinary self-awareness, he stopped to consider just what his three adult daughters might like to keep when they find themselves going through his stuff after he’s gone. During this moment of reflection, my friend had an epiphany: What if his kids don’t... Read more

The desecration of Africa in the past by the Western European powers seriously and adversely affected the traditional cultures of the indigenous African people to the extent that many traditional beliefs, social values, customs, and rituals were either totally destroyed or ignored. In most cases they were considered to be nothing more than pagan values and superstitions that played no part in traditional African culture. Culture after all is the way of life developed by people as they cope with... Read more