We here at Rhetoric Race and Religion wish all of you a very blessed holiday season. Read more

A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 2.18 billion Christians of all ages around the world, representing nearly a third of the estimated 2010 global population of 6.9 billion. Christians are also geographically widespread – so far-flung, in fact, that no single continent or region can indisputably claim to be the center of global Christianity. Read more here Read more

Dr. Andre E. Johnson is pleased to announce the publication of “An African American Pastor Before and During the American Civil War: The Literary Archive of Henry McNeal Turner, Vol 2; The Chaplain Writings” (Edwin Mellen Press, 2012). This is the second of a proposed 12 volume series that aims at collecting the letters, speeches, sermons and essays of Turner. Volume 2 consists of 38 writings while Turner served as a Chaplain during the American Civil War from 1863-1865. Praise... Read more

Threats to religious liberty are hitting close to home as a number of states and the federal government impose ideological mandates that restrict the free exercise of religion. That said, the problems “faced by Christians, and others, in the U.S. pale beside what happens elsewhere, as documented by Paul Marshall and Nina Shea in their new book Silenced: How Apostasy & Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide. In an interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez, Nina Shea offers a striking comparison... Read more

With Christmas fast approaching, the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life published a new comprehensive demographic report on the size and distribution of the world’s Christian population. The study finds that there are 2.18 billion Christians of all ages in more than 200 countries around the world, representing nearly a third of the estimated 6.9 billion 2010 global population. Christians are so geographically widespread that no single continent or region can indisputably claim to be the center... Read more

by Adam LeeAlterNet Would the world be better off without religion? That was the topic of a recent debate in the NYU Intelligence Squared series. One of the audience questions concerned the enormous wealth hoarded by churches, which Christian apologist Dinesh D’Souza defended as follows: I think in the case of the Vatican, the wealth of the Vatican is in priceless treasures, tapestries, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, art. Now, let’s remember… it was popes, the Medici popes and... Read more

By ELIZABETH DRESCHERReligion Dispatches On Friday, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Mark Sisk, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, issued separate letters in response to the ongoing conflict between members of the Occupy Wall Street movement and Trinity Episcopal Church, Wall Street, on whose property OWS has hoped to continue its occupation after having been evicted from Zuccotti Park in November. Trinity Wall Street and the Episcopal Church are, it seems, trying to... Read more

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by Amy SullivanTime Magazine The new internet era of politics has changed a lot of things about the way Presidents go about their daily lives. A stray comment captured on tape can instantly ricochet and cause havoc. Post-9/11 security concerns combined with the ability to find detailed information about virtually any location has made the already challenging job of protecting the President and his family even tougher. But the freedom to attend church and be part of a congregation while... Read more

Profiles: Rev. Dr. Monica A. Coleman “Womanist theologies of salvation state that Jesus Christ can be seen as a black woman,” Rev. Dr. Monica A. Coleman writes in her book Making a Way Out of No Way. “Postmodern womanist theology argues that a black woman is often Christ. The Savior may be a teenager, a person living with a disability, a lesbian woman.” In the womanist tradition of engaging black women’s literature, one illustration of a Savior comes from Parable... Read more