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May 2015

May 18, 2015

How a contemporary sees contemporary worship

Robert Burns prayed for the power "To see ourselves as others see us!" (To a ...

May 15, 2015

Christian “decline” is just Nominals becoming Nones

The headlines about the Pew Report, including at this blog, say that Christianity is declining...

May 14, 2015

New study shows percentage of Christians declining

The Pew Research Center has released a new study of American religion. In 2007, the...

May 12, 2015

A masculinity crisis from porn & gaming

A leading psychologist is saying that pornography and video games are crippling young men in...

May 05, 2015

“The sacraments are what make the church relevant”

Yesterday we blogged about Rachel Held Evan's contention that church growth techniques designed to reach...

May 04, 2015

Church growth tactics don’t work with Millennials

Rachel Held Evans was something of an evangelical renegade who left the church for awhile,...

April 2015

April 23, 2015

Support for gun rights grows

Reversing the trends of the last few decades, a majority of Americans (52%) now say...

April 21, 2015

Today is the safest time to be a kid?

We've blogged about the Maryland parents who have been charged with child neglect for letting...

April 14, 2015

Why the percentage of the non-religious is declining

We blogged about the Pew study of global religious affiliation, which included the rather surprising...

March 2015

March 31, 2015

A scholarly study of anti-Christian bigotry

Sociologist George Yancey has conducted a study of people who are bigoted against Christianity. He...

March 31, 2015

Politics in the biggest “hinge moment” since the industrial revolution?

Political thinkers are pondering recent claims that we are in the midst of an epic ...

March 26, 2015

Who the Unchurched Really Are

Most evangelism programs, church growth tactics, and other attempts to reach the "unchurched" concentrate on...

March 25, 2015

Social Capital and the Opportunity Gap

More on Robert Putnam and his book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, on the...

March 24, 2015

Whatever happened to working class families?

Robert Putnam's book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis continues to get attention. Michael...

March 23, 2015

Americans who want everything

A major opinion poll has found that Americans want BOTH more government spending AND lower...

March 20, 2015

The unchurched and non-religious still pray

Church attendance and other marks of religious observance are in decline, but a new study...

March 20, 2015

Diversity and Empire

Which is better? A society characterized by cultural diversity? Or a society in which its...

March 20, 2015

Family, country, God–in that order

The Barna pollsters have released a study of what factors tie into Americans' self-identity. The...

March 17, 2015

It’s the family, stupid

Before Robert Putnam there was Patrick Moynihan, the social scientist and later Democratic Senator from...

March 16, 2015

Not secularism but pluralism

Several decades ago, sociologists were writing about how modernization was accompanied by the rise of...

March 13, 2015

Class, children, & the social costs of nonjudgmentalism

There is a growing chasm in our society. It isn't so much between the wealthy...

March 11, 2015

Raising little narcissists

A study purports to show how certain parenting styles can turn children into narcissists. But...

February 2015

February 20, 2015

Church attendance statistics, state by state

Gallup has done a study of church attendance in each state. See the results after...

February 20, 2015

Magic, science, & religion

Charles Lane discusses the big dietary reversal on cholesterol, in the course of which he...

February 11, 2015

Abortion as “social good” still has a stigma

The stigma against having a baby out of wedlock has faded. And the stigma against...

February 10, 2015

How (Not) to be Secular

I was one of the many judges of the Christianity Today Book Awards, charged with...

February 02, 2015

The dissolution of religious institutions

In an article about a prominent non-denominational pastor who has decided that he needs to...

January 2015

January 05, 2015

Replacing marriage

Isabel Sawhill is a liberal scholar who has spent much of her career defending marriage...

December 2014

December 11, 2014

Who are the churchless?

The Barna Group has finished a major study of people who do not go to...

November 2014

November 17, 2014

Why non-conformists look the same

A mathematician took up the topic of hipsters. Specifically, why different individuals who try not...