Harvey Cox, Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard, begins a chapter he contributed to The Seven World Religions Introduced by Preeminent Scholars from Each Tradition (1993, Arvind Sharma, ed.) by describing what "the proverbial visitor from Mars" would note if given the opportunity to travel to earth to observe Christians. After covering the dizzying diversity of the religious gatherings and the shared oddities (e.g. "the people would sometimes swallow small quantities Read More …
Discipleship
Are You Listening? (#0522)
The excuses for running through life without listening are many. There is so much noise in our world that it is easy to be surrounded by sound without ever hearing a word or becoming aware of the origin of a unique sound. It is rare for a person to slow down and heighten her or his awareness enough to discern the source and/or content of the sound(s), even when such is readily apparent. So What? There are days that I think silence is rare, but truly heard and well-processed sound Read More …
Your Unique Story (#0521)
Every person I have ever met who is seeking to follow the way of Jesus has a unique faith story -- an account of her or his life to date and how it has been impacted by one or more religious traditions. Some of these stories begin with or feature a moment of conversion (often an event on a specific day), but many more explain the transition to becoming a Christian as a long term process. Reflection on one's own journey to date is an important aspect of knowing one's own Read More …
Review of The King Jesus Gospel (#0520)
Meet the Author Scot McKnight is professor of religious studies at North Park University. He is a leading authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight has written over 20 books including The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (read how this book has influenced me), Fasting (read my review), The Real Mary: Why Evangelicals Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus (read my review), and One.Life: Read More …
More & More Multi-Generational Households (#0513)
The Pew Research Center recently released "Fighting Poverty in a Tougher Economy, Americans Move in with Their Relatives." The report considers how the Great Recession has influenced household composition. Over the last few years, more and more people have opted to live in multi-generational households as a means of handling economic pressures. A longer term look at household composition shows that the percentage of those living in multi-generational households declined Read More …
Why America Is and Isn’t Unusually Religious (#0511)
Tobin Grant, associate professor of political science at Southern Illinois University, recently wrote an article for Christianity Today about the unique nature of American religiosity. In that piece, he noted that the United States continues to be quite religious while most other developed countries have become increasingly secular. Upon deeper review, ongoing American religiosity is not an aberration but a logical outcome resulting from our unusually high level of economic Read More …
How to Reverse Mainline Decline (or not) (#0510)
Rev. Cameron Trimble is the Executive Director of the Center for Progressive Renewal, which seeks to "renew Progressive Christianity by training new entrepreneurial leaders, supporting the birth of new liberal/progressive congregations, and by renewing and strengthening existing progressive churches." Recently, she spoke in Connecticut to a group of seventy-five United Church of Christ pastors and educators. In her speech, Trimble made the historical observation that Read More …
Bad Example or Good Stewardship? (#0509)
In the October 2011 edition of Christianity Today, Ken Walker wrote about (p.17) a church that now holds a mortgage that is three times greater than the current property value. The congregation stopped paying its monthly mortgage payments in May. So What? If the story stopped there, then it would not be all that newsworthy apart from serving to illustrate the larger trend of churches on a path leading to foreclosure. However, The Church at South Las Vegas stopped paying Read More …
Liberal Protestant Decline – Fact Check (#0506)
Yesterday, I wrote a review of Mark Chaves' new book American Religion: Contemporary Trends (2011). In that post, I included a quote that offers a basic overview of something most people take for granted: the decline of liberal Protestant churches over the last several decades. As a result of this shift, there were twice as many Americans who "claimed affiliation with conservative denominations as with theologically more liberal ones" (p. 87). Chaves goes on to Read More …
Review of American Religion (#0505)
Meet the Author Mark Chaves is professor of sociology, religion and divinity at Duke University. In addition to teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, Chaves directs the National Congregations Study. He is the author of three books: American Religion: Contemporary Trends (2011), Congregations in America (2004), and Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations (Harvard, 1997). While most of his Read More …