A few weeks ago I shared some reflections on my life as an adjunct professor. Since writing that post, I've spent some time looking back over the last eight years. Student Evaluations In higher education, students are usually afforded the opportunity to evaluate their professors. In my case as an adjunct professor at Hodges University, my students were provided an opportunity to complete an optional online questionnaire near the end of the semester. These anonymous Read More …
Trends
7 New American Religious Types (#1753)
A few days ago the Pew Research Center published The Religious Typology: A New Way to Categorize Americans by Religion. For those not inclined to read the full 99 page report, Pew also provides an in-depth blog post that effectively communicates the main elements of the research. Research Basics Started in 2014, "The American Trends Panel (ATP), created by Pew Research Center, is a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults" who "participate via monthly Read More …
Changing Jobs For the 20th Time (#1748)
People change jobs. 1979 Frequent job changes are common today, but holding many jobs over the course of one's adult lifetime has actually been common for quite some time. While a snapshot of any given point in time is helpful, a longitudinal consideration of a given cohort across time paints a more complete picture of job changes. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, which is a survey of nearly 10,000 men and Read More …
Celebrating 9 Years of So What Faith (#1744)
Earlier this week Facebook memories showed me that five years ago that day I had posted the following Marking a milestone - did you know that I have now written a blog post at least once a day for the last 1,000 days? So What Faith In June 2009, I launched this blog with the goal of writing about matters of faith that mattered to me. I assumed that this would be of interest to those in the congregation I served, and perhaps others. Stats and More Stats Over the last nine years, Read More …
America the Unique: Daily Prayer (#1741)
The Age Gap in Religion Around the World (Pew Research Center, June 2018) is packed with enough data to keep anyone interested in religious trends busy reading and pondering for quite some time. This new data supports the common claim that younger generations are less religious than elder both globally and in the United States. Of the 96 pages one captured my attention in a way the others did not. Page 21 (screenshot at right) offers a full page graphic showing the association Read More …
The End of Church Weddings? (#1738)
Most people get married in a church. That is what I was told growing up and also the place I officiated most often once I entered pastoral ministry. Rapid Decline A quick Google search will yield a wide variety of data detailing the overall decline in churches or religious spaces for wedding ceremonies. I happened to come across a recent RNS article that utilized data from the popular wedding planning website called The Knot. According to their findings, Read More …
American Well-Being is Declining (#1726)
Overall, the world has been becoming a better place for quite some time (for an in-depth consideration I encourage you to read Steven Pinker's latest book: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress). As someone who has always lived in America, however, I'm troubled by the decline in well-being that happened in the United States in 2017. Troublesome Year According to the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index, 2017 was a bad year. In fact, it was Read More …
Top 5 Posts of 2017 (#1716)
2017 has been a year marked by transitions in my personal life. And, not surprisingly, posts about two of those transitions rank among the top five posts of the year here at So What Faith (ranking determined by number of page views during this calendar year among all posts made during 2017). The top five are I'm Back: My Return to Ministry Christian Alternative Facts The Immigrants Creed Our Search for a Church is Over The Least Educated Americans: Read More …
The Largest Religion in America in 2037 (#1711)
The rise of the "nones" (those claiming no religious affiliation) has been well documented in general, and also here on this blog. Assuming the shift away from religious affiliation continues, when might the largest "religious group" in America become those without a religious affiliation? Rise of the Nones Allen Downey, Professor of Computer Science at Olin College, recently shared on his blog an extended version of an article he initially published in Scientific American Read More …
Necessary to Believe in God to be Moral? (#1710)
Is it necessary to believe in God in order to be moral? The Latest Research Last month the Pew Research Center published the results of their latest survey on the topic. The survey item asked American respondents to fill in the blank in the following statement: "It is ___ to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values." Respondents were able to chose from "is necessary" or "is not necessary." A majority (56%) chose "is not necessary" in 2017, which was up from about Read More …