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Church Giving – The 55/45 Rule
Leadership Network recently published an insightful article by Chris Willard and Warren Bird focused on giving metrics in the context of congregational ministry. This piece mentions something I think...
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Clergy = Not Trusted?
photo by Greg Smith According to a recent Pew Research Center Report clergy and other religious leaders are not as trusted to act in the best interest of the public as are many other groups. More...
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Dwindling Membership: The United Church of Christ from 1965-2015
While I consider myself a post-denominational follower of the Way of Jesus, I have spent the most of the last six years involved in the life of congregations affiliated with the United Church of...
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How Important is Religion in America?
Imagine if all American adults were represented by a town comprised of only 100 people. In this small community, what would religion look like? Earlier this month the Pew Research Center published an...
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The Fading American Dream
Are you living the American Dream? Most people consider several variables when constructing a personal response to whether or not they and their families are living the American Dream. Rather than...
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Top 5 Posts of 2016
I appreciate each and every one of my readers. Your activity on my blog indicates that the most read So What Faith posts of the year are (according to the number of page views during this calendar year...
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The Least Educated Americans: Christians
A few weeks ago the Pew Research Center published a detailed chart showing a nation by nation breakdown of the educational attainment of those identified with select world religions. United States In...
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The Disappearance of Young Pastors
Last week I saw a link to Kate Shellnutt’s article, “Only 1 in 7 Pastors is Under 40” appear on my social feeds a few times before I clicked through to read it and to learn about the latest research on...
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Americans Feel More Positive About Most Religions
photo by Greg Smith According to research conducted by the Pew Research Center, between June 2014 and January 2017, American views shifted to become more positive about about most of the world’s great...
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Christian Alternative Facts
The term “alternative facts” is one of the most popular phrases of 2017. On Friday evening I found that it was being applied to Christianity on Twitter with the hashtag #ChristianAltFacts. I was...
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The Immigrants Creed
I have heard about immigrants more often this year than any year since I worked in the field of refugee resettlement in the 1990s. As a student of history, I know that the country I have called home...
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Fading America: Disappearing Dream – Emerging as Developing Nation
Fading America by Damian Gadal – flickr.com/photos/23024164@N06/8016946814/ When did you first realize that the so-called American Dream has died? Or, put in nicer terms, when did you realize that the...
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Americans Like but Don’t Read the Bible
Bible Study 2 by George Bannister – flickr.com/photos/drgbb/2227885657/ Last week LifeWay Research released the results of their latest poll of Americans’ thoughts about and readership of the Bible....
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Will Mainline Protestantism Disappear by 2039?
A week rarely passes when one or more of my colleagues doesn’t share with me some new bit of news about the poor health of American Christianity. Some of these pieces are based on nothing more than...
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The End of Biblical Literalism
The Bible by fourbyfourblazer – flickr.com/photos/chrisyarzab/5533558309/ For the last 40 years Gallup has polled Americans on their view of the Bible. For the purposes of this research, respondents...
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Less & Less of the Old Testament?
Cannonical by Brett Jordan – flickr.com/photos/x1brett/4069012408/ Earlier this month Yonat Shimron’s Religion News Service article “Is the Old Testament Dying?” captured my attention. Put differently:...
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Politically Partisan Pastors
Republican Elephant & Democratic Donkey – Icons by Donkey Hotey available from flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/6255792036/ Over the last week I have seen one red, gray and blue graphic more than any...
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Top 5 Posts of 2017 (at Mid-Year)
Somehow the first half of 2017 is now behind us. As we enter the second half of the year, I thought it would be interesting to see what posts my readers viewed most often. Among posts published in...
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Church Commutes
photo by Greg Smith The Baylor Religion Surveys provide some of the best recent data on American religion. The surveys consist of five waves: 2005, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2017. Data from the latest...
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4 Out of 10 Nations Favor a Specific Religion or Religions
Earlier this month the Pew Research Center published the results of their analysis of their study of 199 countries and territories around the world. They found that more than 40% of these countries...
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