(ANALYSIS) The church was once considered a resource for understanding how reality works. That’s less the case today. To return to being a resource for things like artificial intelligence, we’d have to learn what the Bible says about technology and sorcery.
Read MoreThis would be a shock to the countercultural Catholic matriarchs who birthed this influential network.
Read MoreJelly Roll is on a roll. The “Son of a Sinner” artist — whose songs feature raw, religious lyrics that wrestle with his troubled past — won another big award on Thursday night.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The power of today’s digital media is much more complex than that, said Barbara Nicolosi Harrington, a former Catholic nun-turned-screenwriter and Hollywood script doctor. “Hollywood has been the church of the masses, but I don't think that’s still true. At least, we cannot say that movie theaters are the sanctuaries they once were for most people, especially for the young,” she Harrington.
Read MoreSometimes, an important high-level finding warrants some additional reflection. I have several of these rolling around in my head at any given point. The one I wanted to zero in on is from a post that ran over a year ago. Simply put, Catholic Mass attendance is way down. About half of all self-identified Catholics said that they attended Mass nearly every week in 1972. In the most recent data, it’s about half that rate.
Read More(ANALYSIS) As the UPR was looking into the situation in Afghanistan, atrocity crimes continued. On the same day as the U.N. review, a gunman stormed a mosque in Andisheh town of Guzara district in Herat province, western Afghanistan. Six people were killed in the attack. The mosque is said to have belonged to Afghanistan’s minority Shiite community.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The field of religion and politics presents me with a whole bunch of combinations of folks who would clearly fall into this cross pressured category. I wanted to focus on one today that may be the most incongruent — people who identify as atheist or agnostic on the religion question but then say that they are Republicans.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The number of individuals in the U.S. who do not identify as being part of any religion has grown and “the nones” are now larger than any single religious group. According to the General Social Survey, religiously unaffiliated people represented only about 5% of the U.S. population in the 1970s. This percentage began to increase in the 1990s and is now around 30%.
Read MoreThe feature is framed with bad news — that progressive Catholics in the United States are experiencing pain because of the rising numbers of young priests and young adults (especially parents with, wink-wink, lots of children) seeking a more pro-Catholic Catechism approach to faith.
Read MoreA new, 400-page biography of 10-time All-Star pitcher Clayton Kershaw delves into his baseball success, his family life and, yes, his faith.
Read More(ANALYSIS) While drama with the United Methodist Church continues to develop, the sexuality spotlight shifts to America’s Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)., which has already approved gay clergy and marriage but is heading into a different sexuality fuss that carries some risk of another church split.
Read MoreFears of AI are not the only things driving public concern about the end of the world. Climate change and pandemic diseases are also well-known threats. Reporting on these challenges and dubbing them a potential “apocalypse” has become common in the media — so common, in fact, that it might go unnoticed, or may simply be written off as hyperbole.
Read MoreNeighborly Faith studied academic publications addressing this issue and created a detailed, 14-point compromise definition stating, in part: “Christian Nationalism is a movement advancing a vision of America's past, present, and future that excludes people of non-Christian religions and non-Western cultures. Christian Nationalists romanticize Christianity's influence on America's development, attributing the nation's historical provenance to God's special favor.”
Read MoreNo doubt about it. Quite a few students up north are taking their talents, and tuition dollars, to Southern states. For a conservative take on the statistics, see this Daily Mail piece: “Why college kids are abandoning Ivy Leagues to go to Southern schools.”
Read MoreWhen a monster tornado struck a small Oklahoma town, numerous businesses and houses were destroyed. But a church’s stained-glass windows escaped with just minor damage.
Read More(ANALYSIS) A new report offers another data point in the abiding struggle between Christianity and culture, suggesting further changes ahead if these trends continue. With fewer people consulting the Bible for spiritual growth or guidance in their daily decisions, societal norms once influenced by Scripture are evolving into an array of moral perspectives, many of which are incompatible with its teachings.
Read More(ANALYSIS) “Father Justin,” a 3D AI character created by the San Diego-based Catholic Answers network, offered biblical advice for wrestling with anger. That’s when legions of cyberspace believers pounced.
Read More(ANALYSIS) How’s this for a presidential prayer: “Make me truthful, honest, and honorable in all things. Make me intellectually honest for the sake of right and honor, and without thought of reward to me. Give me the ability to be charitable, forgiving, and patient with my fellowmen. … Amen, Amen, Amen.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) The U.N. Security Council recently heard a new report on sexual violence in conflict (conflict-related sexual violence, also referred to as CRSV) prepared by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The report, which covers the period from January to December 2023, suggests that CRSV is on the rise. If the previous years were bad, the situation only got worse.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The United States is experiencing one of the most significant shifts in Protestant Christianity in its history. What do I mean by that?
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