Which is generally more often to blame if a person is poor: lack of effort on their own part or difficult circumstances beyond their control? The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation asked 1,686 American adults to answer that question — and found that religion is a significant predictor of how Americans perceive poverty. Read more
Muslims will outnumber Christians by 2070, ending two millenniums of Christian dominance going back to the birth of Jesus Christ, projections released Thursday by the Pew Research Center show. Islam is projected to grow more than twice as fast as any other major religion over the next half century because of a higher fertility rate. Read more
Top-notch preaching most attracts people looking for a new place to pray. That’s the conclusion of a new Pew Research Center study, released Tuesday (Aug. 23), which asked 5,000 people about their search for a new church or other house of worship. “This is what people value in a congregation — a good message, a good Read more
British Christianity is in pretty poor shape. A UK Social Attitudes survey has revealed that, for the first time in history, more people now regard themselves as having “no religion” than being a Christian. A cultural shift is to blame: people raised in the faith but who don’t practice it have ceased to identify with it. Read more
Christians are taught to despise the Enlightenment. It is hard to find a theologian with a good word for this era of rational presumption, glistening certitude and powdered wiggery. The Enlightenment is the sin of the modern, the chimera of crass autonomy. Popular writers have been no kinder. Enter the world of knockdown apologetics and Read more
US presidential hopeful Donald Trump has labelled Pope Francis’s questioning of his Christianity as “disgraceful”. Francis was asked in a press conference on a papal flight from Mexico for his reaction to Mr Trump’s proposal of a US-Mexico border wall, and what he might say to US Catholics supporting Mr Trump. Francis said that he Read more
I’ve come to the conclusion that there are too many SOBs in the world. Islamic terrorists, dictators, neo-Nazis and everyday thugs. Perhaps we should put them all on an island and drop a bomb on it. But then that would make us the SOBs. Such is life. I’m being simplistic but the horror of Paris generates simple emotions: Read more
The Prime Minister of Fiji says the people of Ra and Nadroga have the common sense to see through those spreading division and encouraging so-called breakaway Christian states. Voreqe Bainimarama say they know they are being manipulated by people misusing the word of God. He says some people are “falsely claiming that Christianity in Fiji Read more
Christianity is in danger of ceasing to be a truly global faith as increasing numbers of its followers flee violence and persecution across swaths of the Middle East and Africa, according to a new report. “Christians are fast disappearing from entire regions – most notably a huge chunk of the Middle East but also whole Read more
There was something about Diyaa that his wife’s brothers didn’t like. He was a tyrant, they said, who, after 14 years of marriage, wouldn’t let their sister, Rana, 31, have her own mobile phone. He isolated her from friends and family, guarding her jealously. Although Diyaa and Rana were both from Qaraqosh, the largest Christian Read more