Anyone paying attention to religion in America has heard about the trend, especially among young Americans, toward disaffiliation with institutions, including the Catholic Church. So I arrived at a recent talk on “Seeking Common Ground Across Generations” prepared for dire and depressing statistics. But I walked away with hope, thanks to speaker Ellen Koneck, executive Read more
Growing secularism among younger people is no secret. A 2019 Pew Research Center Survey of Americans aged 13 to 17 found that only 50 per cent believed religion was an important part of their lives, as opposed to 73 percent of their parents. This trend has caught the attention of the United States Conference of Read more
Abby Wallace and Ruby Tsatsas’ flat came with one couch, two old wooden benches, a washing machine and a fridge. But that’s where the similarity to most student homes ends. The friends live in a 143-year-old Gothic-style Methodist church. Read more
Lockdown liturgy such as online Mass, walk-up communion and drive-in Eucharist during the liturgical lockdown have shown us the dominant culture of the Church. Where these practices became the default of bishops, the potential failure of the synodal process is high because these practices were made possible by sidelining the laity. What is the potential Read more
Mention the name of any religion and the first reaction of contemporary, western, first world and secular society people will be to ask about its content: what do they believe? The emphasis is, at once, on a list of ideas about the universe, human life, purpose and what, if anything, is beyond the universe. Once Read more
Going to church is generally touted as good for the soul. But there is also evidence church attendance can be good for your health — unless, that is, you are a woman at a church that bars women from preaching or other leadership roles. A new study published in the American Sociological Review has found Read more
It’s not what they say; it’s the way that they say it. Documents and Scripture translations annoyingly border on gaslighting women. Not the big-league, drive-her-crazy gaslighting, just the subtle cognitive dissonance that slips into relationships large and small. You know, “He loves me, he loves me not …” Cognitive dissonance includes saying one thing and Read more
Churches are assessed as houses of “good” as well as of God in a study of their value to the community to be published by the National Churches Trust tomorrow. The concept of a “house of good” has been used to value the significant social and economic support generated by and through church buildings in England, Read more
Leo Hanssen, senior minister at the Majestic Church, says their recently reopened complex was built with its modern design to stop it from looking like “an old church.” “We didn’t want it to look like a church [and we] didn’t want it to feel like an old church. We wanted it to be a place Read more
My husband and I moved to the U.S. 16 years ago. We didn’t know a soul in the college town where he would be starting graduate school, and with just six months of marriage under our belts, we barely knew one another either. But God provided a new family through the local church: An older Read more