Spirituality – The Nexus

“Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I’ve long been a numbers guy. Numbers just stick in my head. Random numbers. And they don’t go away. Sometimes it’s pretty handy like at my former church, before I was really using a cell phone all that much, when I had almost half the phone numbers of the members memorized. Because I’m a numbers guy, I love looking at data. It doesn’t matter too much what the data is, but sociological research data is some of my favorite to digest, especially when it’s on a topic I care about and from a research outfit whose methodology I trust. I’ve had the chance recently to review some research from the Barna organization into the world of people who are spiritually curious. Let me highlight a couple of things I’ve noticed along the way.

Read the rest…

In this past Sunday’s installment of A Word on Reality, we paused with John to be reminded once again how we can know what’s true and what’s not. In a world that is awash in different voices claiming to have the corner of the truth market, how do we figure out which voices are worth heeding and which are to be tossed out with the garbage? Keep reading to find out…

Test Every Spirit

If I were to ask you what the fastest growing religious affiliation in this country is according to recent survey data, what would you guess it to be? Let’s take a look at the broad categories starting with the group “religious, Christian.” From 1990-2008 the number of adults identifying themselves as part of a mainline Christian denomination (most Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopals, Lutherans, and the like) in the U.S. shrank by about 10%, or a total loss of 3.5 million members. The number of Baptists grew by about 6% or a little over two million people. Folks identifying themselves as either Pentecostals or simply nondenominational of some sort grew by 40% and 25%, respectively. And, just to round things out, the number of Catholics grew about 25%, although most of that was from immigration, not conversion. Read the rest…