The Secularization Symposium: In 1990, the Pew Charitable Trust sponsored a major conference at Duke University on the subject of secularization in modern higher education. 25 years later, the main contributors have agreed to reflect once again on questions of faith, scholarship, academic secularization, modes of specialized learning, and the production of knowledge at contemporary colleges […]
Christian agencies rebuke anti-refugee stance: Catholic, mainline, and evangelical agencies handling refugee resettlement in the United States are calling for communities to welcome refugees and reject the rhetoric of governors calling for a ban on Syrian asylum-seekers in their states in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. Students can survey the initial positions in this […]
NAE, LifeWay Research Publish Evangelical Beliefs Research Definition: Because researchers use different tools to identify evangelicals, results vary in polling. Lifeway Research has developed, reviewed, and tested an evangelical beliefs research definition for accurate and consistent use among researchers. (Could such a research definition be developed for Lutherans or Catholics?)
Where is the Muslim peace movement? Richard Ostling has been writing on religious issues for Christianity Today, Time Magazine, and other sources for many years. This Q&A provides a brief but informed discussion about Islam, jihadism, and differences among Muslims: if Islam is a peace-loving religion where are the Muslim voices for peace? The article […]
Explaining Mormons and Their Idiosyncratic View of Religious Liberty offers an interpretation of what some commentators see as an inconsistency in Mormon social policy. Rather than dreaming of imposing ideas on society as a whole, the LDS offer the wider polity a tradeoff: we will support established authority and recognize its right to enforce the law […]
The Science for Seminaries project assists professors and scientists to enable faith leaders to engage with science throughout their ministries. The 10 schools participating in the science for seminaries project include Catholics, evangelical/conservative Protestants and mainline Protestants. “The goal is for schools to present science fairly and accurately, not to ensure that future pastors side with […]
Young Adult Ambassador Essays: (The download takes about 30 sec., click to open about 2 min.) Four students have been published by the Free to be Faithful initiative in essays addressing religious liberty and themes related to the two kingdoms. The writers include Isaiah Armbrecht (Concordia University, Nebraska), Bethany Glock (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) , […]
Miroslav Volf at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture: In a globalized world, the terror of God’s crazy-eyed followers is threatening lives, peace and prosperity of everyone on the planet. We are tempted to conclude: The sooner that humanity either eradicates or quarantines off religion, the better our world will be. This conclusion would […]
This manual from the Church & Tax Store “clearly presents comparisons on key compensation components for 15 church positions from choir director to pastor to administrator. Based on national survey results, the compensation profiles are classified by part-time, full-time, church size, income budget, and geographical setting.”
In “The Reading Cure,” Gabe Haley asks, “How can a seven-hundred-year-old poem have such a profound effect on a twenty-first-century reader?” Dante’s Divine Comedy is, among other things, a work of speculative fiction. Because Dante’s vision of the future is of the afterlife, its present conditions have the potential to encompass times outside of Dante’s […]
