DENVER, Colorado (RNS) — When LifeWay, the research arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, asked American pastors to rank the most influential living Protestant preachers in 2010, only one woman made the list, and only one minister from outside the Baptist fold: in both cases, that was the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, teacher and author from Northern Georgia. Her renown isn’t restricted to the professionals, either. Her 14 books and her preaching have brought her recognition on TIME magazine’s list of its ‘100 Most Influential People in the World’ in 2014. In 2016 she received the President’s Medal at the Chautauqua Institution in New York.  For all her prowess in the pulpit, perhaps her best-known book is her memoir “Leaving Church,” in which Brown Taylor recounts the often-painful, if ultimately redemptive, journey away from pastoring. The book, her first memoir, won her an Author of the Year award from the Georgia Writers Association. Her fourth memoir, … [Read more...]

(RNS) — The United States is steadily becoming less Christian and the number of people with no religion is rising. Those are the twin headlines from the latest Pew Research report released Thursday (Oct. 17), which shows a dramatic decline in American religious habits over the course of a decade. The report, an aggregation of yearly political surveys that ask about religion,  shows rapid changes in generational attitudes toward religion. It finds that two-thirds (65%) of Americans describe themselves as Christians, down from 77% in 2009. It also shows that the number of Americans who say they have no religion — sometimes called nones — has risen to 26%, up from 17% a decade ago.“The rate at which Christians are declining is very striking,” said Greg Smith, associate director of research at Pew. “And the share of Americans who have no religion is growing very rapidly, which is just as striking.” Protestants now make up less than half of all U.S. adults — or 43% (down from … [Read more...]

(RNS) — All the available hard evidence — not to mention a look around many houses of worship — shows that religious congregations are declining.  As congregants increasingly head for the exits, younger Americans, who say they have no religion, are far less likely than previous generations to join a church. But a new nationally representative study from the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy finds that revenue is not necessarily declining along with attendance. In fact, the study finds that nearly half of America’s estimated 360,000 congregations saw an increase in giving from three years ago. The study, which included a representative sample of 1,231 congregations — including churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship  — found that 48% of congregations saw an increase in revenue, 35% saw a decrease and 17% said giving remained the same. The median annual revenue for a religious congregation was … [Read more...]

NEW YORK (RNS) — The morning after an event at Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture last week, theologian James K.A. Smith reviewed his against-the-odds attempt at convincing the crowd of the relevance of Augustine, the fourth-century Christian bishop and the subject of Smith’s latest book, “On the Road With Saint Augustine.” Augustine, Smith said, has something to say to all of us, no matter our age — “Augustine is no respecter of generations,” he told Religion News Service. “There’s nothing new under the sun in a way.” Smith said he is skeptical of generational analysis and reiterated what he told the audience the night before: it’s not just the millennials or “kids these days” who are somehow uniquely a mess. “I’m not a big fan of this notion that all of a sudden we sort of fell off a cliff,” said Smith. “If anything, I think Augustine calls into question the world the boomers gave us — which so fetishized freedom, autonomy, individuality.” Freedom, autonomy, … [Read more...]

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Catholic women attending the summit of bishops at the Vatican on the Amazon region praised the climate of inclusivity and openness ushered in by Pope Francis but insisted that equality demands they also have a right to vote. “As many other religious women, we believe we have come to the point that our superior generals can have a vote, same as a superior general of the brothers,” said Sister Birgit Weiler during a news conference Friday (Oct. 11). Weiler, a theologian with the Medical Missions Sisters, has been active in promoting the rights of indigenous communities in the Amazon and was tapped by Pope Francis to be an expert for the synod. “There is no real reason why not,” she added, stating that since “religious women are equal” to male religious orders, “it would be good” for both to be able to voice their opinion through their vote. While the issue of gender equality has been a cause for constant criticism in the Catholic Church, the debate has … [Read more...]

DURHAM, N.C. (RNS) — Kate Bowler began to take an interest in the role of evangelical women as a 14-year-old at Mennonite Bible camp. Only men preached at nightly gatherings, she noticed. And only men were allowed to baptize and serve Communion. Women were relegated to singing, praying and the occasional informal speaking roles. One day she would return as “a lady James Dobson,” she imagined. Instead, as many of her ardent followers now know, she became a historian of American Christianity — a rising star after penning her first book on the prosperity gospel and then receiving a diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer. Her second scholarly book, “The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities,” was written mostly in the corridors of Duke Hospital. The book, which looks at the women who carved wildly successful perches of unofficial power, has finally been published and it comes after her own wildly successful “Everything Happens for a Reason: And … [Read more...]