In preparing for this Sunday's sermon (the second in our sermon series on Christian Identity; built around the Mission Statement of the Encanto Community Church -- Caring Christians Joined in Faith) I've spent a lot of time reading over survey results and the reactions to those results. Here are some of the links that I found particularly helpful and worth reading this week.American Religious Identification Survey
The place to start if you are going to look at the most recent, wide-sweeping, big-picture view of the current context of religious life and identity in America. The stats I quote in the sermon (not too many, I promise!) come from here.
Beware American Religious Identity Survey
Rabbi Brad Hirschfield's re-framing of the results from the ARIS. He claims the survey shows a sea change in religious identification, not a vanishing of faith. I couldn't resist putting these two links back-to-back! Nothing like telling you to read something and THEN telling you to beware of it.
Pew Forum US Religious Landscape Survey
Can't get enough stats? Here is an another broad-based survey of American Religious Identity. It includes 5 page summary version of the results or for the truly diehard, a full 143 page version!
God Talk
Tired of stats? Then check out Stanley Fish's New York Times opinion piece about faith, reason, and the future of religious belief.
What if Starbucks Marketed Like a Church?
I freely admit, the title is better than the clip. But if you are jonesing for a youtube clip on the current state of the church, you could do worse than this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment