Religious Beliefs interactive

"USA Today" has a neat interactive summary of some Pew Forum research data about religious beliefs in the United States as well as a "Topography of Faith" section. Both use Flash.

You can select one variable and then sort the bar chart of results based on that variable. It's a great way to squeeze out visual patterns from the data.

PBS airs pioneer evangelist story

A conservative Protestant evangelist who knew how to pull in people and win souls. Pastor of one of America's first megachurches. Pioneer of Christian radio. Divorced at a time when divorce was a stigma (a topic for another day).

Canadian farm girl Aimee Semple McPherson (Sister Aimee) mixed religion and entertainment like nobody before her.

You can watch the PBS program on Sister Aimee Monday, April 2, at 9pm.

Other links:

• Sister Aimee (online UM Reporter site)
• Aimee Semple McPherson (Wikipedia)
• Photo Gallery
• Kidnapping of Aimee Semple McPherson

Christian and moderate

PBS has an interesting story about Christian moderates. Here are a few comments by people in the article:

"I hope that we're not entering a time where Christians are interpreted as being evangelical Christians alone."

"We evangelicals can sometimes become too dogmatic and legalistic."

"It seems unlikely to me that God working in the world is delivering contradictory messages to me in my church and to the white evangelicals in their churches."

Evangelicals embrace care for God's earth

Environmentalists and Evangelicals are coming together to be better stewards of God's earth.

On the other hand, the Southern Baptist Convention in June of 2006 passed a resolution denigrating environmental activism and warning that it could create divisions among evangelicals. And James Dobson has said that evangelicals should stay focused on anti-abortion actions and combatting gay marriage.

Yet a pastor af The Vineyard USA was one of 86 evangelical signers of letter urging all Christians as well as the government to combat global warming.

It was a Republican, President Nixon, who supported air and water protection, protection of endangered species, and created the Environmental Protection Agency.

A 2006 Pew Research Center survey found that 66% of white evangelicals believed there was good evidence that God's Earth was getting warmer and 32% blamed human activity for the warming.

• Original source: USA Today story (AP)

Evangelicals fear teens may abandon the faith

A New York Times article states that Evangelicals fear losing their teenagers. A report, which has drawn some criticism as to its statistics, projects that only 4 percent of today's teenagers will be "Bible-believing Christians" as adults.

One of the suggested factors that might result in that dire future, the article says, is a "pervasive culture of cynicism about religion." Perhaps that's a logical result of some events over the past several years that relate to religion and our society's ethics:

• Clergy molesting children.
• Clergy found stealing from their congregation.
• Clergy being prosecuted for multiple affairs with church members.
• Clergy seeming to spew hateful, hurtful language from the pulpit and for broadcast by the media.
• Clergy causing strife within a church
• Corporate leaders thinking nothing of harming their employees' pension funds.
• Political leaders and candidates claiming compassion but encouraging hate.
• Church leadership "looking the other way" and violating copyright law.
• Churches with a General Fund in the negative by over $10,000 and with leadership refusing to even acknowledge a problem.

Each of these hopefully represents a minority of the total churches, clergy, and members. But the cumulative effect of these as either news stories or information passed by word of mouth certainly colors teens' and unchurched people's perception of Christianity and organized religion.

American business ethics used to be respected and thought of as a model for European businesses. That's pretty much an "old story" now. European business was guided by the general sense of ethics within the culture, not that of religion. In the past, America was guided by the ethics of religion; we didn't have the same cultural sense of ethics that was not attached to religion. So as the number of people "strong in the faith" declines in America, we can expect more severe ethical problems in our society.

When churches, clergy, and church members are seen to act more like any other unethical institution in the land, it's no wonder that teenagers see hypocrisy and fail to identify with the church. Yes, nobody is perfect, but perhaps we Christians should try a bit harder to "clean up our act" before we blame someone else for declines in church membership.

If the projected trend turns out to be accurate, might our future culture values look more like those of ancient Corinth? Perhaps we need another Paul to help energize us, pull us together, and turn us around (that's what repenting is all about, after all).

An Evangelical speaks out

Randall Balmer takes fellow evangelicals to task for abandoning evangelical ideals and emphasis. Balmer is the author of the upcoming book, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament". In general, his point is that evangelicals have lost their way.

Here are a few of his points in one essay:

• Religious groups should not ally themselves with a political party.
• The early followers of Jesus were counterculture -- obviously apart from the norm.
• If you oppose abortion on religious grounds, you should also be opposed to torture and the death penalty. These are moral issues not just PR problems.
• The bible contains 2000 references to the poor and our responsibilities to the poor.
• The religious right seems to have allied itself with power and wealth, even adopting a so-called "prosperity gospel".
• The leaders of the religious right have adopted a language of militarism. They viciously attack anyone that does not agree with them. (Karl Rove would be proud.)
• The conduct of an evangelical "roll call of rogues ... makes Bill Clinton's adolescent dalliances pale by comparison".
• Leaders of the religious right seem fearful of pluralism, but pluralism is healthy. These religious extremists seem to want enforced religion -- their type and style done their way.
• Balmer would not make abortion illegal -- he'd make it unthinkable. That requires educating people at home and in church, not at school and not by law.