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The millennium issue of the Economist published God’s obituary. Now the Economist editor John Micklethwait and Washington bureau chief Adrian Wooldridge have written a new book, God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World.
It seems that America, not Western Europe, is the norm. Outside of Europe, the very things that [...]

I flew into Asia during the SARS outbreak in 2003. So many people told me I was crazy. I just figured if our workers were in the field I shouldn’t be concerned about visiting them. I also had my suspicions about the level of anxiety over the epidemic.
On that trip I was in Thailand for [...]

Since 1977 under the leadership of Andrew Evans, and for the last twelve years Brian Houston, the Australian Christian Churches have been one of the fastest growing movements in the land.
The ACC has released its 2009 report. A few observations. . .
Since 1997 there has been an 85% growth in the number of constituents, from [...]

The conventional wisdom is that Christianity reinforces the oppression of women.
Elizabeth Brusco, a feminist Marxist scholar conducted fieldwork in Columbia from 1982-1983, and found that pentecostal conversion transformed traditional gender relations by giving women a moral authority in the home to challenge their husbands’ drinking, gambling, or adultery.
She wrote up her findings in “The Reformation [...]

Peter Brierley reports on trends in the size of British churches. Here are a few of the findings.
The average size of a church has dropped from 123 people in 1989 to 84 people in 2005. Take out Roman Catholic churches and the average size for Protestant churches has dropped from 87 in 1989 to 67 [...]

Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar have released the American Religious Identification Survey 2008 (ARIS). Highlights. . .
The American population self-identifies as predominantly Christian but Americans are slowly becoming less Christian.

• 86% of American adults identified as Christians in 1990 and 76% in 2008.
• The historic Mainline churches and denominations have experienced the steepest declines while [...]

Sydney shows that life is now resembling reality TV , and not vice versa: OUTRAGE is growing over tales of sick voyeurism at the scene of this heartbreaking crash at Burwood, where a young mum lost her life this week. … Rescue workers have told The Daily Telegraph Online, the phenomenon is becoming all too common at accident scenes around Sydney… Dean Ivory, who lives directly opposite the crash scene, was one of the few to assist….

Here’s an interesting way to track the changing composition of the Christian faith over the last 2,000 years. Expect the trend to continue.
The full report.

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Is the English church pulling out of its nose dive? A recent study says, “maybe”.
HT: Christian Research UK

This will make your day. It made mine.
In December, Times columnist , Matthew Parris, returned to Africa after 45 years absence. He was there to report on The Times Christmas Appeal which was devoted to providing clean water for rural communities.
Listen to what he says about the impact of Christianity in Africa. Did I mention [...]