May 9, 2022 By Bob Smietana (RNS) — For the last 50 years, abortion has been one of the most contentious issues in American political life, fueling mass protests, political machinations and even the rise of Donald Trump, who promised to deliver Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. But as Roe’s future

March 16, 2022 By Ryan Burge (RNS) — Last month I wrote about one area of consensus amid the two warring factions in our increasingly polarized republic. While the two political parties and their constituents could not be further apart in their positions on gender and sexuality issues, abortion, taxation and a host of other questions, Democrats

February 15, 2022 By Ryan Burge   (RNS) — One of the most consequential legal terms in the 21st century may be “religious freedom.” As my colleague University of Cincinnati political scientist Andrew Lewis discusses in his most recent book, “The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics,” religious conservatives have begun centering their legal strategy on

‘The evangelical pastors that we interviewed, ultimately chose racial reconciliation as their primary frame,’ a scholar said of study of multiracial church leaders.

Hopes for a revived religious left may be based more on a wing and a prayer than solid evidence of any such new awakening. Rather, there are several signs indicating “a notable decline” in political activity among religious liberals, new research indicates..

The practice of men avoiding contact with women at work out of concens of impropriety may come at a particularly high price for evangelical working women who are excluded from male-dominated social networks that are critical to professional success, a new study indicates.

New studies on religious tattoos explore the relation between faith and a practice associated with sex, drugs and copious amounts of alcohol. The results are mixed.

The debate about whether the world is entering a more secular age and whether the growth of religiously non-affiliated people is hastening such secularization in part revolves around questions of timing. In other words, when did these trends start and what led to them?

Are evangelicals, even those that identify as politically conservative, that much different from everyone else? Two new studies yield results that may surprise those holding on to an image of highly religious individuals as rigid and uncaring, more concerned with judging than loving one another..

Making difficult parenting decisions – on issues ranging from fathers being open to parental leave to parents embracing family faith activities – may enrich a child’s life in multiple ways into young adulthood and beyond, some new studies suggest. “Religious firmness integrated with religious flexibility is more likely to result in a balanced, healthy style of religious parenting,” one study concluded.,