Favorite biblical book: The Psalms. Percentage of Americans who read the Bible on their own: About half. And far and away the No. 1 reason they pick up Scripture is for personal prayer and devotion. A major new study on American Bible reading offers insights into how, why and when Americans read Scripture outside of worship.
It is tempting to think of America as a nation that is transcending an historic racial divide. But a developing body of research is revealing just how pervasive racial differences are in one of the nation’s most powerful voluntary institutions — the houses of worship where people gather for spiritual and moral guidance and fellowship.
New findings from the second wave of a major study on religion and race lay bare the dramatic and growing gap in racial attitudes and experiences in America. We do not live in a post-racial nation, the 2012 Portraits of American Life Study suggests, but in a land of two Americas divided by race, and less willing than ever to find a common ground of understanding.
Can religion help reduce violent crime? Two new studies suggest the answer is yes, both by creating a moral climate that fosters respect among neighbors and by helping to form individual consciences of young adults. Communities with high levels of active participation in congregations may be particularly effective in reducing assaults, rapes and murders in some poor areas that are most likely to suffer from violent crimes, the research indicates.
Even as more people appear to be turning away from organized religion, a new study finds that the number of Americans who definitely believe in religious miracles increased 22 percent in the past two decades, The increased belief in miracles crosses all religious traditions, with the strongest gains reported by those who attend services infrequently.
For all the conversation about the election of a black president being an historic moment in America’s racial history, it is still a nation divided on Sunday morning, research shows. What progress that has been made has come largely from black churchgoers willing to worship in predominantly white churches, particularly in white megachurches that offer attractive programming close to where they live in an age of greater black geographic and economic mobility. White churchgoers are still largely unwilling to worship in predominantly black churches, or to attend churches with black senior pastors.
As the nation prepares to celebrate black history month, the Panel Study of American Religion and Ethnicity gives us a bracing perspective of just how far apart black and white Americans are on race. If you are a white Protestant, the study found, race is not a major concern. The vast majority said they did not experience racial prejudice. that race is not important to the sense of who they are and they really do not think about race that much. In contrast, race is something more than four in 10 black Protestant respondents said they think about every day. Even more disturbing, given such a wide gap in understanding, a plurality of respondents said race relations would improve if the country stopped talking about race.
Black churches represent the fourth largest religious group of congregations in America, behind only Catholic and predominantly white mainline and evangelical Protestant churches. Yet they are often as invisible to the majority of Americans as the disproportionately poor communities many serve in the nation’s cities. Until, perhaps, they are no longer there. Anyone who cares about struggling city neighborhoods needs to pay attention to a major trend unfolding across urban America. Some large black churches are moving out, and many more may follow.
