Who are the Southern Baptists and why is their 2021 annual meeting so divided?

People wander and find their seats as they wait for the SBC annual meeting at the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee, to begin on June 15, 2021. RNS photo by Kit Doyle By Ryan Burge (RNS) — The Southern Baptist Convention is gathering in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it[ READ FULL COLUMN ]

[Read full column...]

Pagan politics are not as uniform (or liberal) as you think

A visual of the “Blue Wave” spell from November 2020. Photo via Facebook/Bind Trump (Official) May 26, 2021 By Heather Greene (RNS) — In 2017, witches around the United States, and a few around the world, turned their magic to political activism, performing a spell to “bind” then-President Donald Trump “and all who abet him.”[ READ FULL COLUMN ]

[Read full column...]

Republicans and Democrats switch sides on religion vs. science

Science vs. religion May 25, 2021 By Carol Kuruvilla (RNS) — As public health officials grapple with the slowing rate of COVID-19 vaccinations in the U.S., two groups of Americans stand out as being particularly resistant to rolling up their sleeves for the shots: Republicans and white evangelicals. In mid-April, about 20% of white evangelicals said[ READ FULL COLUMN ]

[Read full column...]

Subscribe to Ahead of Trend:

GlobalPlus: Missionary Trends

Forget the centuries-old narrative of Christian missionaries being predominantly white and Western. Workers from the Global South are the force behind one of the great transformations of missions in the modern age.

[Read full column...]

GlobalPlus: Humility and religious leadership

A new wave of research on religious leadership is finding significant numbers of clergy show evidence of struggling with clinical signs of narcissism. Yet there is a powerful countervailing force: Humility.

[Read full column...]

GlobalPlus: Religion and mortality

Social and medical sciences are increasingly finding evidence to support how religion promotes better health, including living longer. This voluminous new wave of research is helping both religious communities and medical professionals to understand the promises and pitfalls of the faith-health connection. The potential for science and religion to work together for the common good holds great promise for improving global health during the coronavirus pandemic and beyond.

[Read full column...]

View GlobalPlus Archives
View GlobalPlus Seminar Videos New: The challenges to religious freedom throughout the world. (with link to video). Roger Finke, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Religious Studies, and International Affairs at Pennsylvania State University, provides an overview of the latest research, while Uday Basu, coordinating editor of The Statesman in India, and Indeewari Amuwatte, a broadcast journalist and news anchor at Ada Derana 24 in Sri Lanka, discuss the situation in their nations.

Related stories: GlobalPlus: Religious freedom
GlobalPlus: Religion and politics in India
Subscribe to GlobalPlus:

Quizzes
Test your knowledge of contemporary issues with fun quizzes that can be enjoyed by wide audiences.
See All Quizzes

Resources
Providing deadline access to the finest national and international data on religion.
National Profiles

ARDA's National Profiles provide detailed data by country on religious adherents, religious freedom, demographics and a host of other social measures. Choose a country below to see its profile:

US Denominations

Our American Denominations feature provides detailed information and family trees for over 400 U.S. religious denominations.

The following primers and interactive tutorials were developed by theARDA.com and the International Center for Journalists.
Primers
Tutorials

Ahead of the Trend columns, GlobalPlus reports and religion quizzes bring you the latest news in religion research from throughout the world. This is a collegial effort, enlisting the cooperation of researchers, universities, journal editors, institutes and associations of scholars to increase the impact and awareness of important findings in religion research.

About The Author
David Briggs, a former national writer for The Associated Press who holds a master's degree from Yale Divinity School, is consistently honored among the Top 10 secular religion writers and reporters in North America.