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..
Just a couple of generations removed from widespread pressure to stay at home, evangelical working moms are now being welcomed into congregations, new research indicates. Conservative Protestant women, a category mostly made up of evangelicals, also were less likely to face work-family conflicts than women from other traditions.
The nation’s largest religious body is also by far the most likely to have its congregations take to the streets in public demonstrations or lobby the halls of power on moral issues, a new study finds. While Catholics were most active on the abortion issue, they also were more likely than other groups to lobby and demonstrate on a wide range of issues, from combating poverty to advocating for immigration reform.
Gun-control advocates face powerful oppostion even as President Obama vows to make it a priority in his second term. The public outrage over the Newtown school shooting does not appear to have changed many minds among evangelical Protestants who have strongly opposed stricter laws. But over the long term, several factors, from increasing migration to cities to changing attitudes among young evangelicals and the growth of Hispanic Catholics, indicate major changes may be coming.
One of the goods emerging from the debate over health care in the United States is all the healthy information emerging amid the often polarizing political rhetoric.Research on religion and well-being can play a key role in the conversation on public and private health issues. Some new research sheds light on mortality rates and religion, where religious consumers turn to in moments of crisis and the growing number of Americans unaffiliated with religion who say they want their funeral to be a secular affair.
