Are you teaching about congregations in an upcoming semester? Just curious about existing data on congregations? Check out the crowd-sourced teaching library assembled at the Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture. It includes instructional materials developed by its researchers and participating scholars for use in the classroom. From college syllabi and instructional…
When students and others observe a new congregation or parish it is helpful to know something about that larger connection. What are the beliefs and rules? Is this congregation typical? The Association of Religion Data Archives, commonly called “the ARDA,” can help. The website now features landing pages for 25 of America’s largest denominations. The…
During these long days of physical isolation, long walks around my community of West Roxbury, Massachusetts, have been a welcome respite. Those walks have also inevitably stirred my historical curiosity about this town first settled by Europeans in the 17th century. I realized that I had a question: There was something missing from our religious…
In South Africa churches may be among the last bastions of apartheid, but some churchgoers are crossing racial lines, for the sake of survival. Philippolis is a small farm town far away from everything. Far from the city and the government, far from justice and equality. The population is still divided and named — “Colored,”…
Why would a church ask a departing pastor to sign a non-compete agreement? In December 2018, World magazine, a touchstone periodical for a conservative swath of the evangelical world in the United States, published an exposé on leadership issues at Harvest Bible Chapel—a Chicago-area megachurch and the catalyst for a church planting network that counts…