A. Lincoln, Private and Public (Interview with Historian Ronald C. White)

"Ronald C. White Jr., a Huntington Library fellow and a visiting professor of history at UCLA, is the author of the bestselling books Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year) and The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words. His latest book A. Lincoln: A Biography (2009) has been a New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times bestseller and a History Book Club selection." This article is an interview with White about Lincoln.

Effects of Infidelity on Men vs. Women Surprise Researchers

"How guilty would you feel if you cheated on your partner? The answer has a lot to do with the type of infidelity - and your gender. Men feel guiltier following sexual infidelity, while women feel guiltier after emotional transgression, a new study finds."

Survey: Half of U.S. Adults Have Switched Religions

"More than half of all Americans have switched religions at least once, according to an in-depth survey released today. . .Pew's new Faith in Flux survey is based on re-contacting 2,800 people from its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, released last year, which surveyed 35,000 people."

Riding the Self-Regulation See Saw

"The April issue of Psychological Science includes an interesting paradoxical study on moral self-regulation. Building on previous research that examines why people act altruistically even when such action is costly, researchers wanted to take a closer look at the moral back-and-forth we all engage in when deciding how to act."

Survey: Americans Reclassifying Luxury, Necessity in Recession

"A Pew Research Center survey released Thursday finds that the recession has changed Americans' minds about many items that used to seen as necessities. In a 2006 Pew survey of luxuries and necessities, 68% said a microwave was a necessity; now that's 47%. And 52% say a TV is a necessity today, down from 64% in 2006."

Religion Provides Emotional Boost to World’s Poor

"A tour of the world's most religious countries wouldn't be all mountaintop shrines and magnificent temples -- it would also take you to some pretty bleak places. Gallup Polls in 143 countries reveal that among countries where average annual incomes are $2,000 or less, 92% of residents say religion is an important part of their daily lives. By contrast, among the richest countries surveyed -- those where average annual incomes are $25,000 or more -- that figure drops to 44%."

2008 American Religious Identification Survey

2008 American Religious Identification Survey

World Digital Library

"The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world." While the focus is not on religion, one can do a keyword on religion and see numerous items from different cultural settings.

Study: Nearly Half of New Priests Were Discouraged Against Seminary

"Conversations around the kitchen table may be more responsible for the shortage of Roman Catholic priests in the U.S. than influences from American culture, a new study suggests. Almost 45% of Catholic priests planning to be ordained this year said they were discouraged from considering the priesthood, according to a survey produced by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University for the U.S. bishops."

Religious Groups' Views on Global Warming

"One issue at the center of public discussions about the environment is global warming: whether it is occurring and what its causes might be. An analysis by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life of a 2008 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press examines views on global warming among major religious traditions in the U.S."

Your Hidden Curriculum

"What do people learn from you about the Christian life? Sometimes it's what you never intended to teach." The article applies this idea to pastors and how they lead.

God and Mental Health

"In a paper in the online edition of the Journal of Religion and Health, psychologist Kevin Flannelly of the Spears Research Institute, Healthcare Chaplaincy, and colleagues analyzed the link between particular beliefs about god and psychiatric symptoms in 1,306 adults in the U.S. They used data from a 2004 survey asking people what they thought about god as well as asking about their mental health. For the first part, the survey asked whether the god they believed in was close and loving, approving and forgiving, or creating and judging. Eliminating people who professed no religion (3 percent), Flannelly and his team then compared the incidence of general anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsion disorder, paranoid ideation and social anxiety in the three groups. If your goal is mental health, they found, it’s a whole lot better to believe in a close and loving god. People with that belief had significantly lower rates of anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsion and paranoid ideation than people who believed in an approving and forgiving god. Belief in that sort of god reduced incidence of those disorders slightly. Belief in a creating and judging god raised the risk of all those mental disorders, especially of paranoid ideation. Well, sure: if you think an omnipotent and omniscient god is watching your every move and will smite you for any infraction, that can indeed make for a bit of paranoia."

De-Baptism Gains a Following in Britain

"More than 100,000 former Christians have downloaded 'certificates of de-baptism' in a bid to publicly renounce the faith, according to the London-based National Secular Society (NSS)."

Christianity Today Podcasts

This site has a collection of interesting podcasts from Christianity Today. They continually will update this list with new ones as well. Or, one can subscribe to the podcasts and receive information when new ones are available.

Barna Survey on American Christian's Spiritual Beliefs

"A new nationwide survey of adults’ spiritual beliefs, conducted by The Barna Group, suggests that Americans who consider themselves to be Christian have a diverse set of beliefs – but many of those beliefs are contradictory or, at least, inconsistent. The survey explored beliefs about spiritual beings, the influence of faith on their life, views of the Bible, and reactions to faiths other than their own."

New Technology Alerts Muslims to Prayer

"U.S. technicians have created a new mobile telephone application that alerts Muslims when it's time for one of their five daily prayers. Susan Wyche, a Georgia Institute of Technology doctoral candidate, said she and her colleagues focused on Islam, partially because of the religion's popularity and partially because Muslims have historically used technology, such as compasses and telescopes, to help them determine the direction to face during prayer. Sun Dial tells users the time to pray is approaching by using an image of the sun lining up with a green circle, she said. 'When the sun lines up with the circle, it's time to pray. Unlike similar systems, ours relies on graphics rather than text and graphs to communicate prayer times,' said Wyche. 'Users drove this choice by telling us that tracking the sun was the most religiously valued method to determine prayer times.'"

Mecca mosques 'Wrongly Aligned'

"All mosques have a niche showing the direction of the most sacred Islamic site, the Kaaba, an ancient cube-like building in Mecca's Grand Mosque. But people looking down from recently built high-rises in Mecca found the niches in many older mosques were not pointing directly towards the Kaaba. Some worshippers are said to be anxious about the validity of their prayers."

The End of Christian America

"The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become."

Nearly Half British Babies Out of Wedlock

"The percentage of British babies are now born out of wedlock continues to approach 1-in-2, official figures show. Data published by the Office for National Statistics show that in 2007, 44.4 percent of live births were outside marriage, The Daily Telegraph reported."

Vindictiveness Costs Money, Not Satisfying

"Vindictive people experience more unemployment, have fewer friends and say they are less satisfied with their lives, German researchers say. . .Anyone who prefers to act according to the Old Testament motto of 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth' has, on average, fewer friends and is clearly less than satisfied with his or her life, the researchers said."

Sick of Compromise, Christian Right Drops Politics

"A new generation of religious conservatives is turning its back on political activism, Kathleen Parker writes in the Washington Post. Today's Moral Majority accuses Christian leaders like James Dobson of bringing the cultural wars from churches to Congress and compromising their beliefs. Now, 'Dobson and the Christian right political movement is a failure,' said one, calling the loss 'self-inflicted.'"

Pope May Reshape US Church as Bishops Age Out

"With many bishops nearing the age of required retirement, the Vatican has a chance to reinvent the US Catholic Church, moving beyond church sex scandals and adapting to a growing immigrant presence, reports the Los Angeles Times. Almost a third of 265 current US bishops must step down in the next 5 years; more than half must resign within a decade."

England, Wales Get New Catholic Leader

"The Vatican on Friday appointed an outspoken English archbishop to become the leader of the the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales."

Worm Humor

A minister decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon. Four worms were placed into four separate jars.

- The first worm was put into a container of alcohol.
- The second worm was put into a container of cigarette smoke.
- The third worm was put into a container of chocolate syrup.
- The fourth worm was put into a container of good clean soil.

At the conclusion of the sermon, the Minister reported the following results:

- The first worm in alcohol - Dead.
- The second worm in cigarette smoke - Dead.
- Third worm in chocolate syrup - Dead.
- Fourth worm in good clean soil - Alive.

Just then a little old woman in the back quickly raised her hand and said, "I get it! As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won't have worms!"

Mormons Reach Out to Hispanics

"The Mormon Church is reaching out to Hispanics in the United States and attracting a growing number of converts, many of them illegal immigrants. That is a dilemma for the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, the Arizona Republic reports, because obeying the law is a central obligation. Some Mormon politicians also have been at the forefront of efforts to crack down in undocumented workers."

Willow Creek in Africa

". . .In fact, Willow Creek's outreach to Africa—specifically Angola, Zambia, Malawi, and South Africa—is as extensive as it is extraordinary. And it is extensive, ironically and precisely, because it bypasses multimillion-dollar nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to work mostly with local churches. And hardly ever with other megachurches, but small, small churches. Furthermore, Willow refuses to bring to bear most of its vast expertise and technological resources. Instead, it relies on the basic resources and expertise of that small, local church. . ."

NYC Team to Fight Sex Abuse Among Orthodox Jewish

"Prosecutors, counselors and religious leaders on Wednesday announced a program to combat sexual abuse among members of the insular world of Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox Jews — a problem one lawmaker says extends beyond New York. The centerpiece of the outreach program, announced by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes and Jewish community leaders, is a hot line abuse victims can call and speak to a 'culturally sensitive' social worker."

U.S. Singles Out 8 Nations for Religious Freedom Violations

"Just before the end of the Bush administration last January, the U.S. State Department redesignated eight nations as 'countries of particular concern' because of their religious freedom violations. The independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom learned of the designations, which were authorized Jan. 16 under then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and announced them on Friday. The panel had asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in February to release the department's latest list of designated countries."

Poll: U.S. Catholics Lean Left on Social Issues

"American Catholics are more liberal than the general population on social issues like divorce and homosexuality, despite the Catholic Church's longstanding conservatism on both issues, according to a new survey."