The New York Times recently published a graphic charting American denominations and religions by college graduation percentage and average income. The most evocative line from the accompanying article: “Overall, Protestants, who together are the country’s largest religious group, are poorer than average and poorer than Catholics.”
It’s after 6:00 p.m. in my time zone, and the rapture hasn’t come. So there is still time to read Stephen Prothero’s take Harold Camping’s recent prediction of the rapture.
NPR host Michelle Martin recently interviewed Penn State professor Philip Jenkins about the impact of the King James Bible on the English language. Here’s a portion of the 11 minute interview:
MARTIN: Were there fights about translations? Because doctrinal differences do have implications down the line, as you were saying, even though, you know, humorously, thou shalt commit adultery. I mean, there really are different consequences to different interpretations. Were there some significant fights?
Prof. JENKINS: Absolutely. For example, there is a word that shows up in the New Testament, and one of the translations is bishop. So if you translated that word as a bishop, then you were saying that this very kind of hierarchical, structural view of the church was right there in the Bible and nobody could argue with it.
NPR is running a very smart (and very fascinating) story on the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, a Catholic convent in Nashville, Tenn. Here’s a taste:
For the most part, these are grim days for Catholic nuns. Convents are closing, nuns are aging and there are relatively few new recruits. But something startling is happening in Nashville, Tenn. The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia are seeing a boom in new young sisters: Twenty-seven joined this year and 90 entered over the past five years.
The average of new entrants here is 23. And overall, the average age of the Nashville Dominicans is 36 — four decades younger than the average nun nationwide.
Unlike many older sisters in previous generations, who wear street clothes and live alone, the Nashville Dominicans wear traditional habits and adhere to a strict life of prayer, teaching and silence. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a collection of reviews on the subject of PBS’s recent six part special on the topic of God in America. Having just finished viewing the series five minutes ago, my initial impression is that episode 3 on the Civil War and episode 5 on the Cold War seemed to the strongest. The dedication of two out of six episodes to the last sixty years of US history seems a bit disproportional. As with most documentary style programming, it provides a helpful starting point for discussion, gives voice to articulate experts, but is constrained to gloss over important and formative details in the interest of a cohesive narrative.
Religion in America is a collaborative blog about the history of American religion. It is written primarily by a few graduate students, but other authors are welcome to contribute. The topic of the blog includes all aspects of American religion. Most of the posts are likely about Christianity in America, ... Continue reading »
