Hindus are a logical outlier given the influx of Indians to US universities, especially with their disproportionate representation in the hard sciences. Christians and Jews follow the expected pattern, theologically liberal groups outperforming theologically conservative ones. The trend would have been starker if the author had included datapoints by theological self-identification (“evangelical,” “fundamentalist,” “conservative,” “orthodox,” “liberal,” etc…).

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.

Regarding signs of the times, the Public Religion Research Institute reports some difference in opinion between religious groups on whether natural disaster are a sign of the end times. A majority of Americans believe that “God is in control of everything that happens in the world.” But only 38% of all Americans believe that natural disasters are a sign from God, while 67% of white evangelicals believe that recent natural disasters are signs of the end times.

In other news:

The New York Times reports that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned a study of the clergy sex-abuse scandal. The report, prepared by criminologists at John Jay College, attributes the abuse not to celibacy requirements or to homosexual priests, but to the sexual confusion of the 1960s. The study has received widespread criticism. Stephen Colbert, a comedian but a serious Catholic, offers simple guidelines that should remove any clerical confusion.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Pitzer College in California is creating a department of secular studies, with an undergraduate major, headed by sociologist Phil Zuckerman.

Self-appointed historical expert David Barton made the news again by appearing on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. Yoni Appelbaum explains Barton’s hermenutics and idea of a “professoriate of all believers.” Paul Harvey explains Barton’s “ideological entrepreneurialism.”

Photo courtesy of Flickr user futureatlas.com.

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.

Other people who didn’t like the idea of bishops and archbishops, said no, no, no, you can’t do that. You just call it overseers, supervisors, something like that. And also, words about kingship, kingdom, royal authority, this was to be a book about how God was over his church and the king was over his country.

To listen to the full interview, click here. Or you can read the transcript.

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.

My favorite segment:

. . . Sister Anna Joseph Van Acker says she’s weary of shallow relationships rooted in texting and Twitter — and finds the depth she’s looking for in God. “He has the love you don’t find by someone leaving a message on your Facebook wall,” she says. “It’s way better than someone saying, ‘I’m eating pizza for dinner right now,’ or whatever your Facebook status says right now. You don’t get fulfilled by that. Ultimately, all you want is more. And here, we’re thirsting for more, but we’re constantly receiving more as well.”

Check out the full story here. And be sure to listen to the audio story at the top of the page — it truly brings the narrative to life.

My immediate thought after hearing the story: What would Robert Orsi say?

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.

• “Renegades’ religion: God in America gives more weight to the fringes of faith-based culture than to its roots”
• “’God in America’ is a compelling series but omits many key events, people”
• “God in America, PBS: US TV review”
• “PBS’s calm and evenhanded ‘God in America’”
• “REVIEW: PBS spotlights ‘God in America’”
• “Those Perpetual Bedfellows, Religion and Politics”