Church
I asked my 3-year-old niece, Ember, what she learned in church. She said she learned about Jesus. “Who is Jesus,” I asked. “Where does he live?” She looked at me like I was an idiot, and then said, “Jesus is in our heart. Jesus helps us not be scared and not be afraid.”
For more than a year, Riverton Park United Methodist Church in Tukwila, Wash., has been a cramped, uncomfortable shelter for hundreds of refugees. Neither designed nor intended to be a camp for those navigating the complicated immigration and asylum process, the ongoing situation has become a crisis, with the city declaring a state of emergency last October. Still, as Riverton Park remains unwilling to turn people away, the church and its neighbors, community organizers, and local government are all seeking solutions to the crisis.
In a country where religious leaders openly condemn homosexuality and gay sex is punishable with jail time, Ghanaian couple Kay and Naa Shika fear more for their lives and safety than whether a church will bless their same-sex union.
It’s an election year again, and so far it sees that President Joe Biden and former President Donald J. Trump will again be on the ballot for the White House in 2024. For many churches, that means a repeat of 2020’s division, misinformation, and difficult decisions about corporate worship.
Buckle up.
We have been on this ride before, but that doesn’t mean it will be any easier.
Tran won’t settle for simply critiquing racial capitalism or popular anti-racist enterprises that steer clear of economics. Tran believes that Christian theology offers an alternative story to the economy of racial capitalism, an alternative that finds its locus in what he describes as the “divine economy.”
In July, Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and an ordained minister in the American Baptist Church, made a case on his Substack that, with the exception of the rise of those who identify as non-religious or “nones,” the most important trend in American religiosity is the rise of nondenominational churches. For those who are actively engaged in denominational life, the numbers are staggering.
When taken together, those attending nondenominational churches now make up the second largest religious group in the United States after Roman Catholics. Rising from a mere 5 percent of the U.S. religious landscape in 1984, nondenominational adherents are now estimated to represent an astonishing 22 percent.
The arrival of a child into a religious community usually sets off a flurry of activity. Someone usually organizes a meal delivery. A pastor might visit the hospital. Older parents often reach out with words of advice to the younger, sleep-deprived new parents. But when that child is born with a severe or chronic medical condition, families need more than the church can give, said Matt Steinhauer, a retired minister with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, former insurance broker, and the parent of a son with Down syndrome.
In May, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared social isolation to be a U.S. public health crisis for its link to depression in youth and increased risks for many health conditions in older Americans.
As a crowd gathered outside the white-brick Orthodox church in the village of Karyshkiv in western Ukraine, raised voices quickly turned to shouting. Soon old women were crying. The villagers were quarrelling over the affiliation of their parish church, which belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) that the government in Kyiv accuses of being under the influence of Moscow.
On Mother’s Day in many congregations across the U.S., churches will hand out flowers, host breakfast and tea, or offer applause for women in attendance. While the goal is to honor women and mothers, Elizabeth Hagan, a minister at Georgia’s First Christian Church Athens and author of Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility, told Sojourners that the celebrations can cause discomfort, pain, or even disillusionment for many in the pews.
It would appear that most people raised in the church do not, in fact, stay in the church.
In recent years, there’s been an uncomfortable shift in how the topics of marriage and families are being framed. Rather than simply acknowledging marriage and family as moral goods, children and families are frequently put forward as the solution for preserving Christianity amidst its perceived cultural decline.
Nearly 30 groups of Catholic nuns, totaling more than 6,000 people across 18 states, signed onto a statement celebrating Trans Day of Visibility and calling people to resist anti-transgender legislation in their states.
The Church of England will refuse to allow same-sex couples to get married in its churches under proposals set out on Wednesday in which the centuries-old institution said it would stick to its teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman.
“Help us find the courage to reject the unholy and harmful ideologies of white supremacy and Christian nationalism, and to not be silent about the crisis of our democracy,” Mary Novak prayed.
Ukraine’s top security officials have ordered punitive measures against seven senior clerics, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday, part of a crackdown on a branch of the Orthodox Church with longstanding ties to Moscow.
Thom Andreas was a gay Christian kid in the 1990s when his hometown of Colorado Springs, Co. was becoming known as the “evangelical mecca” or “evangelical Vatican.” And this gave Andreas a front-row seat as the movement advocated against LGBTQ rights and dignity in politics and faith.
Pope Francis’ July visit to the First Nations in Canada has rekindled conversations about the Catholic Church’s responsibility in blessing and legitimizing the colonization of Indigenous homelands.
IT'S HARD TO tell whether Southern California, where I live, holds more nondenominational churches or neighborhood gyms. Sometimes, it’s even hard to tell whether a facility is a nondenominational church or a fitness center. At both the church and the gym, you are likely to encounter over-enthusiastic greeters in the foyer. And as you proceed farther into either type of institution, you’ll begin to hear vaguely inspiring pop-rock music. (Are the lyrics love songs to your boyfriend, to Jesus, or to an unrealistic projection of your future self? It’s hard to say — that’s the genius of it.) As you arrive in the back of these buildings, you’ll see a shared main attraction: a vivacious man in expensive sneakers urging you to strive for greatness, push through the pain, and please, please, please bring your friend with you next time. The websites of both the gyms and the churches will promise you a “no judgment zone” where “all are welcome.” Pretty good chance both are lying to you. But there’s free child care!
The biggest similarity of all between nondenom churches and neighborhood gyms? Their names: They will usually be one word long: Arise, Equinox, Crossroads. Likely, the names could also serve as code words for MDMA or WWE wrestlers’ stage names: The Rock, The Renegade, Saddleback.
Below are the names of gyms and churches. See if you can rise to the challenge, push through the pain, and determine which names belong to churches and which ones belong to gyms that I can’t afford.
I WAS SITTING in a large auditorium full of market researchers. A speaker suggested that, by selling wrinkle cream, we were helping to make the world a better place because women would feel better about themselves. I looked around the room, thinking, “Is everyone buying into this? Do people really think this is true, or do they see that it’s just a corporate pep talk?”
I had worked in the world of international market research for nearly 10 years. Though there were a few moments like this one when something just didn’t feel right, in many ways I still didn’t see the issues I see so clearly now — marketing techniques are the air we breathe.
I eventually left my work in marketing to pursue a master’s in social justice and a doctorate in theological ethics. I began to investigate how marketing practices negatively impact how we live as human beings and how we think about marketing in the church. In contemporary society, we tend to view marketing techniques as neutral tools that can be applied in different contexts — whether for businesses, nonprofit fundraising, or church communication. But can we adapt tools that have been developed in the context of capitalistic profit maximization to the mission of the church? Are there fundamental differences in how the church views and relates to human beings?
I had worked in the world of international market research for nearly 10 years. Though there were a few moments like this one when something just didn’t feel right, in many ways I still didn’t see the issues I see so clearly now—marketing techniques are the air we breathe.
How do marketing techniques, such as surveillance and data gathering, fit with the mission of the church?