Ruminations on biblical studies, technology, economics, and sports from Jason A. Staples
It’ll be very interesting to see what happens to Harold Camping‘s followers in the aftermath of his failed attempt to predict the “Rapture” (and subsequent end of the world). These people have embraced Camping’s prediction to the point of personally bankrupting themselves (like this 60-year-old retiree who spent his $140,000 life savings to buy billboards [...] Read more »
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has charted the income data of various religions in the USA, showing which religious traditions tend to be more affluent and which tend to be poorer (see the writeup in the NYT here). As you can see from the chart, Reform Jews come out on top, closely [...] Read more »
If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know about Mark Regnerus, sociologist from the University of Texas at Austin and Ph.D. graduate of the fine UNC-Chapel Hill sociology program, author of Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenager and a few excellent articles on early marriage (which I blogged [...] Read more »
Andrew Santella has an interesting piece on Slate.com about Americans’ consumer approach to churches (The Church Search: Why American churchgoers like to shop around). He makes a few standard observations about the angst often showed towards the phenomenon—go to just about any church and you’ll hear warnings about the dangers of such “spiritual consumerism” and [...] Read more »
