So far, I have been very dissatisfied with the discussion of the proposals for same-sex holy unions and ordination of sexually active homosexual clergy in the ELCA. The discussion keeps being presented as a debate between “liberals” and “conservatives” or between “progressives” and “traditionalists,” with the former supposed to be in support of the radical […]
What Do We Hold Together? What Holds Us Together?
Introduction: I am a Christian sociologist. (My conviction that that juxtaposition is not an oxymoron is something we can discuss later.) I am a member of Immanuel ELCA in Evanston where Frank Senn is my pastor. I joined the church some ten years ago to be nurtured in the naive faith I increasingly experienced in […]
What Sociologists Have Learned About Church Attendance
Social scientists have been tracking self-reported religious service attendance for over seventy years. At present, over 40% of adult Americans claim to attend church (or other religious services) nearly every week. That figure is 25% lower than at its peak in the 1950s, but it has remained remarkably stable for the past four decades, declining […]