Christianity is hot again, pundits have repeatedly declared throughout the 21st century, whether during the purity-ringed Bush years or Kanye West’s gospel reboot in the late 2010s. But signs of a true revival have been piling up lately. (Kornhaber, The Atlantic)
Read MoreIf you’ve been around a middle-schooler recently and made the grave mistake of uttering the seemingly innocuous numbers 6 and 7, you were likely met with giggles, a distinctive hand gesture and—most importantly—a drawn-out “six seeeeeeeven” with the weirdest inflection. Sometimes the “6-7” comes out of the blue in response to something else you’ve said that has absolutely nothing to do with numbers or anything that numbers would be remotely related to. Seriously, what? (Hill, Reader’s Digest)
Read MoreSeveral hundred priests and more than a dozen bishops have abandoned Anglicanism to convert to Catholicism over the past three decades in a “surge” partly driven by the move to ordain women in the Church of England, a study has found. (Burgess, The Times)
Read MoreThe U.S. Coast Guard issued a new, more stringent policy on hate symbols including the swastika Thursday night, prohibiting “divisive or hate symbols or flags.” The change came hours after The Washington Post reported that the service would instead classify such symbols as “potentially divisive” under new guidelines set to be released next month. (Raj & Bisset, The Washington Post)
Read MoreThe season has morphed into a weeks-long festival of consumption, its own liturgical calendar’s worth of shopping holidays: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day. The advent calendar began as a form of religious expression. It still is—it’s just a different religion. (Cushing, The Atlantic)
Read MoreRecent Barna research reveals that only one in four single moms attends church weekly, the steepest drop among women in recent years. The finding raises an uncomfortable question: Are churches truly heeding the biblical command to care for the vulnerable in their midst? (Andersen, Christianity Today)
Read More