Rebekah Reports

Thoughts on meals, media, momming and more

  • Home
  • Media
  • Momming
  • Musings
  • About
  • Contact

Christianity in America by the numbers

05.21.2015 by rhood // Leave a Comment

Photo credit: Freaktography, Flickr
Photo credit: Freaktography, Flickr

Last week my Twitter feed was buzzing about Pew Research Center’s new Religious Landscape Study which reflects the current religious composition of U.S. adults.

Many news outlet headlines portrayed doom and gloom for Christianity in America, like this New York Times article.

“The Christian share of adults in the United States has declined sharply since 2007, affecting nearly all major Christian traditions and denominations, and crossing age, race and region…” the author writes.

However when you examine the study for yourself, you’ll see that the percentage of people identifying as Christians has dropped from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. It’s a decline, yes, but I don’t think a 7.8% drop over seven years really classifies as a “sharp” decline like the Times states, but whatever.

This USA Today article agrees with me and sheds some realistic light on the study’s numbers.

Rather than predict the impending doom of the church in America, this latest study affirms what many researchers have said before. Christianity isn’t collapsing; it’s being clarified. Churches aren’t emptying; rather, those who were Christian in name only are now categorically identifying their lack of Christian conviction and engagement.”

According to Pew, “Nearly one-in-five U.S. adults (18%) were raised as Christians or members of some other religion, but now say they have no religious affiliation.”

“Many of these who have been labeling themselves as Christians are starting to feel free to be honest about their religious affiliation, or lack thereof,” the author of the USA Today article writes. 

In a nutshell = Christianity is not dying. In fact, the opposite is true for evangelicalism in America. The Pew study found that evangelicalism is in fact growing.

According to this interesting read from The Gospel Coalition about Pew’s study, “Approximately 1 in 5 of every generational group identifies as evangelical: Silent generation (30 percent), Baby Boomers (28 percent), Gen X (25 percent), Older Millenials (22 percent), and Younger Millenials (19 percent). Those percentages are higher than for any other Christian group…”

That article lists numerous other facts about evangelicalism’s growth including that more Americans who self-identify as gay or lesbian identify as evangelical (13 percent) than mainline (11 percent), atheist (8 percent), or agnostic (9 percent).

Another takeaway from the Pew study I found noteworthy — The share of Americans who identify with non-Christian faiths, such as Islam and Hinduism, has grown from 4.7% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014.

“Muslims now account for 0.9% of the U.S. adult population (up from 0.4% in the 2007 Landscape Study), while Hindus make up 0.7% of U.S. adults (up from 0.4% in 2007),” Pew Research found.

I honestly was surprised at those numbers. I would have guessed that Muslims accounted for much more of the U.S. population, not less than 1%.

Related Reads:

  • One prominent evangelical leader shares his thoughts on the Pew study, “Bible Belt near-Christianity is teetering. I say let it fall.” Go here to read more.
  • Preacher and author John Piper made a now seemingly prophetic statement about the “clarification” of Christianity back in 1992 like the USA Today article above mentioned:

Piper in 1992: pic.twitter.com/1P7WLe7GWU

— Tony Reinke (@TonyReinke) May 13, 2015

Categories // Musings, Posts Tags // Christianity, Islam

Empowering those ISIS wishes to eradicate – Part 1

05.20.2015 by rhood // Leave a Comment

Some of the 12,000 Iraqi Yazidi refugees that arrived at Newroz camp in Al-Hassakah province, north eastern Syria after fleeing Islamic State militants. The refugees had walked up to 60km in searing temperatures through the Sinjar mountains and many had suffered severe dehydration.  Photo credit: UK Department for International Development, Flickr
Some of the 12,000 Iraqi Yazidi refugees that arrived at Newroz camp in Al-Hassakah province, north eastern Syria after fleeing Islamic State militants. The refugees had walked up to 60km in searing temperatures through the Sinjar mountains and many had suffered severe dehydration. Photo credit: UK Department for International Development, Flickr

How do you just sit on the floor of a shipping container and just let these women carry this kind of terror alone — how do you turn away and go back to your neat little life of Wheaties and news reels and how does the church not stand up and howl?” – Ann Voskamp

Do you feel helpless in the face of the evils ISIS is inflicting? Do you feel like you can’t do anything for the Yazidis, Christians, and other minorities suffering in the Middle East because they’re so far away? Stop. No more excuses. The people ISIS is waging war against are just that — people. They’re not simply news headlines.

There is a way to help defy ISIS. Thank you, Ann Voskamp for helping shed light on the fantastic organization that is Preemptive Love. This one, Texas-based organization is doing more to spread love and healing — literally and figuratively — in the Middle East than any other I’ve seen.

(Full-disclosure: I have donated to Preemptive Love in the past. Also — A fun fact for my Austin-area friends: The organization’s founder, Jeremy Courtney, is from Central Texas. Go here for a recent Statesman feature on him.)

I highly encourage you to read Ann’s blog post. Then I encourage you to go here and join me in doing something to help empower the women and children ISIS is trying to eradicate.

………

UPDATE: On Thursday May 21, 2015, Ann Voskamp and Jeremy Courtney hosted a live stream discussion moderated by Jennie Allen of IF:Gathering. Go here to read Part 2 of this blog post about that discussion and learn more about what you can do to assist Preemptive Love.

 

Categories // Musings, Posts Tags // Christianity, ISIS, Islam, Middle East, terrorism

Get your social together, folks

05.05.2015 by rhood // Leave a Comment

I’ve never run for president, but I assume that stepping into that ring requires a TON of moving parts and things to think about. Two important — scratch that — two vital aspects of a candidacy these days are one’s Web and social media presence. We should all know this by now. Barack Obama certainly does. He witnessed social media’s positive affects, especially among millennials, during both of his successful campaigns for the White House.

However today after missing by several hours the announcement that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is now the sixth GOP candidate to enter the 2016 race, I looked up his official Twitter account (@GovMikeHuckabee) to see what he’d said and how he’d made his announcement. To my surprise (Let’s get real, the Web nerd inside of me was actually horrified and slightly pissed off), there was NO such tweet!

#socialmediafail

Worse still, Huckabee/his campaign staff hadn’t tweeted since YESTERDAY. Y’all. That’s basically an eternity in the social-sphere, especially if you’ve been involved in breaking some big news!

Now, in all fairness to Huckabee, his Twitter account has since become more active today, though in my opinion there’s still no excuse for not having it updated at the time of his presidential announcement and for several hours following it. His staff easily could have taken 30 seconds to schedule a tweet to appear at the same time he was speaking.

Huckabee’s social media faux pas got me thinking about two other widely publicized campaign Web mistakes of late — Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina’s failures to register important domain names. Unfortunately for them, they’re now both currently being mocked on tedcruz.com and carlyfiorina.org.

Again, I’m sure their staffs had a ton to think about leading up to their campaign announcements, but COME ON. This is 2015. Buy up your freaking domain names. All of them.

While we’re on the Web/social subject, today I decided to take a “stroll” around to all of the current presidential candidates’ websites to check out where/how they’ve implemented links to their social media accounts. While most of the sites are really pleasing to the eye (and humorously  — to me, anyway — appear to have been designed by the same person), it was a mixed bag of successes and failures in regards to where their social icons were placed. Some candidates went with what I consider to be a success — “above the fold” visibility. A few others failed in my book with tiny or “below the fold,” and therefore seemingly less important, social links. Below are some screenshots I took to compare the candidates’ websites as well as the location of links to their social media accounts.

Thumbs up for…

Ben Carson (R) – I really like his image choice, pleasing color scheme, and simple yet sleek site design, and better still – his social links are in a prominent location on the homepage.

bencarsonwebscreenshot
Hillary Clinton (D) – She, too, has her social links up top. She also has three additional instances of social links/social sharing buttons on her home page. Good job, HillDog.

hillaryclintonwebscreenshot

Then there’s Mike Huckabee (R). While I’m not a big fan of his site’s design, I’m happy to report that his social media links are prominently displayed on his home page. Hooray.

MikeHuckabeewebscreenshot
Next up, ‘ole Bernie Sanders (Independent running as a Democrat). Though his full site hasn’t launched yet, the temporary one does include social links not once, but twice on the page.

berniesanderswebscreenshot
And rounding out the list of success stories — Rand Paul (R). I honestly think that the video that plays as the site’s background is a bit much, but not only does the Senator have some social links at the very top of his site, he also has several of his most recent tweets rotating on display. Nice touch.

randpaulwebscreenshot

I’ve got two thumbs in the middle for…

Ted Cruz (R) — NOT a fan of that video image of him (they couldn’t find a more flattering screen grab?!), but his site is simple and straightforward.

tedcruzwebscreenshot
He doesn’t have his social links at the top of the home page, but he does somewhat redeem himself with some BIG social buttons further down the page.

tedcruzwebscreenshotsocial
Marco Rubio (R) is in a similar boat. He also doesn’t include any links to his social media accounts towards the top of his home page. However, I do like the content he has on his site; one gets a more up-front, well-rounded view of who he is, rather than just reading about highlights from his life on a simple bio page. His site even features links to videos of some of his speeches and recent media interviews.

marcorubiowebscreenshot
Further down the home page, there are two prominent ways to connect with Rubio, which notably include more than just your standard Twitter and Facebook links. Rubio is also on YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Google+, and Pinterest. Nice.

marcorubioscreenshotsocialAnd now for the thumbs down. It goes to…

Carly Fiorina (R) — I’m sad about this, because I really like Fiorina’s website. Like Carson’s, it’s got a slightly more subdued patriotic color scheme and it’s simple and sleek. However, she’s got the two smallest Facebook and Twitter icons I’ve ever seen! Worse still, they’re at the very bottom of her website. Tisk tisk.

carlyfiorinawebscreenshot

Categories // Media, Posts Tags // GOP, politics, presidency, technology

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • …
  • 7
  • Next Page »

Rebekah is an award-winning journalist and social media maven. She’s worked for some of the best in the news biz, but her current boss is an energetic two-year-old boy. Still, she’s passionate about national news and politics. Historic dramas (“Downton!” “Poldark!”) and anything related to a “clean” lifestyle (foodscaping, non-toxic makeup, eco-friendly household products, etc.) are her love languages.

Learn more about Rebekah.

Connect

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Subscribe to the Blog

Enter your email address to subscribe to Rebekah Reports and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Top Posts

  • "My Victory" by David Crowder
  • PSA: Get on the "Poldark" train. Now!
  • "Mum" is not the word, but "mom" is
  • GOP debate #1 doesn't disappoint
  • Gearing up for the GOP show...err, showdown

Copyright © 2023 · Modern Studio Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in