Archive
VP Debate: Tim Kaine and American Religion in Flux
Tim Kaine’s faith story is an essential part of his stump speech. At the vice presidential debate, the Democratic candidate mentioned his missionary year in his response to the first question, then …
How Religions Change and Make Change – Speech
Brie Loskota shared the following remarks as the keynote address at Pillars Fund 2016 Convening in Chicago. I am Brie Loskota. I direct the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the …
Charting the Future of Religion in Los Angeles and Beyond – The Story of USC CRCC
The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture is a research and training center that explores how religions change and make change in Southern California and the world. This video tells the …
Civic Engagement: A Call for More Than Just Every Four Years
This article originally appeared in The Ismaili USA. Every four years the citizenry of the United States engages the political process through national elections. The election cycle seems to lengthen with each …
The Diplomat: South Korea’s Megachurches
South Korean megachurches are growing and innovating, despite a competitive Korean religious market, reported The Diplomat, in a story about CRCC-sponsored research. Despite many church-related controversies like sex scandals and embezzlement, church …
CRCC Honored at White House for Helping L.A. Become Stronger and Better Prepared for Disasters
By Rebecca Cheng Brie Loskota, executive director of the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture, was honored at the White House last week for her work bridging faith organizations and government …
Religion News Service: 15 Years After 9/11, Are Congregations Prepared for Disasters?
The 15th anniversary of 9/11 reminds religious leaders of the important role of congregations when faced with community disasters, Religion News Service reported. Few faith leaders, however, actually prepare plans to address …
Christian Science Monitor: Why Kasich’s atheist criticisms seem out of touch
Upon seeing a Harry Potter novel at a bookstore, Former Republican presidential candidate and Ohio governor John Kasich criticized its movie series star Daniel Radcliffe’s atheism. “What the [expletive] is wrong with …
Korean Papers Cover Seoul Conference on Religious Competition and Creative Innovation
CRCC’s research partners in Seoul, South Korea hosted a conference for the Religious Competition and Creative Innovation project, inviting scholars from around the world to discuss the themes of the project. Korean …
America magazine: Trump Makes a Place for Faith
As presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks more on his own faith to appeal to religious voters, his statements remain largely ambiguous. America, a national Catholic magazine, interviewed CRCC’s Andrew Johnson about his …
Religious Competition and Creative Innovation Around the Globe at Seoul Conference
CRCC researchers went to Seoul, South Korea for a conference on Religious Competition and Creative Innovation. Seoul serves as a comparison city to Los Angeles for the CRCC project, and the Seoul …
What We Know – And What We Don’t Know – After 20 Years of Charitable Choice
This post is adapted from a longer white paper on 20 years of Charitable Choice. Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton enacted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 …
Charitable Choice: A Bibliography
With the passage of welfare reform in 1996, the United States government instituted the “Charitable Choice” provision, leading to, for the first time, direct funding of religious organizations to provide social services. …
L.A. Times: ‘A delivery boy’ for God: Greg Laurie and his Harvest Crusade
The Los Angeles Times interviewed CRCC’s Richard Flory for an article about the 27th annual Harvest Crusade and its founder Greg Laurie. Nearly 100,000 people are expected to attend the event (now named …
Reimagining Religion Conference Program and Livestream – Feb. 9, 2017
Scroll below to watch the livestream (times of panels noted on conference schedule) February 9, 2017 University of Southern California Preview: Increasingly, Americans are choosing not to identify with a particular religious …
The Row L.A. – A Skid Row Church Ministers on the Streets of Los Angeles
At The Row, or the “Church Without Walls,” members congregate on the corner of Wall St. and Winston St. in the middle of DTLA’s Skid Row every Friday night. Though church members …
Finding Love in the Heart of Skid Row
By Ariel Blandford, video intern with CRCC As the sun set over the Los Angeles downtown skyline, it illuminated cotton candy clouds and painted the row buildings in pastels, creating a watercolor …
L.A. Times: It’s 2016 and the Civil Rights Era Hasn’t Ended
This post originally appeared on the Sunday OpEd page of the L.A. Times. I participated in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. I was pastor of my second church, in Kansas City, Kansas, in …
Making Evangelical America Great Again: Trump and “Wall” Christians
Along with many other observers, I have been struggling to understand how nearly 80 percent of white evangelical Protestant voters can support Donald Trump, someone who has a dubious church-going record and …
Buzzfeed: Silicon Valley’s Hippest Church Is Going Public
CRCC’s senior research director Richard Flory was quoted by Buzzfeed about religious revival in Silicon Valley. An excerpt from the article: C3SV’s [an independent offshoot of a Pentecostal megachurch] parent, C3 Global, …