Archive
Building the Future of Religion, One Burrito at a Time: Service Groups and Religious “Nones”
On a recent Thursday night, a group of about 75 volunteers for the Burrito Project commandeered the kitchen and fellowship hall at the Church of the Epiphany to make 1,000 burritos to …
The “Nones” Are Alright
This article originally appeared on Al Jazeera America. This article argues that far from becoming morally rudderless secular citizens, many religiously unaffiliated people are seeking ways of forming meaning and identity as …
Mile of Miracles: A Microcosm of L.A.’s Religious Diversity
The processes of spiritual seeking, discovering and creating are constantly shaping and reshaping the religious landscape of Los Angeles. Far from being a godless metropolis, L.A. is one of the most religiously …
Happy Chrismukkah: On the Complexity of Jewish Identity
(Image from Adam Baron on Flickr Commons) Back in March, I traveled to a two-day conference called “Rethinking Jewish Identity and Education” at the Mandel Center at Brandeis University. On the flight …
The Wild, Wild West of Mindfulness
Diana Winston’s post-college spiritual journey was something of an anachronism. After she graduated from Brown in the late 1980s, Winston traveled to Southeast Asia, where she spent several years working with Theravada …
The Tidal Wave of Indifference: I Don’t Church, I Brunch
A lot has been written recently about the spiritual-but-not-religious crowd, or the “religious nones”–people who have no particular religious affiliation–and how their numbers are rapidly growing in the U.S. Recent reports place …
Meditation and Authenticity: Everything Old Is New Again
A mindfulness teacher loosely associated with Against the Stream described his unconventional approach to meditation–keep a notebook close at hand to record your thoughts and feelings–as a more faithful reflection of the …
A Meditation on the Nones
Anna Stephens was on a humanitarian mission to Sudan with the International Red Cross when she first read The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle. For Anna, …
From #GivingTuesday to Giving USA, New Lessons for Faith-Based Organizations
Huffington Post Religion covered the Faith+GivingTuesday+SocialGood summit, which featured CRCC’s Rev. Mark Whitlock, Brie Loskota and Nadia Roumani. The summit convened representatives from religious organizations, universities and entrepreneurs who are exploring the …
The Religious Literacy Primer for Crises, Disasters and Public Health Emergencies
A companion to the Field Guide for Religious Competency, the Religious Literacy Primer is a quick-reference document which provides information on basic religious literacy for 23 of the largest religious communities in …
A Different Approach to Studying American Jews
(Photo by Yonatan Sindel) Since the Pew Research Center launched “A Portrait of Jewish Americans: Findings from a Pew Research Center Survey of U.S. Jews,” I’ve had a lot of interesting encounters …
Evangelical Atheisms: Sunday Assemblies and Ryan Bell’s “Year Without God”
“Isms” have a special place in the Western heart, and with good reason. Critiques of Neoliberalism help us make sense of the market-driven ethos, and explorations of postmodernism yield diagnoses of our …
Keeping Faith: A CRCC Senior Fellow Finds the Key to Passing Religion Across Generations
Bengtson says that emotional warmth rather than devoutness or discipline appears to be the key factor in families that successfully transmit religious traditions across generations. Allowing their children—particularly adolescents—to venture away from orthodox expressions of belief might seem counterintuitive to parents who want their kids to remain in the fold. Yet Bengtson’s work shows that a home environment that is nurturing but not constricting appears most likely to encourage spiritual roots to grow deep.
Families and Faith: How Religion is Passed Down across Generations
Families and Faith Vern L. Bengtson, With Norella M. Putney, and Susan Harris, Authors (Oxford University Press: 2013) CRCC hosted the grant that enabled the collection of interview data for this project, …
Spirituality and Religion on “TakePart Live”
CRCC Managing Director Brie Loskota appeared on an episode of Pivot TV’s TakePart Live along with The OpEd Project director Zeba Khan and comedian David Harris to discuss changing views of religion …
Principled Pluralism: Report of the Inclusive America Project
Brie Loskota participated on an Aspen Institute panel on religious pluralism in the United States. The distinguished panelists contributed to a publication that “discusses proven strategies for managing America’s religious diversity in …
Celebrating Lent: Why non-religious millennials are choosing to sacrifice
CRCC Research Director Richard Flory has been quoted in an article appearing on the KPCC website. Flory discusses the ways that non-religious young adults still take part in some traditional religious practices …
Creative Expressions of Jewishness
This month, the Yiddish Book Center will launch a new program called Tent: Encounters With Jewish Culture, which is based on the belief that “modern culture can inspire us to think imaginatively …
The Jewish Religious Scene in Southern California
This post originally appeared in The Jewish Journal. As I wrote upon my return from from the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies, embarrassed that Los Angeles was conspicuously absent …
Jewish Identity and the High Holidays
My dual roles as a Jewish sociologist and a sociologist of American Jewry come to the forefront during the Jewish High Holidays. Each year, as I take part in the holidays, I …