decline
A better response to the decline of the Christian West
Some fight to preserve what is fading. Michel de Certeau shows how this is an enormous theological error.
Getting ultrareal about the church
Ultrarealism, a concept I learned from distance running, begins by seeing things as they really are.
When small-town pastors put down roots
The ministry of abiding, even in the face of decline, is an offering to God.
by Brad Roth
The coming-of-age novel comes of age
If old age is another country, three novelists are exploring not just the peaks and valleys but also the rough places in between.
Empty temples in Japan
Japanese Buddhist adherence is in sharp decline. At every stage of this story, the analogies to Western Catholics are obvious.
Decline and its complexities
There’s little for us mainliners to celebrate in this new Pew study. We’re losing people, and fast. I appreciate Heidi Haverkamp’s realistic-yet-hopeful words here and Rob Rynders’ there. But, like them, I’m not interested in spinning an argument that the numbers are somehow lying.
The numbers are clearer, however, than the reasons for them.
Why I still love the church
I often think I hear colleagues asking, “How could we attract nuns to our church?” Actually they’re talking about “the nones,” of course. One of the clearest findings of the Pew Forum’s new religious landscape study is that fewer and fewer people have any religious affiliation at all. Catholics and mainline Protestants show the biggest drop.
I feel pretty conflicted about all of this.
Dementia and resurrection
Perhaps it's only when we let go of who and what our loved one was that we can receive who they are now.
by Samuel Wells
Still exceptional?
With its widening gap between the rich and the poor, the decline of its middle class and crises in its health care and educational systems, the U.S. is no longer the golden land of opportunity.