America has been gaining more than 600,000 new Christians each year—all without the help of any evangelism efforts.

Researchers recently took second looks at the perennial question of whether evangelicals are losing younger generations.

A new report from Barna Group indicates that most of today's Christians are more like the Pharisees than Jesus.

Barna surveyed 718 self-identified Christians from a variety of denominations to find what extent their actions and attitudes line up with Jesus's. Researchers found only 1 in 7 Christians manages to hold Christ-like beliefs and also act in Christ-like ways. Yet, 1 in 2 Christians tends "to have attitudes and actions that are characterized by self-righteousness." (See the full infographic at the bottom of this post.)

A majority of pastors continue to doubt man-made global warming, according to a report by LifeWay Research.

The survey found about 4 in 10 Protestant pastors "believe global warming is real and man made" — an increase from similar data collected in 2010, but down slightly from 2008. Pastors' views generally line up with popular opinion on the topic, LifeWay states. The percentage of Americans who said they believed global warming was the result of human activity reached all-time low in 2010, when just 34 percent agreed with the statement.

Adding to the mounting research on religiously unaffiliated Americans (i.e. "nones"), the Barna Group examined 15 measures of non-religiosity and drew some interesting conclusions (infographic at bottom of post).

Approximately 6 in 10 churchgoers say Christianity is the only way to obtain eternal life, according to a new study from LifeWay Research.

Mississippi may be the most religious state in America, but new Gallup stats reveal the most religious city in the United States isn't even in the Bible Belt. It's in Utah.

Americans' actions may not be aligned with their beliefs when it comes to the best-selling book of all time, according to a new report from the American Bible Society (ABS).

Update (Apr. 1): Hannah Gay talks more about her faith in a Baptist Press interview.

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Update (Mar. 12): Debate continues over whether the baby was actually infected vs. exposed to HIV, and thus the true significance of the treatment.

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The doctor who made headlines last week for apparently curing a baby girl born with AIDS began her work in pediatric HIV after observing the spread of the disease while as a missionary in Africa.

Hannah Gay, a Southern Baptist and doctor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, is responsible for the aggressive, early treatment being heralded as a “functional cure” for a two-year-old girl who now continues to test negative for HIV.

The majority of U.S. congregations reported increased giving throughout the economic recession, according to a new report from the Indiana University School of Philanthropy. But it's not all good news: Most congregations also reported significant spending increases—and less than half said their revenue kept up with inflation.

Parents considering whether or not to send their children to private school can now weigh more than just tuition and curriculum. According to a new study from professors at Calvin College, the affiliation of a high school student's school significantly impacts his or her sense of civic duty.

The increasing number of young church dropouts isn't just a Protestant problem. According to new research from the Barna Group, "65 percent of Catholic-raised young adults say they are less religiously active today than they were at age 15."

Good news for pastors seeking employment: 2013 could be a good year for a new job—namely if you don't mind working at a megachurch.

The Quebecois are no longer less religious than their peers in other Canadian provinces, according to a recent survey of religious practices among Canadians.

However, the news is a mixed blessing for religious leaders.

This month's Internet furor over a St. Louis pastor's apparent unwillingness to tip a waitress at Applebee's quickly outgrew the facts of the matter. But it certainly struck a chord, with many asking, "Why are Christians such bad tippers?"

Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, decided to search for statistics. "Why does this stereotype exist? Because, in large part, many servers think it is true. Many Christians do as well," he wrote on his blog. "But, what does the research say?"

The Barna Group's new Cities research project has identified America's most and least megachurch-oriented cities.

Sin City made the list—but placed in a surprising location.

The American Bible Society has partnered with The Barna Group to identify America’s most “Bible-minded” cities, based on "highest combined levels of regular Bible reading and belief in the Bible’s accuracy."

New research from The Barna Group suggests that most American adults are at least "somewhat concerned" about restrictions in religious freedom—especially evangelicals.

Update (Mar. 15): A new report from the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues at the University of California, Berkeley, states that 1 in 5 U.S. adults reported no religious preference in the 2012 General Social Survey.

And although the percentage of respondents who specified a religious preference is declining, data suggests that belief in God actually is not declining. The report states:

[Respondents'] certainty of believing in God decreased more between 1965 and 1991 than since, while preference for no religion barely changed from 1965 to 1990, then almost tripled since 1991. This asymmetrical timing of changes indicates that the connection between faith in God and identifying with an organized faith, if there is one, is far from simple. Unchurched believers still far outnumbered completely secular people in 2012.

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Update (Mar. 8): Bradley Wright has posted a new breakdown of the rise of the religiously unaffiliated over time based on age. Wright's newest analysis note that "the percentage of being unaffiliated increased in each group, but relatively speaking, it’s increased most among the middle-aged and the elderly," rather than among those aged 18-29.
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As New Year's resolutions face their first weeks of testing, the Barna Group has released a new study on the "changing state of temptation" in America.

Amid all the coverage of today's end-of-the-world gatherings (pegged to a misinterpretation of the ancient Mayan calendar) in Mexico, Argentina, France, Italy, Germany, Serbia, Russia, and—of all places—Iowa, the Deseret News rounded up recent research on end times beliefs among Americans today.

According to fresh data from the United Kingdom's once-a-decade census, the number of residents of England and Wales identifying as Christians dropped 13 percent since 2001. However, Christians still make up 59 percent of the total population.

Even as religious affiliation declines in America, 55 percent of Americans now say they are "certain" that miracles occur—a 22 percent increase over the past two decades.

(RNS) The typical American underestimates how many Protestants there are in the U.S., and vastly overestimates the number of religious minorities such as Mormons, Muslims, and atheist/agnostics, according to a new study.

In a fresh study of "Bible engagement" released yesterday, LifeWay Research surveyed more than 2,900 Protestant churchgoers and found that while 90 percent "desire to please and honor Jesus in all I do," only 19 percent personally read the Bible every day.

LifeWay also found that higher levels of Bible engagement were correlated to six actions:

Religious groups still received more of the nearly $300 billion that Americans gave to charity in 2011 than any other sector, but continued declines in donations have giving experts on the alert for a trend.

More than 220,000 religious groups shared almost $96 billion (about one-third of total giving) last year, a decrease of 1.7 percent from 2010 in a year when giving to all other sectors rose except foundations (down 6.1 percent), according to a new report by Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

"Giving to religion ... is declining," said Thomas Mesaros, chairman of the Giving Institute, to Reuters. "It might be too soon to call the drops in this particular category a trend, but I think they bear watching."

Interestingly, the report found that American individuals gave (on average) 1.9 percent of their disposable income last year, almost equal to what American Christians tithe today. Such stats have led to debates over whether American evangelicals are stingy or not.

Evangelical foundations have seen surges in donations recently as wealthy Christians favor new donor-advised funds, which provide a tax-efficient and cheaper alternative to setting up a private foundation.

Outreach-focused churches might want to spruce up their websites.

More than 17 million non-churchgoers visited the website of a local church or place of worship in the past 12 months. Yet many sites fail to easily provide the information these visitors are looking for, according to the just-released results of a nationwide research study by Phoenix-based Grey Matter Research.

These results follow the recent release of similar research on use of the internet for religious purposes.

Other new findings of note:

How frequently do regular churchgoers (who are online) visit their own congregation's website?

28%
In the last 30 days. (21.5 million adults)

44%
In the past six months. (34 million adults)

57%
In the past year. (44.8 million adults)

32%
Never. (Or their church does not have a website.)

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How frequently do regular churchgoers (who are online) visit other congregations' websites?

13%
In the last 30 days. (10.4 million adults)

27%
In the past six months. (21 million adults)

37%
In the past year. (28.7 million adults)

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How frequently do non-churchgoers (who are online) visit the websites of places of worship?

2%
In the last 30 days. (1.6 million adults)

10%
In the past six months. (10.6 million adults)

16%
In the past year. (17.4 million adults)

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What people do on the websites of places of worship:

Check to see the times of services: 43%

Check what activities are offered: 29%

Look for a map or directions to the church’s location: 28%

Watch streaming video: 26%

Listen to streaming audio: 26%

Check to see what the church’s religious beliefs are: 22%

Request prayer: 18%

Downloading a podcast: 15%

Checking what denomination or group the church belongs to: 15%

Send a message to the pastor or leader: 12%

Post on a bulletin board or forum: 5%

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12%
Percentage of all American adults who have visited the website of a church or other local place of worship within the past thirty days.

22%
Percentage of all American adults who have visited the website of a church or other local place of worship within the past six months.

-----

LifeWay Research has also done studies on church usage of technology, including electronic giving, cloud computing, social networking, and general web usage.

Outreach-focused churches might want to spruce up their websites.

More than 17 million non-churchgoers visited the website of a local church or place of worship in the past 12 months. Yet many sites fail to easily provide the information these visitors are looking for, according to the just-released results of a nationwide research study by Phoenix-based Grey Matter Research.

These results follow the recent release of similar research on use of the internet for religious purposes.

Other new findings of note:

How frequently do regular churchgoers (who are online) visit their own congregation's website?

28%
In the last 30 days. (21.5 million adults)

44%
In the past six months. (34 million adults)

57%
In the past year. (44.8 million adults)

32%
Never. (Or their church does not have a website.)

-----

How frequently do regular churchgoers (who are online) visit other congregations' websites?

13%
In the last 30 days. (10.4 million adults)

27%
In the past six months. (21 million adults)

37%
In the past year. (28.7 million adults)

-----

How frequently do non-churchgoers (who are online) visit the websites of places of worship?

2%
In the last 30 days. (1.6 million adults)

10%
In the past six months. (10.6 million adults)

16%
In the past year. (17.4 million adults)

-----

What people do on the websites of places of worship:

Check to see the times of services: 43%

Check what activities are offered: 29%

Look for a map or directions to the church’s location: 28%

Watch streaming video: 26%

Listen to streaming audio: 26%

Check to see what the church’s religious beliefs are: 22%

Request prayer: 18%

Downloading a podcast: 15%

Checking what denomination or group the church belongs to: 15%

Send a message to the pastor or leader: 12%

Post on a bulletin board or forum: 5%

-----

12%
Percentage of all American adults who have visited the website of a church or other local place of worship within the past thirty days.

22%
Percentage of all American adults who have visited the website of a church or other local place of worship within the past six months.

-----

LifeWay Research has also done studies on church usage of technology, including electronic giving, cloud computing, social networking, and general web usage.

C. S. Lewis said that Christianity was about achieving perfection in God, not happiness. Even so, a survey in this month's American Sociological Review (ASR) suggests that a "high rate of life satisfaction" is at least a byproduct of the Christian life.

Researchers Chaeyoon Lim, sociologist at the University of Madison-Wisconsin, and Robert Putnam, author most recently of American Grace and most famously of Bowling Alone, found that people who frequently attend church and other places of worship are happier than those who attend less frequently. Lim and Putman say respondents' happiness comes from building friendships in a close-knit social circle around common religious beliefs — not necessarily from the content of said beliefs. “Our evidence shows that it is not really going to church and listening to sermons or praying that makes people happier, but making church-based friends and building social networks there,” Lim said.

Lim and Putnam surveyed some 3,000 Americans from 2006 to 2007. A majority of participants were evangelical and mainline Protestants and Catholics. About one-third of participants who attend church frequently and have at least 3-5 close friends there said they were "extremely satisfied" with their lives. That percentage jumps to 40 percent for frequent churchgoers who report having 11 or more close friends at church. Tragically, 15 percent of frequent churchgoers reported having not one close friend at church. According to the survey, friendless churchgoers are less happy than those who are not religious and do not attend church at all, as well as those who are very religious but do not attend church.

What seemed like a divorce turned out to be only a brief separation.

The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the American Academy of Religion (AAR), premier academic societies in the respective fields of critical biblical studies and religion, sent a letter to members this week announcing their joint conference — an annual pre-Thanksgiving event that in 2007 drew over 10,000 scholars — would resume in 2011 in San Francisco. They began holding separate conferences in separate cities in 2008.

This week April DeConick, a Rice University scholar in early Jewish/Christian thought, posted the letter, which includes agreed-upon guidelines for forthcoming conferences:

These meetings will

Occur in the same city — though the venue will change from year to year;
Occur at the same time — the weekend before the US Thanksgiving holiday;
Feature a single, jointly managed Publishers/Software/Book Exhibit;
Feature a single, jointly managed Employment Center;
Feature distinct and separate AAR and SBL programs planned with open communication between the organizations;
Encourage the organizations’ members to attend each other’s programs and events at no additional cost;
Allow the organizations to pursue their unique, if sometimes overlapping, missions;
Enhance cooperation, not competition, between the organizations.

The decision to meet separately drew criticism from attendees whose scholarly research fits AAR and SBL's respective fields, and who thus had to ask their schools to pay to attend both or opt to attend only one. Religion booksellers, seminary exhibitors, and alumni groups faced similar logistical challenges.

The letter, signed by AAR executive director Jack Fitzmier and SBL executive director Kent Richards, says nine concurrent meetings are planned from 2011 to 2019, with a fall 2012 meeting in Chicago and a fall 2013 meeting in Baltimore.

When? Tuesday, October 6, 10 a.m. CST
Where? CT's Webinar Page
Why? Because when else will you have a chance to have a conversation with Christian Smith?

If you haven't yet read Christianity Today's interview with sociologist Christian Smith in the magazine's redesigned October 2009 issue, tune in for the live version, tomorrow morning at 10 CST.

I will be speaking with Christian — professor at the University of Notre Dame and director of its Center for the Study of Religion and Society — about his latest research on young adults. Souls in Transition, The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults in America is the follow-up to his and Melinda Lundquist Denton's groundbreaking 2005 book, Soul Searching. We will talk about the social and religious instincts of Americans ages 18-29, a group sociologists have coined emerging adults (and one that Christian profiled in his 2007 Books & Culture cover story). Christian and I will also discuss ways the church can root emerging adults in Christ at a time they are most likely to leave all things religious.

Join us for an informative, lively conversation, and come prepared with your own questions for Christian.

A new study reports that one in eight adults in Northern Ireland are evangelicals. These born-again Christians, like those in America, hold more conservative beliefs and are more committed to their churches than other Protestants.

A 2008 study by Claire Mitchell from Queen's University in Belfast and James Tilley of Jesus College, Oxford University, provide a snapshot of conservative Protestants in Northern Ireland. Using the 2004 Northern Irish Life and Times Survey, Mitchell and Tilley find that there are almost no differences between denominations. Instead, what matters is whether Protestants identify as "a born-again Christian" or "evangelical."

Last week the Justice Department announced that drug company Eli Lilly had agreed to pay $1.42 billion to settle criminal and civil charges that it had illegally marketed its blockbuster antipsychotic drug Zyprexa. The case accused company sales reps of promoting the drug for conditions beyond its narrow FDA-approved use of treating schizophrenia and symptoms of bipolar disorder, and for populations (children and the elderly) for whom its known side effects are particularly risky. The New York Times report indicates that claims and evidence in the case were similar to a California state lawsuit which alleged that company studies of the drug circulated among its sales force were "Lilly's thinly veiled marketing of Zyprexa as an effective chemical restraint for demanding, vulnerable and needy patients."

While the settlement was the largest amount paid by a single defendant in the history of the US department of Justice, it is dwarfed by the $39 billion in sales Zyprexa has generated since its approval in 1996, and is less than half of its $3.5 billion in sales in the first nine months of 2008.

This most recent case adds to the already sordid backdrop to Marcia Angell's scathing indictment of drug companies and the physicians, medical schools, and professional organizations happy to collude with them published in the latest New York Review of Books. Angell, the Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School who served as editor-in-chief for the New England Journal of Medicine for two decades, believes these massive payouts are "just the cost of doing business" and "well worth it" for drug companies so long as the drug continues to rake in billions.

In Angell's telling, the particular offenses reported in the government Zyprexa case represent only a fraction of drug company improprieties, a discouraging litany she candidly rehearses. Yet without countenancing or minimizing their contributions to a corrupt system, she reserves her sharpest rebuke for her colluding peers.

It is easy to fault drug companies for this situation, and they certainly deserve a great deal of blame...Still, apologists might argue that the pharmaceutical industry is merely trying to do its primary job - further the interests of its investors - and sometimes it goes a little too far.

Physicians, medical schools, and professional organizations have no such excuse, since their only fiduciary responsibility is to patients. The mission of medical schools and teaching hospitals - and what justifies their tax-exempt status - is to educate the next generation of physicians, carry out scientifically important research, and care for the sickest members of society. It is not to enter into lucrative commercial alliances with the pharmaceutical industry.

Angell is concerned that unless the medical profession reasserts its independence by sharply breaking its improper financial dependence on the pharmaceutical industry, the integrity of its work will continue to decline, and with it, the trust of the public.

And no payout, however staggering, can buy that back.

The inaugural gathering of The Jesus Project, a group of biblical scholars and academics in related disciplines embarking on a five-year quest to unearth the historical Jesus, took place in Amherst, N.Y. December 5th through 7th. Historian R. Joseph Hoffman, Chair of The Scientific Committee for the Study of Religion (CSER), the Jesus Project's sponsor, describes the group's intent and operating principles on its website.

The Jesus Project, as CSER has named the new effort, is the first methodologically agnostic approach to the question of Jesus' historical existence. But we are not neutral, let alone willfully ambiguous, about the objectives of the project itself. We believe in assessing the quality of the evidence available for looking at this question before seeing what the evidence has to tell us. We do not believe the task is to produce a "plausible" portrait of Jesus prior to considering the motives and goals of the Gospel writers in telling his story. We think the history and culture of the times provide many significant clues about the character of figures similar to Jesus. We believe the mixing of theological motives and historical inquiry is impermissible. We regard previous attempts to rule the question out of court as vestiges of a time when the Church controlled the boundaries of permissible inquiry into its sacred books. More directly, we regard the question of the historical Jesus as a testable hypothesis, and we are committed to no prior conclusions about the outcome of our inquiry. This is a statement of our principles, and we intend to stick to them.

The project was devised more than two years ago, and officially launched at a January 2007 conference, "Scripture and Skepticism," at the University of California at Davis.

CSER's website provides a list of notable attendees at this December's gathering, as well as a schedule of proceedings, and a follow-up report.

Public radio WBFO 88.7 FM in Buffalo interviewed one scholar involved in the project, Robert M. Price, two days before the event. According to his website bio, Price attended a fundamentalist (his word) Baptist church early in life, was involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship during his time at Montclair State College, and received an MTS degree in New Testament from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in the late ''70s. Since this time Price has distanced himself from evangelical Christianity, collected two PhDs, moved in and out of various forms of institutionalized liberal religion, and written numerous books. A 2007 release, Jesus is Dead, argues, according to its back cover, that

(1) not only is there no good reason to think that Jesus ever rose from the dead, (2) there is no good reason to think that he ever lived or died at all.

The publisher also notes that readers of the book

will have ammunition with which to counter the arguments of muscular apologists such as Gary Habermas, N.T. Wright, or William Lane Craig.

Price's inclusion in a study group premised on the belief that "the mixing of theological motives and historical inquiry is impermissible" has not been lost on Dan Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and Executive Director for the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. Blogging at PrimeTimeJesus, Wallace writes:

No one is neutral when it comes to Jesus, and we might as well all admit that fact. It is beyond my comprehension how a man who has explicitly and frequently written that the historical Jesus is a myth could be a part of this project.

The Jesus Project's next conference is tentatively scheduled for May 2009 in Chicago. Papers from the December 2008 conference will be published in 2009 by Prometheus Books under the title Sources of the Jesus Tradition: An Inquiry.

Claudia Castillo, whose lungs had been ravaged by tuberculosis, has a new trachea. She made it herself . . . sort of.

Doctors in Spain took stem-cells from Claudia Castillo's bone marrow and had them form a section of trachea based on the trachea of an organ donor. The scientists transplanted the 2.75-inch piece and published the results in The Lancet:

The graft immediately provided the recipient with a functional airway, improved her quality of life, and had a normal appearance and mechanical properties at 4 months. The patient had no anti-donor antibodies and was not on immunosuppressive drugs.

The results show that we can produce a cellular, tissue-engineered airway with mechanical properties that allow normal functioning, and which is free from the risks of rejection.

Castillo is the first person to have an engineered trachea transplant, The Guardian says. She has had her new windpipe for several months without immunosuppressants - a breakthrough in surgery.

Besides giving hope to those who need transplants, Castillo's case is also important to the debate over whether to allow stem-cell research which destroys embryos.

"Engineering new tissues and organs from stem cells has long been a goal of researchers, because it would help overcome a chronic shortage of donor organs." NPR says. "But controversies over the source of stem cells have slowed research in the United States."

However the transplant, rather than highlighting limitations, is another victory for ethical (and legal) stem-cell research. In its Q&A on stem-cells, CNN says "In the past, because adult stem cells were considered stuck in their ways, the focus had been on embryonic cells but now scientists and doctors will be wanting to see if adult cells can be used to treat a wider range of conditions."

Michael Lindsay has, through extensive interviewing, tapped into a feature of American evangelicalism that's both fascinating and frustrating: two distinct social tiers. He identified these as the "populist" and "cosmopolitan" groups, which he wrote about in Faith in the Halls of Power. But there's another way of looking at evangelicals that divides them - much along the same lines - into elite and non-elite Christians.

The separation is fairly deep, it seems. So deep that they don't really go to church together. In fact, Lindsay writes in Monday's USA Today, many of the evangelical elite (including George W. Bush) hardly go to church at all:

I spent the past five years interviewing some of the country's top leaders - two U.S. presidents (George H.W. Bush and Carter), 100 CEOs and senior business executives, Hollywood icons, celebrated artists and world-class athletes. All were chosen because of their widely known faith. Yet I was shocked to find that more than half - 60% - had low levels of commitment to their denominations and congregations. Some were members in name only; others had actively disengaged from church life.

Everybody loses out, Lindsay says: "Community is a virtue for most religious traditions, but evangelicals have excelled at it. Declining church commitment among these leaders, therefore, is ripping at the very fabric that has distinguished American evangelicalism."

He addresses the reasons for this (frustration with the way churches are run) and the issue of where these elites do have Christian fellowship (exclusive Bible studies, parachurch ministry boards), and takes them gently to task for elitism.

But he doesn't give them the assignment of solving the problem - in this article, that's meted out to clergy.

Organized religion is perhaps the one factor that could motivate people to bridge the gap between rich and poor, especially now as more of the faithful move into the halls of power. To turn the tide, clergy around the country must engage and draw in these leaders. Otherwise, affluent believers will continue to leave their congregations - and their fellow believers - behind in their ascent, creating a gated community of the soul.

According to a new poll conducted by the Barna Group, a substantial majority of Americans believes in the literal truth of six key Bible stories. For those of us worried about how to communicate biblical truth in our increasingly postmodern and pluralistic culture, the findings indicate that many folks continue to accept the Word of God at face value.

Here are the overall results among adults to the question of whether they thought a specific story in the Bible was "literally true, meaning it happened exactly as described in the Bible":

Christ's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection (75%);

Daniel in the Lion's Den (65%);

Moses parting the Red Sea (64%);

David and Goliath (63%);

Peter walking on water (60%);

God creating the universe in six days (60%).

When you break down the numbers, it gets even more interesting. Several factors are correlated with less belief in a literal resurrection: high education, mainline vs. non-mainline Protestantism, Catholicism vs. Protestantism, and white vs. black. So, statistically speaking, a highly educated white Catholic or mainline professor from the Northeast would likely be more skeptical than a blue-collar African-American Protestant from the Midwest or South.

Further, the more skeptical you are about the Bible, the more likely it is that you are a political liberal. On the flip side, the more you take these narratives literally, the more likely you are to be a conservative:

There were very consistent patterns related to people's political inclinations. Of the six stories examined, just one story (the resurrection of Christ) was considered to be literally true by at least half of all liberals. In contrast, among conservatives, only one of those stories was taken literally by less than 80% (the 76% who embraced the six day creation as absolute truth.) Similarly, the data showed that Republicans were more likely than either Democrats or Independents to accept each of the stories as literally accurate. For all six narratives, Independents were the voting group least likely to hold a literal interpretation, an average of twenty percentage points lower than the norm among Republicans.

This hints, to me at least, that the national Democrats, despite their recent rediscovery of people of faith, have an uphill climb ahead in winning their trust - and their votes. Certainly they have done so with African Americans. It remains to be seen if they will be able to get the much larger numbers of white Protestants to also believe in them.

A new study by The Barna Group shows that Americans "remain confident that some of the most amazing stories in the Bible can be taken at face value."

The nationwide survey asked adults their take on six well-known Bible stories (Creation, parting of the Red Sea, David killing Goliath, Daniel in the lion's den, Peter walking on water, the Resurrection of Jesus) whether the story was "literally true, meaning it happened exactly as described in the Bible" or whether they thought the story was "meant to illustrate a principle but is not to be taken literally."

The results are broken down by faith tradition, geography, race, and education. To take one overall finding, though: "The story of Jesus Christ rising from the dead, after being crucified and buried" was the story most widely embraced. Three out of four adults (75 percent) said they interpreted that narrative literally.

Yet polls and anecdotal evidence suggest that 75 percent of Americans are not living dedicated lives to the resurrected Jesus!

This should give us apologetic pause. A great deal of evangelical apologetics is about proving the historicity of the resurrection (or creation--intelligent design or 7-day--but nearly two-thirds of Americans already believe in a literal 7-day creation). The figures suggest that this is NOT the battle ground for most Americans. It is the relevance or meaning of the resurrection that seems to elude Americans. It is not a stretch for most people to believe that a God who created the universe could raise Jesus from the dead, among other miracles--Duh. What is a stretch is understanding what difference it makes.

Perhaps it's time for a new chapter in evangelical apologetics. Not "The Resurrection--Did it Happen?" but "The Resurrection--So What?"

A new United Nations report, "State of the Future," points to signs of progress across many measures of human development. The document concludes, "People around the world are becoming healthier, wealthier, better educated, more peaceful, more connected, and they are living longer." According to an analysis by Stephen Moore:

World-wide illiteracy rates have fallen by half since 1970 and now stand at an all-time low of 18%. More people live in free countries than ever before. The average human being today will live 50% longer in 2025 than one born in 1955.

To what do we owe this improvement? Capitalism, according to the U.N. Free trade is rightly recognized as the engine of global prosperity in recent years. In 1981, 40% of the world's population lived on less than $1 a day. Now that percentage is only 25%, adjusted for inflation. And at current rates of growth, "world poverty will be cut in half between 2000 and 2015"--which is arguably one of the greatest triumphs in human history. Trade and technology are closing the global "digital divide," and the report notes hopefully that soon laptop computers will cost $100 and almost every schoolchild will be a mouse click away from the Internet (and, regrettably, those interminable computer games).

It also turns out that the Malthusians (who worried that we would overpopulate the planet) got the story wrong. Human beings aren't reproducing like Norwegian field mice. Demographers now say that in the second half of this century, the human population will stabilize and then fall.

Yet despite all this progress, much of what hear these days in the mainstream media seems designed to scare us about global warming, environmental destruction, crumbling families, rampant crime, Islamofascism, and global terror. And while these dangers may (or may not) be real, certainly it can't be un-Christian to give thanks to the One who rules unseen in the affairs of human beings, causing his rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Many of the causes of these good gifts result from the influernce of Christianity, including political freedom, economic growth, and the rise of modern science. Surely a person of faith can see the glass as half-full, at least sometimes. We don't always have to claim the sky is falling.

Granted, the world still has major problems (such as the fact that more than a billion people subsist on a dollar a day or less). But what does Christianity, which calls the poor blessed and offers mankind real peace, have to say to a world that increasingly feels rich and unthreatened? What do Christians who seek to meet felt needs to introduce people to Christ do when people feel no needs? If your main appeal is helping people to feel better in the here and now, what do you say when they already feel good? And given the fact that the church often grows amid suffering, what happens when there is no suffering? Yes, the kindness of God is intended to lead us to repentance, but sometimes it seems as if few are so led.

Certainly felt needs do not always match real needs. And Christianity teaches that our real, most basic need (whether we know it or not) is forgiveness of our sins in order to have life with God. No matter how much comfort and convenience ths world offers, it cannot give us a relationship with God. Only Christ can do that. How do we communicate the Good News in this context? It hasn't worked out too well in affluent Western Europe, has it?

One final thought: This talk of human progress and development is eerily reminiscent of talk a hundred or so years ago that the 20th century was to be the "Christian century." Then came the Great War. Then Hitler. Then Stalin. What started so brightly turned to chaos in the space of a few years. With the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the decoding of the human genome (with all its potential for good and ill), may the same history not repeat itself in our day.

But there are no guarantees.

While an apple a day may (or may not) keep the doctor away, a growing body of research indicates that exercise may keep the psychologist away. Alessandra Pilu of the University of Cagliari in Italy and other investigators reported their conclusions in the online journal of Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health.

"The study found that depressed women who started a supervised exercise regimen had significant improvements in their symptoms over the next 8 months. Those who didn't exercise showed only marginal improvements.

"Before the study, all of the women had tried taking antidepressant medication for at least two months but had failed to improve.

"A number of studies have found that physically active people are less likely than couch potatoes to suffer depression. Some clinical trials have shown regular exercise can help treat the disorder, and perhaps be as effective as antidepressant drugs in some cases.

"The new findings suggest that exercise can even help people whose symptoms have been resistant to medication, according to the study authors."

Since an estimated two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, high rates of mental illness shouldn't surprise us. Mental illness is not just mental. We are integrated, living souls, and approaches must be holistic, treating mind, body, and spirit.

Perhaps being overweight is a largely unexplored factor in the epidemic of depression afflicting children and teens in the United States. Observers say that about 5 percent of adolescents suffer from clinical depression, and suicide is said to be the third-leading cause of death among teenagers.

Combine those figures with statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the number of overweight children has tripled in just 30 years, with 12.5 million teens considered overweight, and you'll see how significant the problem is. No wonder the Ad Council and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched a $324 million ad campaign aimed at stopping obesity.

So if you're feeling down, depressed, or blue, turn off the TV, computer, or video game, get off the couch, and take a hike. Exercise will not solve all your problems, of course (and you may need to check with your doctor first). But for a healthier and happier you, it may be a great place place to start.

Hat tip: Christine Guthrie