"That is pretty much what I found during two weeks of lectures and sermons across New Zealand."

Gushee identified 4 overlapping challenges to religion which he believes are common to both countries.

1) Both countries are becoming more secular

Steadily shrinking percentages of the people in both New Zealand and the United State claim Christian commitment.

2) Churches are suffering from thinning understandings of the meaning of commitment

"When I first became a "born-again" Christian in the 1970s, the expectation and practice was that we would be in church three times a week - Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night — along with the weekly tithe of 10% of income to the church."

"But both in New Zealand and here, high commitment these days looks more like one to two visits a month, and giving is more irregular among many."

3) Our denominations and congregations are affected by politicised ideological and moral divisions

The left/right polarisation on today's sex-related social issues looks pretty similar in New Zealand churches to what it looks like in the United States.

Some of these differences are contributing both to internal conflicts and difficulty in mustering a public voice.

4) Our pastors struggle to meet the challenges of the era.

• They do everything they can and still numbers decline
• They start contemporary services for younger people while retaining traditional services for the Boomer set
• They try to shepherd flocks that are hard to get a grasp on because it's a different congregation every week
• They have to navigate theological, ethical, and political land-mines, any of which can blow up already vulnerable congregations

Gushee also noted some significant differences between the two countrys:

• Politics in New Zealand overall falls further to the left. New Zealand is much more like a European liberal social democracy
• New Zealand is much more "green"
• New Zealand is much more peacemaking-oriented. This extends to most Christians as well
• He was impressed by New Zealand's efforts to build a genuinely bicultural society in relation to its indigenous Maori population — and a genuinely multicultural society related to other immigrants
• Christian voices in the public square appear overall to be stronger in the United States than in New Zealand. The general sense is that public discourse hums along in New Zealand without a significant Christian presence
• Earlier denominational efforts to fund public-issues research or public-affairs officers seem largely to have been abandoned

Source

• davidgushee.religionnews.com
• Image: davidgushee.religionnews.com

"For my part, I wish to assure, in the wake of my predecessors, the firm wish to continue on the path of ecumenical dialogue," he said.

The Pope was greeted by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I — the first Orthodox patriarch to attend a papal inauguration since 1054 — who also reiterated the need for the churches to shun worldly distractions and to work on the unity between Christians.

Pope Francis listened to the words of the patriarch seated on an armchair rather than the throne that is customarily used in the Clementine Hall.

He thanked Bartholomew I, calling him "my brother Andrew", since the patriarchs of Constantinople are considered the successors of the Apostle Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter.

He then said that, thanks to the presence at the inauguration Mass of representatives of the various churches, he felt "in an even more urgent fashion, the prayer for unity of all believers in Christ, and together to see somehow prefigured the full realisation of full unity, which depends on God's plan and our loyal collaboration".

Addressing the representatives of the Jewish communities, the Pope emphasised "the very special spiritual bond" that they have with Christians.

The Pope then greeted those belonging to other religious traditions, first of all the Muslims who "adore the one, living, and merciful God and who call upon him in prayer".

Then, addressing all those gathered, he said: "I really appreciate your presence. In it I see a tangible sign of the desire to grow in mutual respect and co-operation for the common good of humanity."

The Pope also expressed a feeling of closeness "to all men and women who, although not claiming to belong to any religious tradition, still feel themselves to be in search of truth, goodness, and beauty".

Sources:

Vatican Radio

Vatican Information Service

Vatican Insider

Image: Patheos

When Jennifer started therapy with me less than a year later, she was looking for a divorce lawyer. "I spent more time planning my wedding than I spent happily married," she sobbed. Most disheartening to Jennifer was that she'd tried to do everything right. "My parents got married young so, of course, they got divorced. We lived together! How did this happen?"

Cohabitation in the United States has increased by more than 1,500 percent in the past half century. In 1960, about 450,000 unmarried couples lived together. Now the number is more than 7.5 million. The majority of young adults in their 20s will live with a romantic partner at least once, and more than half of all marriages will be preceded by cohabitation. This shift has been attributed to the sexual revolution and the availability of birth control, and in our current economy, sharing the bills makes cohabiting appealing. But when you talk to people in their 20s, you also hear about something else: cohabitation as prophylaxis.

In a nationwide survey conducted in 2001 by the National Marriage Project, then at Rutgers and now at the University of Virginia, nearly half of 20-somethings agreed with the statement, "You would only marry someone if he or she agreed to live together with you first, so that you could find out whether you really get along." About two-thirds said they believed that moving in together before marriage was a good way to avoid divorce.

But that belief is contradicted by experience. Couples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not. These negative outcomes are called the cohabitation effect. Continue reading

Sources

• Meg Jay in The New York Times Sunday Review
• Image: Andy Braner

The percentage of Catholics who are highly committed to the church has declined -­­ from 27 to 19 percent — in the 25 years since we first began tracking American Catholics' levels of commitment. Nonetheless, there is a relative stability in the commitment patterns over time. In 2005, for example, 21 percent of the respondents were classified as highly committed Catholics, and this figure was 23 percent in both the 1993 and 1999 surveys. Further, the percentage of Catholics with a low level of commitment has not increased over the past 25 years; in fact it has slightly declined over time. The relative stability in Catholic commitment is all the more noteworthy given that since the late 1990s, there has been a sharp decline both in the proportion of Americans who identify with a religious denomination and in the proportion who report weekly church attendance. In sum, while significant numbers of Catholics may leave the church (Pew Forum 2008), the snapshot of current Catholics that our surveys capture at any one point in time (e.g., 1987, 1993, 1999, 2005), suggests that despite Catholic fluidity (due to people leaving, the aging of current cohorts, the influx of new immigrants), the level of commitment of those who are Catholic at a given time is not dramatically changing. And yet we certainly live in a changing church and in a changing society where religion is losing some of its supreme salience. Read more

• Source: National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Fr Z's Blog