American Culture

“There is a sense that this talk about cultural Christianity is a refreshing change. Sociologists and educational leaders have been declaring Christianity the scourge of the planet for decades…. The problem is that a return to a cultural, but unbelieving, Christianity is not enough.” - P&D

“The shift dates back to the growing awareness, acceptance, and promotion of transgender sexual identities in mainstream American culture. This shift, dating to the mid 2010s and probably peaking in the early 2020s, did two things that fundamentally changed the evangelistic landscape for Christians in America.” - Mere Orthodoxy

“evangelicals have been regarded as a uniform, monolithic group… and that they are a reliable conservative voting bloc. As a scholar of American religion who has studied the evangelical movement for over 30 years, I was dissatisfied with this interpretation.” - The Conversation

“Investigating the traditional ‘deaths of despair,’ Ruhm finds that a one standard deviation increase in poor mental health increases drug deaths by about 2.5% and alcohol deaths by 3.4%; suicide deaths, surprisingly, increase by only about 0.6%. …large predicted increases in other causes: heart disease, lower respiratory disease, and homicides.” - IFS

“Christian music is having a moment. In the first half of 2024, it was the fourth fastest-growing music genre, fueled by surprisingly large gains among younger listeners.” - TGC

“That is the argument I make in the new edition of my book (October 1) The Collapse of Parenting: namely, that the problems American kids are experiencing are not solely due to smartphones per se, but to an increasingly toxic American youth culture.” - IFS

“About one in three U.S. adults now rate the Secret Service’s performance as ‘excellent’ (8%) or ‘good’ (24%), while 25% say it is ‘only fair’ and 36% ‘poor.’” - Gallup

“Public skepticism about national unity isn’t new. Surveys by Gallup and others dating back to the 1990s show that Americans typically have seen the country as divided on key values.” - Gallup

“Pop culture and the pop style of music in general has infiltrated and reshaped much of the thinking, writing, arranging, and performing of Christian music, even within much of ‘conservative’ Christianity.” - Taigen Joos

“As marriage rates continue to decline, the social sciences are documenting how robust the benefits of marriage are for adults and their children.” - Daily Citizen