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Jan 30 2020

Introducing a New Publication from Our Research Director!

Religious Homophily and Biblicism:
A Theory of Conservative Church Fragmentation

by Darren M. Slade

In his book, The Bible Made Impossible, Christian Smith proposes the hypothesis that religious homophily, a well-known psychological phenomenon, and biblicism may be the cause of church splits.

Our Research, Darren Slade, has just published a new article in the International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society that explores whether this hypothesis is a viable explanation for why certain conservative churches fragment.

From the article’s abstract:
“According to the most recent demographic datasets, the number of new Christian congregations throughout the world is outpacing the total number of new Christians, suggesting that institutional Christianity has become more proficient at internal division than it has at outward multiplication. Using the psychological phenomenon known as “homophily,” the purpose of this article is to provide a brief elaboration on the socio-psychological reasoning for why conflicts over biblical interpretation may be one of the dominant causes, among other factors, for conservative church splits and for why ‘biblicism’ may cause fragmentation among evangelicals more than their liberal Protestant counterparts. The article will first define and characterize theological conservatism, homophily, and biblicism before discussing the possible correlation between conflicts over biblical interpretation and church fragmentation. The article proposes that theological disagreements over exclusivist scriptural interpretations is a viable explanation for the destabilization of conservative congregations. Church splits among evangelicals are explainable partly because of the conservative tendency toward religious homophily and the need to establish rival congregations built around competing biblical interpretations.”

Check out a preview of the article by clicking here.

[Read more…]

Written by Darren M. Slade, PhD · Categorized: FaithX Blog, FaithX News, Posts by Darren Slade, Research · Tagged: church splits, Homophily, Religious Homophily

Jan 10 2019

Announcing a New Publication by Our Research Director

Have you ever wondered if there are certain psychological variables that could potentially influence or distort someone’s observation of a “miracle”?

With all the claims of people having witnessed a bona fide miracle today, from both Christians and non-Christians alike, it seems incumbent for critical thinkers and spiritual discerners to evaluate each miracle eyewitness and the potential for psychological misrepresentation.

The 3rdedition of the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religionhas just announced the publication of an article by FaithX Co-Founder and Research Director, Darren M. Slade, entitled “Miracle Eyewitness Reports.” 

[Read more…]

Written by Darren M. Slade, PhD · Categorized: FaithX Blog, Posts by Darren Slade, Research, Uncategorized · Tagged: Darren Slade, Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion, miracle eyewitness reports, miracle eyewitnesses, Miracles, psychology

Dec 06 2018

FaithX Research – Vital Congregations Report 2018 just released

FaithX follows research relevant to those experimenting with new ways of organizing and being faith communities. When we find relevant research, we curate it here on the FaithXperimental blog and provide a link to download the full publication. We also post it on the Research section of the FaithX website.

The latest research of interest is the Vital Congregations Report – 2018, authored by Linda Bobbitt and published by the Congregational Vitality Project of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Here is the research abstract:

What does a congregation mean when they describe themselves as spiritually vital? How does a congregation become vital? What is the relationship between vitality and sustainability? Does the answer depend on the faith tradition? This study asked leaders from 10 different faith traditions to answer these questions. We found remarkable similarities across all traditions while also discovering the unique perspectives of each. Their answers illustrate distinct understandings about the way people interact with God and different perspectives of God’s promise of hope for the world.

Click here to download the Congregational Vitality Report and explore these answers.

[Read more…]

Written by Mary Beth Howard · Categorized: FaithX Blog, Posts by Ken Howard, Research · Tagged: Congregational Vitality, Congregational Vitality Project, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, FaithXperimental Blog, Orthodox Christian Church, research, Synagogue Vitality, United Church of Christ Vitality, Vital Congregations Report

Dec 28 2017

Minimum Viable Belief: Discovering Your “Why Of Whys”

Minimum Viable Belief

By Ken Howard

Okay. Let’s review.

Early this summer I published a research paper entitled, “The Religion Singularity: A Demographic Crisis Destabilizing and Transforming Institutional Christianity,” in which I described an emerging phenomenon in which the total numbers of denominations and worship centers (local faith communities) worldwide is growing and splintering considerably faster than the total number of Christians, driving relentlessly downward the average number of Christians per denomination and worship center. This, in turn, will render both institutions unsustainable in their current forms by the end of this century. Ultimately, denominations may die out due to their lack of capacity for experimentation and change. However, local faith communities may be able to transform themselves into a new expression of Church. To do that, they need to develop the capacity to experiment with new ways of being Church without sacrificing the heart of Christianity. So how do they develop those capacities? That was the topic of last week’s blog post, in which I outlined the seven practices I call Vision Guided Experimentation. Today, we explore the first practice, Minimum Viable Belief (MVB), which underpins the practices that follow it.

Where there is no vision, the people perish.
(Proverbs 29:18)

This verse from Proverbs is the reason why the first practice of Vision-Guided Experimentation is so important. Minimum Viable Belief (MVB) is all about vision. It’s about getting to your faith-based community’s “Why of Why’s” – the seminal belief from which all other organizational beliefs and values stem – so that you can make its vision so clear, core, and compelling that it becomes the primary motivator and compass for all members of the community, so that it both motivates them to get up in the morning and keeps them going all day no matter what frustrations they face.

Minimum Viable Belief is the overarching, transcendent, and seminal reason for your faith community’s existence, driving every other practice. It is a transcendent vision about how that organization wants to change the world, a vision so meaningful to the members of the community that they would rather fail in the service of that vision than succeed in the service of anything else. In the Christian tradition – as well as some others – we define this as a sense of call: an clear and overriding sense of what God desires for a faith community or a faith-based organization (or an individual) to do or to be.

Minimum Viable Belief is also about creating a organizational culture that is experimental, creative, and flexible, and yet grounded, focused, and faithful. MVB allows the community and its members to navigate around massive and complex obstacles while continuing to tack towards its ultimate goal. It empowers startup communities and organizations to be sufficiently self-directing, self-correcting, and tenacious that they can survive the departures of their founders and their transition to their community’s full scale.

A problem most faith communities have is that most of the time we never get past asking ourselves the question, “What?,” as in, “what programs should we offer?” And if we are going to do any tweaking of anything we do, it comes up here. Once in a while we dive a little deeper, asking, “How?,” as in, “How do we get this approved?” Unfortunately, we seldom get to “Why?,” as in “What is our motivation for doing this in the first place?” I say unfortunately, since just asking Why once is not enough: we tend to have a different Why for every What. Rather, we have to keep asking Why until we get to the “Why of Whys.” Exactly how you get to that transcendent Why is what this and the next blog post are about. [Read more…]

Written by Ken Howard · Categorized: FaithX Blog, FaithX News, FaithX Services, Ministry Development and Redevelopment, Posts by Ken Howard, Research · Tagged: Abrahamic religions, Christ, Christianity, God, Jesus, Leroy Hood, minimum viable belief, New Testament, proverbs, Religion Singularity

Dec 21 2017

The Religion Singularity Crisis: Avoid the Danger – Discover the Opportunity

chinese-crisis-danger-oppor-2

By Ken Howard

It has been said that the Chinese word for “crisis” is formed from two ideograms: one which signifies danger, the other opportunity.

Last summer, we published a research paper entitled, “The Religion SIngularity: The Demographic Crisis Destabilizing and Transforming Institutional Christianity” in the Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society. The article describes an emerging phenomenon, which we have called the Religion Singularity: the runaway growth-by-fragmentation in the numbers of denominations and worship centers at a rate exceeding the growth in the total population of Christians worldwide.

The danger in this crisis is existential. If the long-standing current trend does not change – and it seems unlikely we can fight it – then it will drive down the size of those institutions to unsustainable levels by the end of this century. We may see the end of denominations and worshipping communities as we have known them.

But how do we find the opportunity in this crisis? The answer lies in point of view and preparation. Once we accept that denominations and worship centers will die in their current form, then we can prepare to ride out the change, so that we might survive and thrive in the midst of the current uncertainty into whatever form the resurrected body of Christ might take on the other side. Faith-based communities and organizations will need to find a way to achieve sustainability in the truest sense of the term: choosing to adapt to their changing environment while remaining true to their vision and mission.  [Read more…]

Written by Ken Howard · Categorized: Coaching and Consulting, FaithX Blog, FaithX News, FaithX Services, Future of Faith, Ministry Development and Redevelopment, Posts by Ken Howard, Research · Tagged: church, faith, Faith-based, faith-based organization, ideogram, religion, Religion Singularity, Research and development, singularity, Startup company, sustainability, vision-guided experimentation

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