“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like. Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within these articles but have found them thought-provoking.
“How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020” – Conrad Hackett, Marcin Stonawski, Yunping Tong, Stephanie Kramer, Anne Shi, and Dalia Fahmy at Pew Research Center: “The world’s population expanded from 2010 to 2020, and so did most religious groups, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of more than 2,700 censuses and surveys. Christians remained the world’s biggest religious group. But Christians (of all denominations, counted as one group) did not keep pace with global population growth from 2010 to 2020. The number of Christians rose by 122 million, reaching 2.3 billion. Yet, as a share of the world’s population, Christians fell 1.8 percentage points, to 28.8%. Muslims were the fastest-growing religious group over the decade. The number of Muslims increased by 347 million – more than all other religions combined. The share of the world’s population that is Muslim rose by 1.8 points, to 25.6%.”
“Walter Brueggemann, In Memoriam — When the World We Have Trusted In Is Vanishing” – Krista Tippett reposted a 2011 On Being interview with Walter Brueggemann after his death this past month: “The great Christian scholar of the biblical prophets died on June 5, 2025. Yet, in the lineage of the prophets, who called humanity to face its hardest realities, this profound, warm, and timeless conversation is a stunning offering straight into our present. ‘The amazing contemporaneity of this material,’ Walter Brueggemann says to Krista in this conversation from 2011, ‘and we relive by relistening, is that the issues are the same: the world we have trusted in is vanishing before our eyes and the world that is coming at us feels like a threat to us and we can’t quite see the shape of it.’ He embodied as much as taught a prophetic way of fearless truth telling, fierce hope, and disarming language that can break through ‘human hearts and human hurt.’ What is the calling of the Christian in a time like this, and what is the role of the preacher? We are lifting this episode out of the archive to mark this moment. Krista felt particularly called to point to this unedited version of their conversation, which was previously edited to meet time constraints, as the full discussion has such timely resonance.”
“Alasdair MacIntyre: virtuous outsider” – Terry Eagleton in UnHerd: “Where a poet or painter comes from usually matters a lot. It’s hard to imagine Canaletto without Venice, or Wordsworth without the Lake District. When it comes to philosophers, however, place seems less important, philosophy being too abstract a pursuit to have a home anywhere in particular. Thomas Hobbes was born in the pleasant Wiltshire town of Malmesbury, but would no doubt still have considered human life nasty, brutish and short had he been a native of Liverpool. Bertrand Russell was born in Monmouthshire, but it doesn’t seem to have played much part in his attempt to derive the whole of mathematics from logic. There are, however, some notable exceptions. Alasdair MacIntyre, who died last month at the age of 96, was born in Glasgow to parents of Irish descent, learnt how to read Irish as a child, and could still do so well into middle age. His father was one of the first generation of his family who spoke English as his first language. His hero was Andrew Fletcher, a Scottish patriot and enemy of the Act of Union with England. Though he taught at a range of universities, from Brandeis to Boston, Duke to Notre Dame, he kept Oxbridge for the most part at disdainful arm’s length, uneasy with its high-toned English culture. High Table and croquet in the quad weren’t his style. When he delivered a public lecture in Dublin some years ago, and was afterwards guest of honour at a banquet, he fled from the festivities and was found eating a sandwich alone in the bar.”
“As Alcoholics Anonymous turns 90, a look at the Serenity Prayer’s eternal relevance” – Dwight Lee Wolter at Religion News Service: “‘Serenity’ is not a word many would use to describe the world right now. Perhaps that is why this four-line version of a prayer continues to be uttered as often as it has been since it was first penned.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
As popular as it is, few people seem to know or even care about the origin and authorship of the Serenity Prayer. It was conceived in a little stone cottage in Heath, Massachusetts, by theologian and professor Reinhold Niebuhr around 1932. It was soon printed on cards and distributed to American military personnel in conflict and circulated by the National Council of Churches. It became even better known after being adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous in 1941, after an early AA member saw it in a New York newspaper obituary.”
“When holy places are spat upon: a cry from a Christian pastor and leader in Jerusalem” – Jack Sara in Christian Daily International: “While recently guiding a group of 16 peace studies students from the U.S., Canada, Hungary, and the UK through Jerusalem, I was teaching them about the sacredness of this city—a city revered by Christians, Muslims, and Jews. As we stood near the Church of All Nations, also known as the Church of Gethsemane, a group of young Jewish students walked by with their leaders. To our shock and sorrow, they began spitting in front of the church—an act of contempt simply because it was a Christian place of worship. As a local Christian and a follower of Jesus, this pierced my heart. Not just for the disrespect shown to a holy site, but for what it reflects: a failure to recognize the dignity of others made in the image of God.”
“Astronomers create a dazzling, elaborate map of nearby galaxy in thousands of colors” – Marcia Dunn in AP News: “Astronomers have revealed a nearby spiral galaxy in all its brilliant glory, shining in thousands of colors. The dazzling panoramic shot released Wednesday of the Sculptor galaxy by a telescope in Chile is so detailed that it’s already serving as a star-packed map. Scientists used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope to observe the galaxy for some 50 hours, stitching together more than 100 exposures to create the picture. The image spans 65,000 light-years, almost the entire galaxy. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. Sculptor — officially labeled NGC 253 — is considered a starburst galaxy, one heavy with stellar action. It’s located 11 million light-years away in the Southern Hemisphere’s constellation Sculptor, and easy to view with binoculars or small telescopes.”
Music: Bifrost Arts, featuring Molly Parden, “Psalm 126,” from He Will Not Cry Out: Anthology of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Vol. 2
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Matthew Erickson 