“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.
“Drop in U.S. Religiosity Among Largest in World” – Benedict Vigers and Julie Ray at Gallup: “The 17-point drop in the percentage of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their daily life — from 66% in 2015 to 49% today — ranks among the largest Gallup has recorded in any country over any 10-year period since 2007. About half of Americans now say religion is not an important part of their daily life. They remain as divided on the question today as they were last year. Such large declines in religiosity are rare. Since 2007, only 14 out of more than 160 countries in the World Poll have experienced drops of over 15 percentage points in religious importance over any 10-year period. Only a small number of mostly wealthy nations have experienced larger losses in religiosity, including Greece from 2013-2023 (28 points), Italy from 2012-2022 (23 points), and Poland from 2013-2023 (22 points). Other countries, including Chile, Türkiye and Portugal, have seen declines similar in magnitude to the U.S. decline.”
“Christians from 45 Countries Call for Zion Church Pastor’s Release” – Angela Lu Fulton in Christianity Today: “On Tuesday, Chinese authorities formally arrested 18 leaders of Zion Church, including pastor Jin ‘Ezra’ Mingri, and charged them with the crime of “illegally using information networks,” China Aid founder Bob Fu told Reuters. The leaders detained last month, could face up to 3 years in prison. ‘By turning pastors into political prisoners, the CCP is not only persecuting these individuals and their families—it is sending a warning to every independent church in China: submit to Party control or face destruction,’ Fu said in a statement. ‘We call on the Chinese government to immediately release all 18 Zion Church leaders, drop the false charges, and stop treating peaceful believers as enemies of the state.'”
“Christian leaders declare solidarity with Palestinian Christians” – Jeff Brumley in Baptist News: “U.S. Christian leaders are circulating a declaration pledging solidarity with their Palestinian counterparts and pledging to advocate for a permanent and lasting ceasefire in Gaza. ‘Our Palestinian Christian siblings are telling us that they are devastated by the extreme violence the Israeli military and Israeli settlers have inflicted upon their people before and after Hamas’ unjust attack on October 7, 2023,’ says the statement signed by more than 4,100 progressive Christian activists, authors, pastors and theologians. The document was created during Church at the Crossroads, a recent gathering of more than 100 leaders who committed to seek biblical reconciliation and to denounce the use of faith to justify Israel’s occupation and military attacks in Gaza and other parts of Palestine.”
“Orthodox Church Pews Are Overflowing With Converts” – Ruth Graham in The New York Times: “Something is changing in an otherwise quiet corner of Christianity in the United States, one that prides itself on how little it has changed over time. Priests are swapping stories about record attendance numbers. Older members are adjusting — or not — to the influx of new attendees. Parishes are strategizing about how to accommodate more prospective converts than existing clergy can reasonably handle on their own. Across the country, the ancient tradition of Orthodox Christianity is attracting energetic new adherents, especially among conservative young men. They are drawn to what they describe as a more demanding, even difficult, practice of Christianity. Echoing some of the rhetoric of the so-called manosphere, new waves of young converts say Orthodoxy offers them hard truths and affirms their masculinity. ‘In the whole history of the Orthodox Church in America, this has never been seen,’ the Very Rev. Andrew Damick, an Antiochian Orthodox priest and author in Eastern Pennsylvania, said of the large groups of young people showing up at many parishes. ‘This is new ground for everyone.'”
“Walker Percy’s Pilgrimage” – Algis Valiunas in First Things: “People can get used to most anything. Even the abyss may be rendered tolerable—or, for that matter, luxurious—furnished with creature comforts so that the unbearable truth of one’s condition is overlooked: a pair of lavishly upholstered armchairs, some choice pictures on the wall, bookcases laden with the best that has been thought and said, a sound system worthy of your favorite Beethoven and Brahms recordings, a well-stocked liquor cabinet, soothing overhead track lighting, and strategically placed table lamps to make you almost forget the perpetual darkness outside your walls. The hell with the world outside, anyway: You’re home, the best place there is, you’re prosperous and well liked, you’re a fine example to your children, your wife and your mistress are better-looking than you deserve, and you can’t imagine a better life than the one you’ve got. ‘The specific character of despair is precisely this: it is unaware of being despair.’ So declares Søren Kierkegaard in The Sickness Unto Death, and the novelist and essayist Walker Percy (1916–1990) uses this quotation as the epigraph to his first novel, The Moviegoer (1961), which won the National Book Award, remains his most celebrated work, and heads the new Library of America edition of his early writings.”
“W.H.A. AND D.L.S.” – Alan Jacobs at The Homebound Symphony”: Dorothy L. Sayers had written ‘Kings in Judaea,’ the first play of a series she had been asked to write for the BBC Children’s Service, in the autumn of 1940, the project fell apart when Sayers refused to make changes demanded of her by the Children’s Service staff. But the Rev. James Welch, the BBC’s director of religious broadcasting, who had originated the idea, was unwilling to let it drop and eventually managed to get Sayers writing again, with the Children’s Service no longer involved. In late 1941, then, she resumed writing the plays that would become The Man Born to Be King, and would work on them through the middle of the next year. (A play was performed every four weeks between December of 1941 and October of 1942.)… Curiously enough, at the same time in 1941 that Sayers resumed work on her plays, W. H. Auden began writing what could become For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio — a task he would complete in the late spring of 1942.”
Music: Aklesso, “Wilderness,” from My Life is a Beautiful Mess
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Matthew Erickson 