This Week’s Reading
With Richard Bass
June 16, 2017
This week’s reading includes some interesting gleanings from the web that crossed our screens during the past week.
Religious Giving Holds Steady (Lilly Family School of Philanthropy)
An interesting look at religious giving trends in the U.S.: “Giving to religion (defined as giving specific to congregations, denominations, missionary societies, and religious media) has consistently remained America’s single largest recipient of charitable giving. That continues to remain the case. Giving to religion in 2016 increased 3.0 percent (1.8 percent adjusted for inflation), receiving an estimated $122.94 billion in contributions across all faith traditions.”
Your Rabbi? Probably a Democrat. Your Baptist Pastor? Probably a Republican. Your Priest? Who Knows (New York Times)
After last November’s election, there was acknowledgment that Aldersgate is a place where those who may not always agree politically can sit together and work together for God’s Kingdom. The attached articles examine the political affiliations of clergy (and their congregations). As it turns out the United Methodist Church fall right in the middle, with 40% aligning with each major party.
Half-Full of Grace (Los Angeles Review of Books)
An essay by a screenwriter from Los Angeles about why she goes to church: “Church isn’t an escape from the world. It’s a continuation of it. My family and I don’t go to church to deny the existence of the darkness. We to go to look so hard at the light that our eyes water.”