A 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that of the 35,000 U.S. adults surveyed, 44 percent had left their childhood religious affiliation. A follow-up survey in 2009 by the Pew Forum shows the percentage has grown over the last two years. The new report estimates that between 47 and 59 percent of U.S. adults have changed affiliation at least once. When asked why, most said ...

I was traveling on a plane from San Francisco to Los Angeles a few years ago. I was sitting next to the window, reading a Christian book. The man next to me, obviously from the Eastern hemisphere, asked, "Are you a religious man?" "Well, yes," I said. "I am too," he responded. We began talking about religion. In the middle of the conversation I asked, "Can you give me a one-liner that captures the ...

Sometimes the uniqueness of the revealed Word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ is seen most clearly when contrasted with other spiritual beliefs.

Lauding the Dalai Lama as one of the world's 100 most influential leaders, author Deepak Chopra wrote in Time magazine:

The most inspiring thing [the Dalai Lama] ever told me was to ignore all organized faiths and keep to the road of higher consciousness. ...

Woody Allen's September is about an emotionally fragile woman, Lane (Mia Farrow), who returns to her country home in Vermont to recuperate from a nervous breakdown. An ill-fated summer romance with a man named Peter—and a visit from her over-bearing mother, Diane—throws her into further emotional turmoil. In this scene Peter (Sam Waterston) and a friend of Diane's, Lloyd (Jack Warden), ...

A 2005 poll, conducted by Newsweek and Beliefnet, asked: "What is your current religion?"

Evangelical Protestant—33 percent
Non-Evangelical Protestant—25 percent
Roman Catholic—22 percent
Other Christian—5 percent
Jewish—1 percent
Muslim—1 percent
Other, non-Christian—3 percent
Atheist/Agnostic—6 percent
Religion undesignated—4 percent

28 ...

In the film The Bucket List, Edward (Jack Nicholson) and Carter (Morgan Freeman) are both terminally ill. Doctors have given them about one year to live, so they make a list of things they always wanted to do before they "kicked the bucket"—and go about doing them, one by one. The list includes skydiving, racing vintage Mustangs, and seeing the wonders of the world. In this scene, Edward and ...

M. Night Shyamalan is the young filmmaker of Indian heritage responsible for the popular films, The Sixth Sense, Signs, and The Village. Reflecting on the spiritual themes of some of his movies, a Christian Science Monitor article reports:

Shyamalan's spiritual beliefs are largely a mystery. In high school he was put off by the dogmatism he encountered. He told Time magazine in a 2000 interview that ...

While studying my way through a Ph.D program, I worked part time as the book review editor for a large website devoted to religion, spirituality, and morality. Beliefnet.com is multifaith. It has articles that would be of interest to evangelicals, Mormons, Reconstructionist Jews, Wiccans, Baha'is, Hindus, and just about everyone else on the planet.

I started this job with the naïve assumption that ...

In the Disney animated classic Alice in Wonderland, Alice, wanders through a frustrating world of tardy rabbits, singing flowers, and one curious-talking cat. Her visit with the cat begins as she continues down a mysterious darkened trail and stops at a large tree. The tree is covered with signs that point in every possible direction: "Up," "Down," "Yonder," "Back," "This Way," and "That Way." Poor ...

The second edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford University Press, 2001) reports the following statistical estimates:

Christianity has become the most universal religion in history with belivers today composing a majority of the population in two-thirds of the world's 238 countries.

Christianity began and ended the century as the world's biggest religion with 555 million believers or 32.2 ...