News Gallup:
New low in religious confidence A
mericans’ confidence in orga- nized religion, slowly but steadily declining since the 1970s, slipped to a new low in the latest survey, the Gallup Organization reported.
Only 44 percent of Americans
have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the church or orga- nized religion, Gallup said. In the mid-1970s, that confidence was 68 percent. Today most Protestants (56 per- cent) expressed confidence, but only a minority (46 percent) of Roman Catholics did. But Lydia Saad, Gallup senior
editor, pointed out that the question deals with churches and organized religion. Americans are still gen- erally religious people—though increasingly on their own terms. Though the church or organized religion was the highest rated of 16 institutions in 1975, it still ranks fourth. The top three institutions now are the military, small busi- ness and the police. The least- trusted institution is Congress, in which only 13 percent of Ameri- cans voice “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence. Health mainte- nance organizations and banks fol- low right behind Congress.
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sentative. Bishop Felipe Ehican of St. Stephen Lutheran said the church is now ready to “focus on [its] mission and rebuild ruined relationships.”
A first for Iceland
Agnes M. Siguroardottir is the first woman to head the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland. One of the bishop’s main goals is to grow the church’s membership after years of losses. “We should do that with joy and interest, not just to raise the num- ber, but because of the good message that we are entrusted with,” she said.
Attacks in India assailed The National Council of Churches in India expressed concern about increased attacks on churches and other property across the country by anti-Christian groups. In a July 18 statement sent to India’s federal home (interior) minister, the coun- cil said: “Worship places are being vandalized, pastors and evangelists attacked, false allegations of forceful conversion are leveled against them, Christian believers are threatened, authorities of Christian service insti- tutions are forced to follow dictates, burial right is denied.”
Lutheran Grace at AIDS 2012 conference The Lutheran Grace (GRowing AIDS Compassion Everywhere) team spoke with
educators, caregivers and HIV-positive attendees at the AIDS 2012 international conference in Washington, D.C., July 22-27. Volunteers from the Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Synod and Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Chapter collected prayers for people living with HIV and emphasized the group’s mission to make the church welcoming for those who are HIV-positive.
Corrections The ELCA 100 Wells Challenge is a challenge, not a campaign (August, page 9). The source for a higher education news item misspelled the name of the Louis Stokes Alli- ances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) (August, page 44). The New York-based HealthCare Chap- laincy awarded a grant of $209,000 funded by the John Templeton Foun- dation to the ELCA-affiliated Advo- cate Health Care for an 18-month research project on chaplains in pal- liative care settings (August, page 8).
For more news, visit
www.thelutheran.org/feature/september 12 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
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