Popes and Progress

Will the reign of the new Pope Benedict be good or bad? I am convinced it will be good for the Roman Church for he is a man who prmomotes traditional theology and practices including morals and ethics. Many thousands of Roman Catholics are leaving their church to join Evangelical, Charismatic and Pentecostal churches. Pope Benedict's reign may not be good for them is he also promotes a lively faith experience.

Listen to the insights from Starke and Fink in their new book:

A measure of the malaise affecting the "lower-tension" or more liberal denominations is their sluggishness in creating new congregations and thus retaining their market share of believers. "The tiny Vineyard Christian Fellowship, with only 305 existing congregations in 1994, managed to plant as many new churches as did the huge United Methodist Church, which had more than 36,000 congregations," says the Penn State sociologist.

"Our data strongly suggest that niche preferences, more so than many churches, are quite stable, in that most people are in a denomination ideologically similar to the one to which they belonged at age 16," Finke adds.

EDITOR: Dr. Finke is at (814) 865-6257 or at rfinke@psu.edu by email