#religious-congregation-decline

#religious-congregation-decline

The fertility rate for 2025 was reported at 53.1 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, marking a one percent drop compared to the previous year.

In 2025, the nonreligious share of the American population declined again, with the atheist-agnostic share back down to levels seen in 2014, suggesting a potential revival.

Seyfried's performance as Ann Lee lets the viewer in on the production of faith-particularly, an overt faith. Bearing witness to such performance leads to basic questions about people and the way that we live.

On Ash Wednesday, 2026, two Roman Catholic priests and a religious sister entered an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, to celebrate Mass with detainees inside. It might seem like a simple, routine event: a religious service to mark the start of Lent. But the Mass represented a legal win for the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, based in Chicago.

I spent forty years climbing ladders that led to nowhere special. The view from the top? Same sky as everywhere else. These weren't bitter people who'd failed professionally. The group included a former Fortune 500 executive, a surgeon, and a woman who'd built a successful retail chain from scratch. They'd "made it" by every conventional measure. Yet each one said they'd spent too much time treating their career like it was their identity.

Heavy social media use partly explains a worrying decline in the wellbeing of young people in the West, the latest edition of the annual World Happiness Report said on Wednesday. In total, 15 Western countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, saw significant declines in youth wellbeing over the past two decades, according to the report.

We sold them a career vision which they probably aren't going to get. They're more willing to afford the thought of, 'I'm going to find something else, but I can't really afford to pull the trigger myself'. This reflects how young workers face student debt, rising living costs, and diminished prospects for traditional milestones like homeownership, making voluntary job transitions feel financially impossible despite career dissatisfaction.

BBC Jodie was surrounded by smiling faces at her 21st birthday party, but most were people she had not known for more than a month. The party had been organised for her by the London International Christian Church - a Bible-based non-denominational church, according to their website - into which she had recently been baptised. She was told by her "discipler", or church mentor, she says, that she could not invite any friends from outside the church - only a handful of family members.

With fewer folks relying on alcohol as a social lubricant, a healthier way to interact with others has gained traction. Enter "daylife," a term coined by the fitness social app Sweatpals. "Daylife" refers to daytime social outings involving alcohol-free fitness as a way to meet new people with similar interests. "It's just the concept of using wellness, using movement as a way to meet, as a way to get entertainment and to socialize, versus relying on alcohol,' Sweatpals co-founder Salar Shahini told HuffPost.

'Overall, the research shows that preferences for attractiveness shift from lighter hair in Boomer women to darker hair and more athletic body types in Millennials and Gen Z,' the CREO Clinic explained. 'Men are generally most attractive with inverted triangle or trapezoid shaped builds, while the hourglass figure remains the preferred body type for women. 'Eye colour moves from blue in Boomers to brown in later generations, and wavy hair is typically favoured for men, whereas straight hair is more often preferred for women.'

The past decade has seen a surge of new ways of self-expression online, but somehow, netizens reminisce about the grainy selfies with dog ear filters, old movies, and less AI-generated content.

For today's young people, online content isn't a backdrop to daily life-it is daily life. Streaming platforms, short-form video, and social media don't just entertain; they influence how young people see themselves, their health, and what behaviors are seen as normal or aspirational. Movies, television, and streaming content still have influence, but as the digital ecosystem expands, so does its power to shape choices-for better and for worse.

I'm just going to say it: The whole kids versus no-kids debate isn't actually about kids. It's about resources. I feel like a considerable portion of our generation feels like we got rug-pulled by 'the system,' and understandably so. Hence, where we are today. Money, time, energy, emotions - everyone is feeling the squeeze, and that changes the mental calculus for everyone (as it should).

Finding your way with digital maps, making online bank transfers, looking things up on search engines Our digital habits are recent, yet so ingrained that going back to their analog versions feels unthinkable. Even something as ancient as flirting can now seem inseparable from screens. But a recent trend on social media suggests the story isn't over. A few months ago, a video titled Sit at the Bar September went viral.

Lawmakers described routine death threats, armed protesters in galleries, and explicit fears for spouses and children. Several said the June 2025 assassination of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband fundamentally changed how they assess the risks of staying in office. Case in point: Connecticut State Rep. Corey Paris, 34, reported death threats and calls for violence against him and his family last year after he posted on social media encouraging people to share information on ICE activity.

But we in marketing also have a certain fixation on youth. Millennials (put roughly, those born between 1980 and 2000) are the prime suspect at the minute because from where we sit in London, it seems like they're reaching their prime consumption years. They value experiences over things. They want authentic connections to brands. They want to be marketed to via a social influencer instead of a traditional ad (ha! they want to be marketed to - insert laugh/cry emoji here).

In the aftermath of Alex Pretti's killing in Minneapolis, my Instagram algorithm served up a never-ending carousel of sizzling rage. Most of that rage was directed toward the country's immigration-enforcement agencies, while some, of course, was aimed at defending them. But I wasn't expecting the post from Blake Guichet. "There's a difference between compassion that is grounded and compassion that is hijacked," Guichet, a pro-Trump Christian influencer who posts on Instagram under the handle "thegirlnamedblake," had typed on butter-yellow slides.