The Body of Christ is made of many parts, and people experience their understanding of God in many different ways. On this blog, we'll consider the beliefs and activities of congregations, denominations and different religions.
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
RNS Weekly Digest: How a bucolic Tennessee suburb became a hotbed of ‘Christian Nashville-ism’
Williamson County is Tennessee’s wealthiest community and has the best schools in the state, some of the biggest churches, a host of Christian nonprofits and a whole bunch of country music stars who call it home.
It’s not the place you expect to find neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Yet there they were last month, showing up at a forum to back then-mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson, a local Realtor and alderman in Franklin, Tennessee, a bucolic suburb 20 miles south of Nashville best known for its Civil War-era mansions, historical downtown and annual Pumpkinfest and "Dickens of a Christmas" festivals.
On election day (Oct. 24), posters from the Patriot Front — which claims real Americans are only those “born to this nation of our European race” — appeared in downtown Franklin while the Williamson Herald, a local newspaper, reported its building had been vandalized and its reporters threatened by neo-Nazis.
A majority of young Americans from a variety of faiths and no faith say they have experienced a sacred moment, according to a new survey, but their definitions of what is sacred may not line up with those of their parents or grandparents.
Springtide Research Institute’s "The State of Religion & Young People 2023: Exploring the Sacred" pushes back on the notion that Gen Z exhibits a simple disinterest in matters of the divine or the spiritual. Some 55% of the more than 4,500 people ages 13 to 25 who were surveyed told Springtide’s researchers that they have discovered what Springtide called “experiences that evoked a sense of wonder, awe, gratitude, deep truth, and/or interconnectedness in your life.”
Of those who had, 69% said they had experienced a sacred moment more than once in nature, 68% said they’d done so in the privacy of their home, and 55% said at a place of worship. (Respondents could select more than one option.)
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