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Thriving (or Just Surviving): 2023 Trends to Watch in Religion and Society

Will congregations recover after the trauma of the pandemic?  Will Twitter survive Elon Musk? Or will alternative social media platforms provide a better home for thriving communities?  What will become of all the diversity, equity and inclusion efforts spurred by the murder of George Floyd, now that racial justice is not making headlines?  Locally, can progressive movements use newfound positions of power to make a dent in the social issues that plague Los Angeles? Read More

Predictions 2021: An Uphill Struggle

As we do around this time each new year, we at the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) are going to make some predictions for 2021. Even though the world seems pretty unpredictable of late. Well, actually, that doesn’t sound quite right. It was possible to foresee the political incompetence and malfeasance of the blessedly now-previous presidential administration, an outburst of racially inflected fundamentalist violence, resistance to science and the rise of American fascism. In fact, we predicted these events and phenomena last year, when we saw the early trends of the 2020s mirroring many of the cultural currents of the 1920s. Still, the dismal depth and shocking scope of those forces in 2020 (and the first days of 2021) were beyond our forecasting.  Read More

The Roaring 20s: Religion Trends to Watch in 2020 and the Next Decade 

As we enter the 2020s, we are seeing equally formidable challenges ahead. Many of the ominous signs on the horizon are similar to portents that marked the beginning of the 1920s—rising nationalism, antisemitism, racial polarization, anti-immigrant sentiment, tensions between scientific knowledge and religious belief, and potentially globe-shaking consequences of unchecked capitalism. The recent bout of violent chest-thumping between the governments of Iran and the United States highlights our main headline for the new decade: The Present Echoes the Past. Read More

Evangelicalism Is *Still* in Crisis – An Update on 2017 Trends to Watch

In our 2017 religion trends to watch, one of our snarky headlines read: "New Species of Evangelicals Discovered." As we pointed out under the headline, the divisions in Evangelicalism have long existed. We also predicted, quite correctly, that journalists and pundits would finally realize that not all "evangelicals" are the same. Read More

The Liminal Year: 5 Trends to Watch in Religion in 2018

2018 is a liminal year in America, and with transition comes uncertainty. It is the year of key midterm elections, the results of which are difficult to predict. A major investigation continues to plague our head of state, whose behavior remains as erratic as ever. New movements—such as #MeToo and the Poor People’s Campaign—are taking off with their impacts unknown. For hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their families, the uncertainty is personal, as they seek to rectify their immigration status, avoid Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and wait to see whether the courts or Congress will allow them to stay in the country. Read More