Migration numbers for Australia are at a record high.
The number of permanent and long-term migrants arriving in Australia has soared to more than 500,000 a year.
Record numbers of migrants, temporary workers and overseas students are piling into the lucky country.
There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that migrants from all over the world are responding to the [...]
Tag Archives: Trends
Why wouldn’t you want to migrate to Australia?
1 January, 2010 – 9:18 PM
A cold wind blows in China this Christmas
24 December, 2009 – 5:55 PM
It has been six weeks since worshippers at Beijing’s Shouwang House Church were abruptly shunted out of their long-time home in a nondescript low-rise building.
A week after their landlord succumbed to pressure from authorities and turfed them on to the street, more than 500 church members gathered outside the east gate of Haidian Park.
The icy [...]
Jesus number one in Oz
27 November, 2009 – 10:37 PM
New research reveals that a majority of Australians (54%) rank Jesus as the number one most influential person in history.
Albert Einstein came in at second place (16%).
83% responded that Jesus was a real figure from history. Of these believers 43% believed Jesus had miraculous powers and he was the Son of God.
2 in 5 [...]
What if America is not the exception?
1 August, 2009 – 12:53 PM
Here’s a few salient points from an interview with the Economist’s editor in chief John Micklethwait on his new book – God is Back: how the global revival of faith is changing the world.
On Western Europe, not the US, as the exception to the rest of the world. . .
I think, if you look around [...]
God is back (again)
25 June, 2009 – 9:21 PM
The millennium issue of the Economist published God’s obituary. Now the Economist editor John Micklethwait and Washington bureau chief Adrian Wooldridge have written a new book, God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World.
It seems that America, not Western Europe, is the norm. Outside of Europe, the very things that [...]
We’re all going to die — eventually
4 May, 2009 – 8:02 PM
I flew into Asia during the SARS outbreak in 2003. So many people told me I was crazy. I just figured if our workers were in the field I shouldn’t be concerned about visiting them. I also had my suspicions about the level of anxiety over the epidemic.
On that trip I was in Thailand for [...]
Australian Christian Churches: Growing and Slowing
2 May, 2009 – 3:54 AM
Since 1977 under the leadership of Andrew Evans, and for the last twelve years Brian Houston, the Australian Christian Churches have been one of the fastest growing movements in the land.
The ACC has released its 2009 report. A few observations. . .
Since 1997 there has been an 85% growth in the number of constituents, from [...]
The Reformation of Machismo
29 April, 2009 – 1:59 AM
The conventional wisdom is that Christianity reinforces the oppression of women.
Elizabeth Brusco, a feminist Marxist scholar conducted fieldwork in Columbia from 1982-1983, and found that pentecostal conversion transformed traditional gender relations by giving women a moral authority in the home to challenge their husbands’ drinking, gambling, or adultery.
She wrote up her findings in “The Reformation [...]
British churches grow smaller and larger
23 April, 2009 – 12:21 AM
Peter Brierley reports on trends in the size of British churches. Here are a few of the findings.
The average size of a church has dropped from 123 people in 1989 to 84 people in 2005. Take out Roman Catholic churches and the average size for Protestant churches has dropped from 87 in 1989 to 67 [...]
Faith in America
15 April, 2009 – 5:39 AM
Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar have released the American Religious Identification Survey 2008 (ARIS). Highlights. . .
The American population self-identifies as predominantly Christian but Americans are slowly becoming less Christian.
• 86% of American adults identified as Christians in 1990 and 76% in 2008.
• The historic Mainline churches and denominations have experienced the steepest declines while [...]
