Folks -

Again, sorry yours truly has so remiss on keeping up this blog. Being on continual Pope Watch — and keeping up that blog — is taking up lots and lots of time. Plus, having a child out sick two days this week didn't help matters, either. As I predicted last week, the judge's ruling on the Virginia Episcopal lawsuit was released late last Thursday (I got a call at 12:09 a.m.). More on that in a future post.

I hate to just post links with little original reporting but could not resist this recent poll, released in March by Lifeway Research, on how the unchurched — if they go into a church at all — prefer the traditional buildings.

Which begs the question of why England's cathedrals are so empty and why America's utilitarian-styled mega-churches do well. The Americans surveyed in this poll probably have more of a fascination for huge Gothic buildings, there being so few of them on this side of the pond. Someone should alert the fundraisers at the National Cathedral that their digs on Mount St. Alban might be a prime spot for the last and the lost.

Lifeway, by the way, is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

I am coming out with a book on the unchurched and formerly churched in September, so am always fascinated to hear more survey data on this group.

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times