2012 Religion Stories: The Top 10

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/religion-stories-in-2012-_n_2367173.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

By Paul Brandeis Raushenbush
Posted: 12/27/2012 8:00 am EST | Updated: 12/27/2012 10:23 am EST

?6


While religious beliefs and practices take place in the daily lives of ordinary people around the world, religion can also exercise a powerful influence on the people and events that shape our world, and is often 'the story behind the story.'

The following is a list of the top 10 religion stories of 2012, generated by HuffPost Religion's editors. Which stories did we leave out? Which do you think is the most important? Post your thoughts in the comment section.

1. The Presence or Absence Of God In Newtown
On December 14th, 20 children and six adults were shot and killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. As the extent and nature of the massacre became known, people struggled to find meaning in the horror. The more politically minded debated school prayer in schools or gun control on television while the people of Newtown attended vigils in churches. Religious services became the location for prayers, pastoral care and reflections on God as a nation revisited the eternal question of the existence of evil in a world created by a God described as all-powerful and all-good.

2. The Nones Are Coming, The Nones Are Coming
Two studies came out in 2012 that firmly established a new religious category that appears to be rapidly growing. Those claiming ‘No Religion’ or the ‘Nones,’ as they have become known, rose to almost 20 percent of the American population. One in 6 people around the world now consider themselves religiously ‘unaffiliated,’ making it the world's third-largest religious grouping. The nones are not necessarily atheists, and many of them believe in God or have some spiritual practice. Nonetheless, the rise of those who do not identify with any religious tradition will have enormous implications for the future of faith.

more at link