Research Links

The Association of Religious Archives (www.thearda.com) is an online compilation of all publicly available research on the subject of religion. It also has a section on "Best Practices" which is has good material on how to do statistical research.

The first study by National Study of Youth and Religion was funded by a $3.96M grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. and took 4 years to complete. Christian Smith, who was the lead researcher on the project latter spoke to a PCA Conference on his research.

The Lilly Endowment, Inc. provides major funding for religious research in America.

In summary, the Endowment supports efforts:

• to deepen and enrich the religious lives of American Christians, primarily by helping strengthen their churches;
• to support the recruitment and education of a new generation of talented ministers and other religious leaders;
• to encourage theological reflection and religious practices that recover the wisdom of the Christian tradition for our contemporary situation;
• to support scholars and educators who seek to help the American people better understand contemporary religion and the role it plays in our public and personal lives;
• and to strengthen the contributions that religious ideas, practices, values and institutions make to the common good of our society.

One of the primary avenues through which Lilly supports research is The Louisville Institute at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary.