FIVE-WEEK ARCHIVE · JUL 5–AUG 2, 2026
A source-first archive of public messages from influential faith communities. Records come first; interpretation stays visibly separate.
03 / METHOD
We compare each public sermon with its source to examine how it identifies present realities, interprets them through the language of faith, and proposes ways of living.
PURPOSE
We do not speculate about a preacher’s inner life or political leanings. We examine the language that appears in each public message: what it treats as a problem, what theological meaning it gives that reality, and what responses it proposes for individuals, communities, and society.
We prioritize official videos and posts. When edited sermons appear after full services, we match them by service date, upload order, speaker, and series, then record the source link and biblical passage.
We distinguish the biblical passage, supporting claims, final claim, and expected change to trace how the sermon’s argument develops.
We distinguish direct references to social realities, theological interpretations of those realities, and proposed responses for individuals, communities, and society.
We confirm that a passage belongs to the sermon itself, names a concrete social reality, and matches the linked context. Advertisements, announcements, service transitions, and general appeals to internal church community are excluded from Public Life.
We acknowledge the judgment involved in selection, translation, summarization, and classification, and we mark both unverified information and gaps in the available record. Final judgments remain with the reader.
ANALYSIS PROCESS
This is not a statistical result, but a shared procedure for examining every sermon according to the same sequence and criteria.
RESEARCH BACKGROUND
American Bible Society, State of the Bible 2025 · 2,656 U.S. adults · surveyed in January 2025. These findings describe U.S. adults and should not be applied directly to Korean churches or to the sermon sample in this study.
Fifty-one percent of U.S. adults said they wished they read the Bible more. In the same survey, 41% were classified as Bible Users because they had read the Bible on their own, outside a church service, at least three times in the previous year.
‘Three times a year’ is the minimum threshold for the category, not an average. People who read the Bible far more often are included in the 41%. The two figures come from different questions, so their difference should not be treated as a direct measure of the gap between intention and behavior.View the original survey ↗
Twenty percent of U.S. adults were classified as Scripture Engaged. This measure reflects not only frequency of Bible use, but also Scripture’s influence on relationships with God and others and its centrality in decision-making.
Encountering the Bible and allowing it to shape one’s judgment are not the same question. This distinction helps explain why the study looks closely at how public sermons connect Scripture with the way people understand and respond to life.View the original survey ↗
Important: every summary and analysis is an independent, personal reading of publicly available material. It does not represent the full intentions or beliefs of any listed community, and errors may arise in translation, summarization, or classification.