A Baptist pastor in Belton was charged Monday with setting fire to his own church Sunday morning, according to a warrant and a fire official. The State Law Enforcement Division charged Christopher P. Daniels, 40, of 1337 Blue Ridge Ave., Belton, with second-degree arson in the fire at Blue Ridge Baptist Church, 1340 Blue Ridge Ave., a warrant said. Anderson County Fire Chief Billy Gibson said Daniels was the church's pastor. He wouldn't say what made authorities suspicious of Daniels. "Early on in the fire (investigation) we found evidence that this fire was set, and just working some leads and some facts that we had, we arrived at that conclusion," Gibson said. He said they have "no idea" what the motive could have been. Daniels reported the fire at 9:20 a.m., before anyone else had arrived at the church, Gibson said. The church had been painted with gang-like graffiti a few months ago, and about half of the congregation -- 25 or so people, mostly elderl...

Don't blame secularism for driving up the percentage of Americans who say they have no religion, says Barry Kosmin, co-researcher for the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) . "These people aren't secularized. They're not thinking about religion and rejecting it; they're not thinking about it at all," Kosmin says. A closer look at the "Nones" — people who said None" when asked their religious identity — shows that this group (now 15% of Americans, up from 8% in 1990) opts out of traditional religious rites of passage ... When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers. The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist . The Rust Belt is less Catholic . And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely...