Chris Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and a professor at The University of Notre Dame, will speak at Durham's Trinity School on Thursday about findings from the study. He is a Chapel Hill resident and a member of Durham's Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian.

In a phone interview this week, Smith said the findings from the study overturn conventional wisdom that teens don't like to go to church and are not interested in religion.

"They are open to religion and appreciate it, but they don't know that much about it," he said. "But when it comes down to it, in spite of their positive attitude toward religion, almost no teenagers from any religious background can articulate the most basic beliefs of their faith."

An account of the study's findings is detailed in the book "Soul Searching," written by Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. The first 100 people at his lecture at 7 p.m. in the Trinity gymnasium will receive a complimentary copy of the book.

In the book, Smith, a sociologist who was at The University of North Carolina for 12 years, describes the beliefs of teenagers as "moralistic therapeutic deism."

"This is a belief that God is out there, that God created the world and wants people to be nice to each other. And the purpose of life is to be happy and good people go to heaven," he said.

Smith, who is considered one of the leading sociologists in the field of American religion, said the study's findings are based on an in-depth phone survey of 3,290 teenagers and their parents, along with 267 in-person interviews.

The lecture is sponsored by Trinity School and is open to the public. The school is at 4011 Pickett Road.

4th Ward Latter-day Saints bishop chosen

Yet another church has announced a newly formed congregation in southern Durham, a rapidly growing part of the county.

Jacob Ehrisman has been called to serve as the bishop of the Durham 4th Ward of a new congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The new congregation includes about 400 members who live in that part of Durham County.

Ehrisman, a native of Fayetteville, has lived in Durham for 26 years. He works in the Corporate Services Division at SAS Institute in Cary. He and his wife, Sally, married for 23 years, have five children. Former Sen. Jesse Helms nominated the family for the N.C. Adoption Family of the Year award, and the Ehrismans received the "Angels in Adoption Award."

"Our family has been greatly blessed by adoption," said Bishop Ehrisman. "Two of my children are adopted, which makes them the third generation. I was adopted and my mother was also adopted."

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all his life, Ehrisman will have two counselors helping him serve the new congregation. They are Tosh Brinkerhoff and David Rothas.

There are six congregations of the church in Durham and Chapel Hill. Two of them have recently seen strong growth. They each have from 550 to 700 members and the Durham 4th Ward has been created from parts of the two existing congregations.

Although the new congregation is made up of members who live in southern Durham, they are holding their meetings at the LDS meeting house at 3902 Berini Drive. They meet at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

Fellowship to promote cleaner environment

The Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 4907 Garrett Road, has issued an invitation for the public to attend a talk and a leadership workshop titled "Promoting Sustainability and Deep Cultural Change."

The purpose of these programs is to build community awareness of environmental issues.

Co-sponsors are Northwest Earth Institute of Portland, Ore.; New River Earth Institute of Boone; and the Center for Ecozoic Studies in Chapel Hill.

For program details, registration information and deadlines, call Eno River Fellowship at 489-2575.

Bishop from Canterbury tells all

George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, will speak Wednesday at Duke University.

His public lecture will be held at 2:30 p.m. in 0016 Westbrook Building and will be followed by English tea in the Refectory.

Carey served the Church of England as a priest, professor and bishop and was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991-2002. As primate, Carey championed the transition to women's ordination and oversaw extraordinary growth in Africa and Asia. He supported resolutions against practicing homosexuality and blessing same-sex unions throughout the Anglican Communion.

He said in a telephone interview that the current tumult in the Anglican Communion, which includes threats of schism, stems from the decision of the Episcopal Church in 2003 to ordain an openly gay man as bishop.

His lecture, titled "The Anglican Communion: Past blessings, present challenges, future hope" comes at a time of major debate and division within the 77-mil- lion member body.

"I want to emphasize that I am not going to go back over that and spend a lot of time on it," he said. "I'm much more interested in forward thinking and saying, 'This is a reality; we've got to live with realities. No one wants to lose the American church from the Anglican Communion, so what do we need to do to carry on walking together?'"

Professor Jo Bailey Wells, director of the Divinity School's Anglican Episcopal House of Studies, said she invited Carey with the hope that "his speaking would provide an opportunity and a focus for unity, even where there is disagreement. He contributes the experience of listening to a huge variety of views and voices," said Wells, a priest in the Church of England. "I imagine he has some wisdom."

Two students picked for Duke Chapel sermons

Claire Dietrich, a senior majoring in cultural anthropology and international comparative studies at Duke University, has been selected as this year's Student Preacher at Duke Chapel.

She will preach at 11 a.m. on Feb. 11.

"In my sermon, I share my story of recovery, including a medical leave of absence from Duke and four months in treatment at an inpatient eating disorder facility," Dietrich said. "I want to offer an example of how the gospel can live and breathe in and through us in complicated and often painful ways."

Trinity sophomore and religion major Petra Wahnefried will preach at Duke Chapel's Sunday night worship service at 7 p.m. in Goodson Chapel on the same Sunday.

The Sunday night worship began last year and is an informal service aimed at a student audience.

"We strive for a perfect life, one with a great education, a family or a successful job," said Wahnefried of her sermon.

"However, in the midst of this, we often find that through the very things we are striving for, we are denying the most essential thing, the only thing required for a perfect life: a savior."

Both sermons were selected after being reviewed by the 2007 student preacher committee. The group included several chapel staff members, interns and members of the Congregation at Duke Chapel.

Each year, Duke Chapel selects a student preacher. The process is open to any undergraduate who wishes to submit a sermon. Criteria for selection include relevance of sermon to that Sunday's scripture, sermon delivery and appropriateness of subject matter for a chapel service.