The use of vouchers in religious schooling may reveal both “good news” and “bad news” for churches, according to a recent study. The paper, presented at the recent meeting of the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture, is one of the first studies to look at the effects of vouchers on religious […]
Urban and spiritual renewal are being joined by churches seeking to minister in gentrified areas of cities in the U.K., reports The Guardian (March 7). While urban planners and theorists have assumed that gentrification accompanies and even helps generate secularization, recent studies have suggested otherwise. The article notes that the growth that has taken place […]
External powers have exercised an influence in the South Caucasus, a region with small countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) on one of the borders between Islam and Christianity, for centuries. Religion may be one of the channels serving such purposes and may thus be feared by political elites, though it is one among a range […]
Hispanic Protestants in the U.S. are one of the few sectors of American Christianity that continue to grow, but they are also becoming so diverse that it is difficult to make many generalizations about them, according to the new book Latino Protestants in America (Rowman and Littlefield, $38), by Mark Mulder, Aida I. Ramos, and […]
Bnei Baruch emerged from a small circle of students of the Kabbalah in Israel in the 1990s to become one of Israel’s largest new religious movements that is taking on a global expression. The movement, numbering 50,000 participants in Israel and 150,000 worldwide, takes a pragmatic approach to the mystical Jewish texts known as the […]
The Christian Century (February 15) reports that mainline seminaries are increasingly partnering with megachurches for financial reasons as well as to draw on their expertise in evangelism, church growth, and leadership. Residential-based seminary education, with its high tuitions and other living expenses, has increasingly been falling out of favor with seminarians and potential clergy, who are opting for online and distance learning programs that they complete without leaving their homes and careers. Mainline seminaries’ continuing financial problems due to low enrollment and the resulting difficulties in maintaining old buildings are other factors that have moved megachurches into the theological education field. Those seminaries that have shown some resilience are the ones that have teamed up with larger churches to deliver their educational services, writes Jason Byassee and Ross Lockhart. Saint Paul’s School of Theology in Kansas City was forced to close its campus in the center of the city and start holding its classes in the 20,000-member Church of the Resurrection in the suburbs.
This United Methodist megachurch provides the school with practicums that offer “nuts-and-bolts topics like funerals, stewardship, and youth ministry.” There is some tension in the fact that Saint Paul’s is more liberal in theology and oriented more toward social action than the centrist evangelical megachurch. Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky is another example of this trend, though in this case the unaffiliated (and more evangelical) school in the Wesleyan tradition has “planted” a satellite seminary in another United Methodist megachurch in Memphis, Tennessee. The new campus makes little effort to offer on-campus formation, instead drawing on the congregation’s extensive ministry in downtown Memphis. St. Mellitus College has pioneered a similar kind of partnership in the U.K. The seminary, with about 400 students, was the result of a merger between two diocesan theological programs associated with the evangelical “megaparish” Holy Trinity in Brompton and St. Jude’s Church in the west of London.
Jehovah’s Witnesses’ low levels of education compared to other religions has affected members’ job prospects and led to a high rate of underemployment, according to a report on National Public Radio (February 19). The report cites Pew Research figures showing that only 9 percent of Jehovah’s Witnesses get an undergraduate degree, well below the national […]
In late February Metropolitan Hilarion, Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR, which is part of the Moscow Patriarchate since 2007) ordained as an Orthodox priest Sam Seamans, a former bishop in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), reports Fr. Victor Novak on his blog (March 3). Along with his parish […]
Americans hold warmer feelings towards various religious groups than they did just a few years ago, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Atheists and Muslims still registered less favorable responses as measured by a “feelings thermometer” ranging from zero to 100. But warmth of Americans’ feelings toward these two groups has increased from […]
Since January 1st, the Lutheran Church in Norway is no longer a state church, and its 1,250 bishops and ministers are no longer being paid by public funds. Separation had already become a reality in neighboring Sweden in 2000. According to French historian and sociologist Philippe Portier, interviewed by Bernadette Sauvaget in the French daily […]
