Opposition to Islam is growing in Poland, even though there are few Muslims there. Those that are there are part of a community that has been integrated into Polish society, often for centuries, writes Katarzyna Gorak-Sosnowska in the Journal of Muslims in Europe (No. 5). The puzzle of intolerance toward the few Muslims in Poland […]
Estonia has been considered one of the most secular countries in the world, but the growth of alternative health teachings and practices may show strong yet overlooked religious and spiritual concerns, writes Marko Uibo in the journal Implicit Religion (19.2). Although Estonians have registered high rates of non-affiliation and belief in religion’s irrelevance (up to […]
Several large Muslim charities in Europe are increasingly taking their cues from corporate life, viewing Islam in instrumental and marketing terms, writes William Barylo in the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (36:3). Muslims have set up numerous charitable initiatives in Europe on causes and issues such as halal food certification, finance, education, or Islamic businesses. […]
The aging and depopulation of villages in Japan is affecting the “new religions” in a similar way to that of traditional Buddhist temples and shrines, according to an article in the Journal of Religion in Japan (5). Watanabe Masako writes that the new religions, most of which started in the 19th and 20th centuries, were […]
Unbelieving in Modern Society (Routledge, $119.96), by Jorg Stolz, Judith Konemann, Mallory Schneuwly Purdie, Thomas Engleberger, and Michael Kruggeler, is about Swiss religion, but the authors argue that its findings can be applied to the Western religious situation in general. While many sociologists of religion use the ideas of competition and a spiritual marketplace to explain the growth of religion, Stolz and colleagues use “market
Described as a charismatic leader and entrepreneur, Venerable Jigwang has founded the most powerful urban Buddhist temple in South Korea while borrowing management, preaching, and proselytizing techniques from Pentecostals. The Nungin Meditation Center (Nungin Sonwon) was founded in Seoul, Korea, in the mid-1980s. Although it started with limited resources, it has now turned into one […]
There is much talk about the growth of “Christian nationalism” even as surveys and journalists report the decline of “white Christian America,” but several papers presented at the late October meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Atlanta suggest that any such phenomenon is far from a monolithic or accelerating force in society. Sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Christopher Scheitle presented a paper showing that while Christian nationalism, which they define as a position linking the importance of being Christian to being American, had shown growth between 1996 and 2004, the subsequent period up to 2014 had seen decline in this ideology. Using data from the General Social Survey in 1996, 2004, and 2014, the researchers found that 30 percent of Americans held this position in 1996, while 48 percent did in 2004, but then the rate dropped back to 33 percent in 2014. They looked at other variables that seek to maintain boundaries for true Americans, such as the importance of speaking English, and did find that this sentiment followed the same episodic pattern. Whitehead and Scheitle argue that the role of patriotism and attachment to America was stronger in 2004, which was closer to 9/11, than in the earlier and later periods. Although they didn’t have data for the last two years, they speculated that these rates may be increasing again. 
New advances in the digitalization of the Bible, especially through recent social media and virtual reality technologies, are likely to accent the experiential and group-based nature of Scripture reading, according to an article in the Jesuit magazine America (October 17). The development of virtual reality (VR) is already being adapted to experiencing the Bible in […]
The rapid growth of Amish communities are leading Amish to settle in unusual places, though it seems more likely that they will be heading toward upper Midwestern states in the near future according to sociologists at the recent meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Atlanta, which RW attended. Cory Anderson […]
The appointment of new U.S. cardinals by Pope Francis is likely to tilt the American church toward a more conciliatory stance on contested social issues reports America magazine (October 9). The decision by the pope to name Archbishop Blaise Cupich of Chicago and Archbishop Joseph Tobin of Indianapolis could have significant impact on the church, […]
