The pandemic’s encouragement of social media use has also impacted the field of religious communication and given online Christian influencers a stronger role among people under 40, writes Anna Neumaier (Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany) in the most recent issue of the Zeitschrift für Religion und Weltanschauung (February). The article focuses on German-speaking “Christfluencers,” Who, while […]
An ”Orthodox Belt,” running across central and southern Russia and the Volga region, has and will likely continue to form a firm base of loyalty to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin as well as conservative and traditionalist values, according to researchers Andrey Shcherbak and Maria Ukhvatova. Writing in the journal Nationalities Papers (online in June), […]
While the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) has cut most ties with the Moscow Patriarchate since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, any possibility of a merger or even closer relations with the already independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) might be ar off due to cultural and liturgical differences between the two church bodies, writes Nadieszda Kizenko […]
■ Carolyn Chen’s new book Work, Pray, Code (Princeton University Press, $27.95) looks at a fairly old trend—the way companies have attempted to bring spirituality into the workplace—in a fresh and provocative way, as she argues that the workplace and work itself is replacing religion for many American hi-tech professionals. The book, based on in-depth […]
1) National conservatism is seen as an intellectual outgrowth of the nationalist and populist presidency of Donald Trump, but the religious positions of the fledgling movement have not been spelled out. That changed, however, with the recent issuing of a manifesto for the movement. The document features such MAGA faithful as Charlie Kirk of Turning […]
While psychedelic substances have been making the rounds of alternative and mystical spiritual groups for several years, they are only just being embraced in liberal Christian and Jewish circles, where a mood of skepticism and caution still surrounds them. In a two-part series on the topic in Lucid News (April 20 and May 4), Don […]
The combined effects of the pandemic and the populism driven by the Trump presidency have caused new divisions among evangelicals that have reached down into everyday congregational life, writes Tim Alberta in The Atlantic (May 10). While divisions between evangelical leaders and activists were on display for all to see during the Trump administration and […]
While Satanism still exists, a gap between “rationalist’” and “occultist” or “theistic” groups “largely defines the global Satanist scene,” writes Massimo Introvigne in his newsletter Bitter Winter (May 24). Seeing Satan as more of a symbol of power and the priority of the self than a sentient being, rationalists eschew the supernaturalism of the occultist […]
Muslims are depicted more negatively in U.S. and Western media than members of other religions, a new study finds. Writing in the Conversation (May 29), political scientists Erik Bleich and A. Maurits van der Veen report that while newspapers tend to publish a balanced proportion of negative depictions of other minority religions, Muslims face negative […]
In a rapid succession of events during the month of May, the Orthodox Church in Northern Macedonia, which had been separated from other Orthodox churches for 55 years due to an unresolved conflict with the Serbian Patriarchate, was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP) of Constantinople and also restored into communion with the Serbian Orthodox […]
