The pandemic and other factors have led to dire forecasts about churches, not the least being the Episcopal Church. Writing in the blog Religion in Public (July 15), Ryan Burge notes that the Episcopal Church’s long decline in attendance seemed to have leveled off at about 550,000 shortly before the pandemic. Since then, however, the […]
While most bishops have tended to be cautious regarding the issue of their connections with the Moscow Patriarchate, priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) have been the driving force behind the church’s recent move towards affirming independence from Russian supervision, writes Andriy Fert (National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy) in Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost […]
The growth in the numbers of people making pilgrimages, including both devout and unchurched seekers, shows no signs of letting up, but since Covid “micro pilgrimages” are becoming more popular, writes Anne Bailey in the open-access journal Religions (July 20). A micro or “mini” pilgrimage usually can be completed in one day or less and […]
Known for its use of civil disobedience to alert the public about climate change and other threats to the environment, the French section of Extinction Rebellion (abbreviated XR) launched a spiritual branch (XR Spi) three months ago, which in July met with some Christian groups sharing its concerns, reports Weilian Zhu in La Vie (July […]
The proliferation of “wedding churches” in Japan is leading to a unique form of Japanese Christianity that is long on ritual and short on belief, according to an article in the Journal of Religion in Japan (online in July). For decades there has been a large Japanese demand for Western-style church weddings, usually in hotels […]
1) The Catholic Land Movement is being revived after almost a century as some Catholics work to reclaim traditional European farming methods and ways of life. During a time of food crises and shortages, the effort is motivated by a desire for more autonomy in the way participants feed and provide for their families, physically […]
Irreligious and secular elements are taking control of the American political right, according to recent reports. While the recent Supreme Court rulings on abortion and church-state issues suggest the continuing relevance of religion to conservative activism, Nate Hochman argues in the New York Times (June 5) that they are more like a “last gasp,” as […]
A religious “commitment gap” between liberal and conservative Jews is increasingly defined by politics and raising questions about the future of the Jewish left, write political scientist Samuel Abrams and historian Jack Wertheimer in Tablet magazine (June 24). The authors cite recent research suggesting that politics is driving religious identity more than religious beliefs are […]
A historic yet small Russian Orthodox body has recently been taking center stage in debates ranging from Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to the religious leanings of the far right in the U.S. There have been recent media and scholarly reports holding that recent converts to the Russian Orthodox Church in the U.S. have taken […]
The precarious future of the second generation of Korean American Christians came in for scrutiny at the second annual conference of the Korean Diaspora Institute (KDI), which was held in early June at Sandy Cove Ministries in Maryland. KDI is a non-profit organization founded by mostly Methodist Korean American ministers. The conference, which RW attended, […]
