Occult practitioners are moving from part-time avocational interest to professional work as they ply their trade in the spiritual marketplace on the Internet, writes Karen Gregory in American Behavioral Scientist (online in September). Gregory looks specifically at how Tarot card reading has shifted from being a face-to-face practice one might do for spiritual fulfillment alongside […]
With its headquarters close to the Independence Temple and the headquarters of the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or RLDS), the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has emerged as the most organized of the groups born out of opposition to developments within […]
A new survey finds that divisions based on religion remain within the Republican Party almost two years after the election of Donald Trump. The survey, conducted by Emily Ekins for the Voter Study Group, finds that regular church attenders who voted for Trump over Clinton still tend to hold different views than his more secular […]
Since the 2010 law allowing for the restoration of church property in Russia, competing interests continue to battle over just what its implementation means for the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). This can be seen in the recent request of the ROC to take ownership of the UNESCO-protected 12th-century Golden Gate in the city of Vladimir, […]
The move of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP) toward granting autonomy (or autocephaly) to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will likely have global repercussions for Orthodox churches and beyond, according to recent reports. On September 7, an EP announcement stated that, “within the framework of the preparations for the granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in […]
The Hindu nationalist organization that helped bring Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power is “attempting a makeover to soften its image ahead of next year’s national elections,” writes Joanna Slater in the Washington Post (September 21). The main Hindu nationalist group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), recently held an unprecedented three-day event where its leader […]
The Druze religion is facing a pattern of defection and inactivity among its young people, according to The Economist magazine (September 21). The approximately one million members of the Druze are spread across Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, but the esoteric religion does not proselytize and only accepts members whose parents are both Druze. The faith […]
The idea that religious beliefs and worldviews shape political orientations is challenged in Michele Margolis’ provocative new book From Politics to the Pews (University of Chicago Press, $32.50). Margolis argues that it is in the formative periods of young people’s development that they take on partisan political beliefs and identities, and that these shape people’s […]
The Nuns and Nones project attempts to bring the non-affiliated and Catholic sisters into dialogue, activism and social reflection together. While “nones” are a growing and youthful segment of the American population and Catholic nuns are aging and declining in numbers, the project maintains that the two groups share a common social outlook and a […]
Charges and counter-charges of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church heated up considerably this summer, with allegations of abuse and coverup reaching to the top of the Church hierarchy, including Theodore McCarrick, the first-ever U.S. cardinal accused of sexual abuse to resign. While the hierarchy is the focus of this recent wave of abuse and collusion, much of the press coverage has looked at parish-level Catholics and how this might damage their relationship with the Church. It is certain that the material costs of the scandal though lawsuits will continue to impact—in some cases bankrupt—dioceses and in turn parish life (the lawsuits have targeted dioceses and religious orders rather than parishes, since individual churches have little authority over their priests). Much of the data on Catholics’ attitudes to abuse is still related to the parish-level sexual abuse by priests and coverup by local bishops that was revealed during the first wave of this scandal that broke in the early 2000s. Observers are now wondering if high-level involvement in the crisis might lead to greater disaffection from the Church. The Washington Post (August 19) notes that “[s]urveys have rarely asked about the Catholic Church’s response to the crisis since 2013, when a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 78 percent of Catholics disapproved of the way the church had handled the scandal—more than a decade after a Boston Globe investigation prompted the church to overhaul its procedures for rooting out abusive priests.”
In the Post article, Julie Zauzmer, Michelle Boorstein, and Michael Brice-Saddler provide an anecdotal picture of reactions to the latest scandals—ranging “from those who can’t be shocked anymore to those who were newly grieved, from those who feel Catholics are unfairly singled out to those who maintain their faith in the religion but not its leaders.” Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, saw this summer as sowing new doubts. “The fact that we thought all the worst had come out already—this is what creates cynicism. People were like, ‘Okay, it’s all cleaned up, now we’re moving on.’ … Now we know: The church is a fallible human organization.” Others cited the ongoing scandal’s impact on young people who already show high rates of disenchantment with religious and other institutions. In any event, it appears that the crisis is widely perceived as adding to the growing ranks of non-affiliated (or “none”) Catholics in the U.S. According to Pew research in 2015, about 27 percent of former Catholics who no longer identified with a religion cited clergy sexual abuse scandals as a reason for leaving the Church, while 21 percent of former Catholics identifying as Protestant did so. But National Public Radio (August 18) reports that it is still unclear how the crisis affects Catholic attachment and affiliation with the Church.
