The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) is shifting from a model of social ministry that emphasizes obedience to church authority to a more modern kind of volunteerism stressing personal autonomy, according to an article by Boris Knorre in the journal Religion, State & Society (online February 13). Knorre studied ROC volunteer programs as well as official […]
Islamic law is gaining ground in large sectors of Turkish society, reports the Washington Post (February 16). “Over the past few weeks, Turkish officials have broken with decades of precedent in what is still, at least nominally, a secular republic: they have begun describing the country’s military deployment in Syria as ‘jihad.’ During the first […]
Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil (Oxford University Press, $35), by Christopher James, reports from the unlikely ground zero of church planting in the U.S.—Seattle. Although much of the book is a theology and ecclesiology of church planting, it is based on James’ extensive research of new churches in a city known as the epicenter of […]
How much of Eastern spirituality and practice in the West is really dressed up secular therapy and consumerism? In his new book, Secular Beats Spiritual: The Westernization of the Easternization of the West (Oxford University Press, $32.50), sociologist Steve Bruce casts doubt on the notion that the “turn to the East” represents anything like a spiritual revolution that is replacing traditional religion. The subtitle refers to Colin Campbell’s 2007 book, The Easternization of the West, which argued that Western culture was undergoing a transformation to Eastern spiritual values. Bruce, a longtime defender of the secularization thesis, looks at many of the influences Campbell sees as Eastern spiritual themes and stirrings and dismisses them as largely secular or at most “quasi-spiritual.” Bruce takes the reader on a colorful tour of New Age and Eastern spiritual gatherings and groups, especially in the UK, making the book more ethnographic than his other works. He looks at such New Age communities as Findhorn and Glastonbury and finds small if devoted followings (mainly of older people), a tolerance for diversity and absence of a set of unifying beliefs, syncretism, and a therapeutic mindset (discovering one’s true self). In subsequent chapters on yoga, neo-Hinduism (such as Hare Krishna), and Buddhism, Bruce finds a similar pattern: the groups and ideas that thrive in mainstream society (such as human potential concepts and physical and emotional well-being) are the most distant from traditional religious expressions and practices. This is especially the case with the practice of “mindfulness,” as this insight form of Buddhist meditation has evolved into a stress on calmness, increasingly leaving behind any religious trappings.
Not unexpectedly, Bruce finds that his theory of secularization is confirmed by what he sees as the secular drift of these groups. In the final chapters, he returns to his usual number crunching, acknowledging the difficulty of counting the loosely affiliated and individualistic Eastern seekers. From surveys, subscription lists and other studies, he estimates New Age adherents as ranging between seven and one percent of the UK population, mainly middle-class, middle-age and elderly and not likely to reproduce their numbers. “Put very simply, ‘alternative spirituality,’ as it is sometimes called, is not an alternative to religious indifference. It is an alternative to conventional religion [since so many of such seekers had religious upbringings] and, as the proportion of people with any childhood religious socialization declines, so too does the pool from which spirituality recruits,” he argues. Campbell’s book was not so much about the growth of New Age and Eastern religious groups, but rather the diffusion of Eastern spiritual influence in Western culture. Bruce, who sees the same secularizing currents in the UK as soon to arrive in the U.S., denies that Eastern spirituality, given its individualism, has had much public influence. He concludes that the “Western appropriation of Eastern religious themes has been accompanied by a considerable reshaping of those themes. What we have actually seen is the Westernization of the Easternization of the West.”
The longtime tradition of government respecting the autonomy of churches in offering sanctuary to illegal immigrants and other violators of the law is gradually being dissolved under the presidency of Donald Trump, reports the libertarian magazine Reason (February). The internal policies of government immigrant agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have long treated […]
Reformed churches, known for their intellectual and doctrine-based approach to the faith, are also adopting charismatic practices, reports Christianity Today magazine (January/February). The mixing of Calvinism and charismatic practices is particularly evident in the new church planting networks, such as Advance, Newfrontiers, and Acts 29 (to some extent), which are active in the U.S., Britain, […]
The #MeToo movement, involving women speaking out against sexual harassment, is finding expression in religious institutions, particularly evangelical churches where there is sometimes a conflict between granting offending clergy forgiveness and holding them accountable for their actions. National Public Radio (January 24) reports on how the issue of evangelical churches dealing with pastoral sexual abuse […]
“A church for hipsters”—that has been the tone of several media reports on C3 Church for the past few years, the latest one being an article about the Toronto branch in The Globe and Mail (January 18). C3 stands for Christian City Church, a neo-Pentecostal church launched in 1980 that now counts 450 churches around […]
A new study, Going, Going, Gone: The Dynamics of Disaffiliation in Young Catholics, looks at a sample of former Catholics, aged 15 to 25, to shed light on the movement of young people exiting the church in recent years. The National Catholic Reporter (January 22) notes findings from the survey, which was conducted by St. […]
Since the early 2000s, the emergence of women’s circles, small, intimate monthly gatherings exploring women’s issues, in Europe has also seen the growth of eclectic spirituality among participants, writes Chia Longman in the journal Religions (January 1). These circles “appear to be a growing phenomenon across the globe in recent years, as they have become […]
