Although issues of sexuality and gender continue to roil most Christian churches, evangelical organizations are experiencing divisions less over LGBTQ behavior and more over identity and even terminology. Mary Jackson reports in World magazine (March 9) that even such a stalwart organization as Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) is facing criticism from its staff […]
Evangelical culture has appeared to become more accepting of vulgarity and even profanity, though the sources of such a change are contested. In the New York Times (March 17), Ruth Graham reports on how conservative leaders and “influencers” in politics and the media have appealed to and been accepted by many evangelicals in vulgar and […]
Israel’s failure to understand the threat posed by Hamas, leading up to the October 7 attack, has been attributed to many factors, but the role of artificial intelligence and the technology’s blind spot toward Palestinian Islamic jihadism should not be discounted, writes Ofira Seliktar in the foreign policy journal Orbis (Spring). Israel’s leaders were of […]
While the Catholic Church’s traditional prescriptions concerning bodily asceticism are largely ignored by the faithful, even in monasteries marked by “the progressive imposition of the prerogative of health over asceticism,” forms of voluntary reduction of consumption are appearing in secular society. This observation prompted sociologist Isabelle Jonveaux (University of Graz) to conduct research in Austria […]
There are growing tensions between Catholics and evangelicals in Europe, inflamed by remaining church-state disputes in areas where Catholicism is still dominant, reports Christianity Today (March). Concerns about growing secularism in Europe in recent years have led to more conciliatory attitudes and efforts between evangelical Protestants and Catholics. But although the Catholic Church no longer […]
Younger generations are increasingly turning to the supernatural to weather bad economic times in post-zero Covid China—from engaging in birth-chart readings, horoscopes and hexagrams to personalized advice from a psychic master—“all mediated, in true 21st-century fashion, by an app,” writes Aaron Sarin in the online publication Quillette (March 26), a publication covering free speech issues. […]
There is a modest revival of conservative Christian women using veils and other head coverings during worship, reports Gottesdienst (February 27), a journal of Lutheran liturgy. While traditional Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox women have long taken up the veil during their liturgies, this practice is now spreading among conservative Lutherans, Reformed Church members, and […]
Women are increasingly taking up leadership roles in organized Sikhism in the U.S. and are challenging the norms and gender roles in male-dominated institutions, writes Komal Kaur in the journal Sikh Formations (online in February). Younger Sikhs have become increasingly activist in the religion in recent years, though more in society than organized Sikhism [see […]
Although the 3HO movement, a “neo-Sikh” group promoting Kundalini Yoga and drawing a largely white following, continues to suffer repercussions from sexual abuse scandals involving its founder Yogi Bhajan [see RW, Vol. 34, No. 9], the group has reinvented itself, stressing racial equality and diversity and building ties to mainstream Sikhism, writes Simranjit Steel in […]
One should expect the relationship between the military and the Russian Orthodox Church to continue developing and playing a role in countering antiwar sentiments, writes Pär Gustafsson Kurki, Senior Researcher at the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI), in a recent report titled Apostles of Violence: The Russian Orthodox Church’s Role in Russian Militarism. Although only […]
