The blog of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture (January 13), which offers an annual forecast for the upcoming year, is predicting for 2022 such “megatrends” as a turn to authoritarian government and religion and a virtual reality-based “metaverse,” where online “spiritual experience entrepreneurs” will seek to usurp the role of in-person and lived […]
Muslim organizations in the U.S., Canada, and the UK are becoming increasingly outspoken advocates for Uyghur Muslims, who are suffering genocide under the Chinese government, according to Axios (January 2). While the governments of many Muslim-majority countries have faced criticism for their non-involvement and silence about China’s repression of their co-religionists, Muslim laypeople have been organizing and […]
While two-thirds of Canadians report a religious affiliation, this is the first time that the proportion has dropped below 70 percent, reports Ashleigh Stewart in a three-part series on religious transformations in Canada published by Global News (January 8–16). Some religious leaders are hopeful, though, that shifts forced by the pandemic have opened new ways […]
Tensions between some of the leaders of the evangelical community and the government in Cuba have increased over the past three years, as the main Protestant churches have demanded more independence from state organizations, reports Yoe Suarez on the website Religion Unplugged (January 19). Protestant churches have been at the forefront in rejecting Cuban government […]
Nepalis are eager to assert their own identity in relation to their large neighbor, but the influence of Hindu nationalism is increasingly felt in the Himalayan country, with calls for the restoration of a Hindu state also linked to local developments, writes Santosh Sharma Poudel (Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu) in an analysis published in The Diplomat […]
Respected female monastics, lay persons and academics have blazed a path of progress in recent decades for Buddhist women, but they say more needs to be accomplished so women can have equal opportunities, writes Luis Andres Henao in AP News (December 9). The article is part of a series published in December by Associated Press […]
Since 2009, young Twelver Shi’ites in Norway have started forming their own groups, independent from mosques, in an attempt to localize Islam and address current issues, writes Ingvild Flaskerud (University of Oslo) in the proceedings of a conference that took place last Spring in Rome, now published by OSMED (Observatory on the Mediterranean) under the […]
Widows play an undervalued but vital role in the spread of Christianity in northern Nigeria, writes Sung Bauta in the International Bulletin of Mission Research (Vol. 45, No. 4). Northern Nigeria is predominantly Muslim, but there are Christian enclaves. Women constitute the largest segment of church members in Nigeria and widows are a significant proportion […]
After facing a “stained glass ceiling of limitations” in Middle Eastern churches due to religious but also cultural restrictions, women are gradually ascending to the pulpit in the region, reports Mae Elise Cannon in Sojourner’s magazine (November). Even in churches that allow women’s ordination, such as the Presbyterian and Lutheran denominations, Middle Eastern congregations have […]
Religious groups in Korea continue to face controversy and some fallout from the pandemic, even though there has been considerable diversity in how Korean religions have dealt with the virus, according to scholars speaking at a roundtable session of the recent conference of the American Academy of Religion in San Antonio, which RW attended. The […]
