The new attention being given to psychedelic substances in medicine and psychology has also found a hearing in mainline and unconventional religions, not least among the elusive yet expanding population of the non-affiliated or “nones.” The online magazine, The Conversation (October 31), reports that while abandoning mainstream religious affiliation, many nones turn to alternative expressions, […]
The war in neighboring Ukraine is giving a new impetus to the competition between Russian and Romanian Orthodox Churches in Moldova, with some clergy leaving the first to join the second, reports the Nachrichtendienst Östliche Kirchen (November 16). Due to historical circumstances, the autonomous Moldovan Orthodox Church finds itself under the Russian Church and is […]
Producers of halal food could make higher profits by finding more non-Muslim customers, but marketing efforts remain limited despite promising developments, writes Heba Hashem in Salaam Gateway (November 6), a platform on the global Islamic economy. Several Muslim experts are convinced that halal food could expand into the mainstream food industry by appealing to people’s […]
While the Worldwide Church of God no longer exists after the schisms and scandals this new religious movement experienced in the 1980s and ’90s, its offshoots continue to preserve important features of the movement and show some growth, writes J. Gordon Melton in the Journal of CESNUR (September/October), published by the Center on New Religions […]
A growing number of Haredi men are volunteering for the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) following the outbreak of the war against Hamas, which might signal that the “modern Haredi” phenomenon is developing into a real movement, writes Eliyahu Berkovits of the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel Program on the website of the Israel Democracy Institute (October 26). […]
The second-largest national Orthodox church with 25 million members, autocephalous since 1885 and under its own Patriarch since 1925, the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC) has played an important role in Romanian society and national identity, and has managed to preserve a high level of social acceptance throughout regime changes over the past century, writes Mihai-D. […]
Boko Haram, known for its Islamic jihadist terrorism in Nigeria, has slowly evolved from an organization under siege by the government to one estranged from its Muslim rivals and now actively targeting fellow Muslims with violence, writes Abubakar Abubakar Usman of the Asia Middle East Centre for Research and Dialogue (Malaysia). Writing in the journal […]
Just as Christian chaplains are filling in for the roles that traditional congregations and clergy used to play, a new breed of Jewish chaplains is meeting spiritual needs that synagogues once catered to, write Bethamie Horowitz, Wendy Cadge, and Joseph Weisberg in Contemporary Jewry (online in September). The researchers also find that Jewish chaplains are […]
Besides ambiguities in the Russian Orthodox assessment of the Soviet regime, even its rejection of the Soviet past has rarely translated into an engagement with a democratic agenda, writes Alexander Agadjanian (Yerevan State University, Armenia) in the current issue of the Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies (5:2, dated 2022, but just published). Agadjanian starts by […]
With the war impacting all religious groups in the country, it has also affected Ukrainian Muslims, who have responded with humanitarian initiatives, the development of the military chaplaincy, and calls for help to foreign Islamic organizations, writes Oleg Yarosh (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) in Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost und West (September). Before […]
