The 2024 election results in India have “dealt a significant blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), shattering its confidence in its ability to mobilise voters using its Hindutva ideology, which promotes Hindu nationalism and marginalizes religious minorities,” reports Newsreel Asia (June 5). This was particularly reflected in the party’s low election results in the […]
Conversion from Islam to Protestantism in Kabylia (an area of northern Algeria) fits with the region’s cultural and political claims for autonomy, writes Hamida Azouani-Rekkas (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris) in Multitudes (No. 95, Summer). The Kabyle people are one of the Berber (Amazigh) groups of North Africa. Starting from cultural and […]
The mission service expected of young members in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continues to change, particularly in embracing significant online ministry and proselytism efforts closer to home, according to Lauren Jackson in the New York Times (May 12). In recent years, the traditional missions undertaken by young Mormons have become more […]
As Zoroastrianism becomes a global faith due to immigration, the American diaspora is calling for a more pluralistic and reformed approach toward those outside the fold, although it is uncertain how these proposals will be received by the religion’s leaders, writes Paulina Niechcial in the journal Culture and Religion (online in May). Zoroastrianism is an […]
Claiming to fulfill a 2016 decision by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria to revive the ancient order of deaconesses, Metropolitan Seraphim of Zimbabwe caught the Orthodox world by surprise by ordaining Angelic Molen (a married woman with two children) as a deaconess (St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess, May 2). Molen was first ordained […]
A small but growing number of disenchanted Americans have expatriated to Russia in search of a more traditional society, often with Christian motivations, reports the Free Press (May 7). Peter Savodnik writes that these expats are at the “nexus of a growing movement of Americans chasing the American dream. In Russia.” The reasons given for […]
India’s schools are becoming the latest battleground over the influence of Hindu nationalism. The web magazine, The Revealer (May 8), reports that in April, India’s top educational body, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), made changes to textbooks that removed references to the Babri mosque, a medieval mosque destroyed by Hindu nationalists […]
As the drumbeat about “Christian nationalism” becomes louder in the media and public life as the elections approach, conservative Christians, academics and journalists are reacting against what they see as the broad-brushed and even prejudicial application of that label, according to various reports. Christian nationalism may have various historical incarnations, but most recently it emerged […]
While LGBTQ people have had a high rate of non-affiliation, through their parades, holidays, and other rituals, the community has gradually shifted from a protest movement to a “civil religion” with transcendent elements, according to a study in the social science journal Society (online in April). Danish scholars Stefan Schwarzkopf, Sine Nørholm Just, and Jannick […]
A growing number of Jewish students in the U.S. are finding camaraderie and support in campus groups such as Chabad and Hillel in the months since October 7, as anti-Israel protests on campuses continue to multiply, writes Deena Yellin in the Times of Israel (April 28). Yellin cites Anti-Defamation League figures reporting that antisemitic incidents […]
