Silent retreats, where participants follow monastic practices based on “quiet and listening,” are finding a new popularity among Buddhists, Christians, Jains, and Jews, reports the Washington Post (September 20). Ben Brasch writes that leaders from various traditions are reporting a growth in demand for their silent retreats, often from non-affiliated people. The uptick in interest […]
The gap between evangelical and Catholic women supporting the Trump presidency is narrowing, writes Heidi Schlumpf in Commonweal magazine (August 29). The much-touted gender gap in support for Trump has actually narrowed, especially among two religious demographic groups: evangelicals and Catholics. While it’s true that “Trump made gains among men of all ages, races, and […]
Catholics in Europe are experiencing their own version of the same culture wars and internal divisions as their counterparts in the U.S., writes Massimo Faggioli in Commonweal magazine (September 21). “The continent is at a crossroads, and the soul-searching extends to European Catholicism. The church is divided over issues like Europe’s rearmament, the war in […]
While environmental activism is typically associated with left-wing politics, a less visible and less numerous but significant movement of conservative Christian environmentalists has emerged in France, report Emmanuel Pellat and Côme Torquebiau in the French Catholic daily La Croix (Sept. 22). These individuals and groups advocate for what they call “integral ecology”—an approach that combines […]
The growing interference of the Military Rabbinate in military affairs and the influx of soldiers from religious Zionism have represented a significant shift for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), turning them into something quite different from the apolitical and areligious army dreamed of by the state’s founding fathers in 1948, writes Samy Cohen (Sciences Po […]
Although Catholicism remains central and widespread in the Philippines, the religious landscape is diversifying, with a noticeable growth and development of evangelical churches, writes Jérémy Ianni in Ad Extra (September 26), the French Catholic website of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, dedicated to reflections and dialogue about missionary work. While Catholicism, a legacy of Spanish […]
With this issue, Religion Watch enters its fifth decade of publication. It seems like a short time ago that we celebrated the 25th and 30th anniversaries of the newsletter; the first issue (see photo) rolling off the printing press (if readers can remember those machines) is still fresh in this editor’s mind. In another sense, […]
1) Baptize America is a new movement that seeks to encourage revival by holding baptism events for adult converts to Christianity. The movement was first founded as Baptize California by Pastor Mark Francey of the non-denominational Oceans Church in Orange County in 2023 and has since expanded nationwide. The movement draws on more than 650 […]
Just as there are secular and cultural Jews and, increasingly, people claiming to be “cultural Catholics,” Muslims are likewise claiming that identity, according to scholars speaking at the mid-August conference of the Association for the Sociology of Religion in Chicago, which RW attended. Survey research has found that almost a quarter of people from Muslim […]
Although mainline and evangelical churches and denominations have taken clear sides in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, Catholics and the black church have either straddled the fence or experienced internal divisions about this contentious issue. In Commonweal magazine (July–August), Julie Schumacher Cohen writes that there has been a Catholic hesitancy in applying the church’s social […]
