At this year’s conference of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR), which RW attended in Montreal in early August, it was obvious that there has been a shift of interest and emphasis toward secularism among scholars in the past few years. There were fewer sessions and papers on the growth of religious congregations […]
The entrance of JD Vance as the Republican vice-presidential contender reflects a new breed of Catholic convert that is reshaping Republican politics, Matthew Schmitz, a founder and editor of the online magazine Compact, writes in an opinion piece in the New York Times (August 14). Vance, who converted to Catholicism after attending Yale Law School, […]
More non-affiliated Americans have been seeking spiritual directors even as they lose faith in other aspects of institutional religion, reports Deirdre Pelphrey in World Religion News (August 12). Spiritual directors have seen increased interest in their ministries, especially from “younger people who no longer attend church but still want to nurture a sense of the […]
Vacation Bible schools, which function as day camps that churches provide for members and the community, are adapting to changing dynamics of family life and religious participation, particularly a decline in volunteering for vacation Bible school ministries, according to a report from National Public Radio (August 4). Jason DeRose reports that rather than recruiting volunteers […]
■ A study of campus ministries in the U.S. finds that today’s college students are less likely to be seeking spiritual experiences and teachings in joining these ministries than looking for “a home away from home” that provides a source of social support. The five-year study, directed by John Schmalzbauer at the University of Missouri, […]
Ukraine’s new law prohibiting the Russian Orthodox Church’s (ROC) activity in the country, as well as that of other religious organizations linked with Russia, is a sign of the increasing securitization of relations between state and religion in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, writes Dmytro Vovk (Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Ukraine) in the Nachrichtendienst Östliche […]
The Neo-Zoroastrian religiosity of converts has often been described as different from traditional Zoroastrian practices, but changes are also being observed among those who are Zoroastrian by birth. In a new issue of Entangled Religions (August) on “Religious Conversion in a Religiously Plural World,” Benedikt Römer (Bundeswehr University, Munich) reports that aspects of coalescence can […]
Controversy and hostility toward new religious movements (NRMs), particularly the Unification Church, are being fanned by the media in Japan, which has focused attention on second-generation members who have left and protested against these groups, according to Adam Lyons of the University of Montreal. In a paper presented at the early-August meeting of the Association […]
■ It has been over 50 years since the controversial Homogenous Unit Principle (HUP) was propagated through Donald McGavran’s book Understanding Church Growth. The HUP held that evangelism and church growth are most effective among groups of people with similar characteristics, people being more likely to become Christian if they do not have to cross cultural, […]
1) Rather than leaving organized religion, some evangelicals who no longer feel comfortable in a conservative subculture are finding new spiritual homes in more progressive evangelical churches, such as Churchome, a non-denominational megachurch in Seattle. Members of the church speak about their uneasiness with mainstream American evangelicalism and how Churchome is doing it differently. Churchome […]
