One of the first cross-national studies on abortion and religion finds that the religious or secular character of nations’ cultures has more influence on abortion attitudes than religious affiliation. The study, conducted by sociologist Amy Adamczyk of the City University of New York, was presented at a seminar at New York’s Columbia University in mid-February, […]
One should expect the relationship between the military and the Russian Orthodox Church to continue developing and playing a role in countering antiwar sentiments, writes Pär Gustafsson Kurki, Senior Researcher at the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI), in a recent report titled Apostles of Violence: The Russian Orthodox Church’s Role in Russian Militarism. Although only […]
Islam in West Africa has undergone significant transformations since independence, including urbanization, modernization, globalization, and possibly the feminization of Islamic practices, writes Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos, senior researcher at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), in the online Bulletin de l’Observatoire International du Religieux (January). While not denying the presence of vibrant […]
■ A new peer-reviewed journal of Anglican theology, Cranmer Theological Journal, would like “to fill a void by addressing the needs of biblically orthodox Anglicans in North America, at a time when the existing journals reflect the same doctrinal issues that prompted numerous Anglicans to leave the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.” […]
Launched on February 27 at the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) in Nairobi, Kenya, Al-Mizan: A Covenant for the Earth presents an Islamic outlook on the environment in a bid to strengthen local, regional, and international actions that would combat climate change and other threats to the planet. The result of […]
After “months of stagnation and tension” there has been an improvement in relations between the Vatican and China—“the culmination of months-long efforts to ease tensions with Beijing,” reports journalist Loup Besmond de Senneville in La Croix International (January 30). For Pope Francis, who dreams of visiting the country, China remains a top priority. A 2018 […]
Mainline Protestant and Catholic theological education has recently broadened its mission beyond the training of competent clergy to embrace community organizing, reports Aaron Stauffer in the Christian Century (February). It is nothing new for mainline Protestant and Catholic seminaries to be centers of social activism, but community organizing has now been integrated into the curriculum […]
More than 90 percent of American adults support religious pluralism, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty found in its latest Religious Freedom Index. In its fifth edition of the annual index, Becket polled respondents on six dimensions of religious freedom, including religious pluralism, religion and policy, religious sharing, religion and society, church and state, and […]
While Neo-Pagans only constitute a tiny percentage of the population of Baltic countries, they aspire to become increasingly established in Latvia and Lithuania, although not without meeting resistance, according to media as well as reports recently published on Eurel, an academic website and network reporting on sociological and legal data on religions in Europe. In […]
The growing number of militarized Russian Orthodox organizations and clubs for young men have replaced the far-right violent groups of earlier decades, serving to temper their radical tendencies, even as these clubs are put to use by the government and political leaders, writes Victoria Fomina (University of St. Andrews) in the Journal of the Royal […]
