As part of efforts to reform Islamic jurisprudence as well as define the future path of global Islam, religious scholars, led by the Indonesia-based Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), are discussing the religious legitimacy of the United Nations and the nation-state, thus hoping to counter notions of a caliphate and a transnational Islamic state, writes journalist and […]
According to its constitution, the Eastern African nation of Burundi is a secular state, but the discourse of the country’s political leadership is permeated with religious references, reports the French Observatoire Pharos (November 22), based on information from local media. Religion is being turned into a public and political issue. An evangelical vocabulary is being […]
■ The current issue of the Journal of Church and State (64:4) focuses on legal issues relating to Covid-19, specifically the free exercise of religion. The guest editor Adelaide Madera notes that, as might be expected, the curtailments of religious freedom took place in the early phase of the pandemic, but the conflict between the […]
The Engaged Spirituality Project encourages journalists covering religion to adopt ethnographic methods to convey a more in-depth and fine-grained account of religion for their readers. The project, run by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, brings together social scientists—including a core of ethnographers—and journalists to identify, interview, contextualize, […]
It came as no surprise that many of the sessions and papers presented at the November meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Baltimore were devoted to the pandemic. Yet even the scholars making the presentations were unsure about Covid’s effect on religious institutions, beliefs, and practices in the long term. […]
Theological education programs have been growing in evangelical churches for members who want to study church history and theology without going to seminary or who don’t feel called to the ministry, reports Maria Baer in Christianity Today magazine (November). While congregations have always had Bible studies, adult education programs, and new member classes for teaching […]
Seeking advice from a spiritual father is nothing new in the Orthodox tradition, but these religious figures have come to present new characteristics in the modern context and often to be associated with “fundamentalist rigorism,” writes Efstathios Kessareas (University of Erfurt) in an article combining analysis and criticism in the journal Religion & Gesellschaft in […]
Non-denominational congregations continue to grow and have just overtaken any single Protestant denomination in terms of adherents, according to the U.S. Religion Census. The census identified 44,319 independent congregations without any denominational affiliation, increasing from 35,496 in 2010, lead researcher Scott Thumma reported at the annual meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of […]
After a long period of neglect, European religious buildings are finding new patrons and organized efforts at protection, reports Itxu Diaz in the magazine First Things (November 18). “The closure of many religious buildings has propelled them toward an uncertain fate, as they are left at the mercy of patrons, private entities, or local, national, […]
American evangelicals are exporting the pro-life movement to Israel in the midst of court decisions at home and politics abroad that are signaling a more favorable climate for such activism, reports the Washington Post (November 18). Although Israel legalized abortion four years after America’s Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973 and has been vocal in […]
