The blog of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture (January 13), which offers an annual forecast for the upcoming year, is predicting for 2022 such “megatrends” as a turn to authoritarian government and religion and a virtual reality-based “metaverse,” where online “spiritual experience entrepreneurs” will seek to usurp the role of in-person and lived […]
Muslim organizations in the U.S., Canada, and the UK are becoming increasingly outspoken advocates for Uyghur Muslims, who are suffering genocide under the Chinese government, according to Axios (January 2). While the governments of many Muslim-majority countries have faced criticism for their non-involvement and silence about China’s repression of their co-religionists, Muslim laypeople have been organizing and […]
While two-thirds of Canadians report a religious affiliation, this is the first time that the proportion has dropped below 70 percent, reports Ashleigh Stewart in a three-part series on religious transformations in Canada published by Global News (January 8–16). Some religious leaders are hopeful, though, that shifts forced by the pandemic have opened new ways […]
A new survey shows a large segment of Americans no longer adhering to the “Protestant” label the way older generations did. When the weekly survey Nationscape, which is conducted by the Democracy Fund, asked respondents about their religion, it found a noticeable downturn in the use of the “Protestant” label. The survey, which offers the […]
Tensions between some of the leaders of the evangelical community and the government in Cuba have increased over the past three years, as the main Protestant churches have demanded more independence from state organizations, reports Yoe Suarez on the website Religion Unplugged (January 19). Protestant churches have been at the forefront in rejecting Cuban government […]
While the rapid growth of Calvinist Christianity in China has surprised some Western observers, the trend has been unfolding for years and is likely to continue, although in new forms thanks to the pandemic and the ever-tightening restrictions on churches by China’s communist government. The Hong Kong-based evangelical journal China Source devotes its winter issue […]
1) The formation of the Alliance of Reformed Churches has been a long time coming, as the liberal-conservative divide in the mainline Reformed Church in America has become increasingly sharp in recent years. The departure of the theologically conservative congregations to the new group, then, leaves some who remain in the RCA concerned for the […]
Although religion in 2021 was eventful on several fronts, last year’s trends also reflected shifts that were vividly on display in 2020: a continuation of the pandemic and its wide-ranging effects on religious institutions, the religio-political tensions and polarization leading to the January 6 riots, and the battles over teaching gender and race. But there […]
Religious apps are seeing not only a growing number of customers but also increased venture- capital funding, largely due to the dislocation and anxieties caused by the pandemic, reports Isaac Taylor in the Wall Street Journal (December 21). Startup founders and investors find that the apps are drawing more funding and customers from among those […]
As mixed-use congregations become more common, the longstanding “worship wars” between evangelical congregations favoring traditional services and those using contemporary music and worship are simmering down, writes Thomas Kidd of Baylor University in a blog on the Christian Coalition website (December 13). Kidd reviews a new book by Melanie Ross, who argues that the fading […]
