Pastoral care in churches has gradually shifted from specific religious teachings to a more ecumenical spirituality and from concerns about human nature and morality to an emphasis on personal narratives, according to a study in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (online in February).
A legal case in Switzerland is once again raising the question of the religious nature of yoga and similar practices, especially during a public health crisis. A yoga studio in the Swiss canton of Aarau has refused to shut its doors despite federal sanitary regulations temporarily banning sport and fitness activities, including yoga and dance studios.
The spread and impact of Covid-19 has “shaken the assumptions of some in the insular ultra-Orthodox world, swelling the numbers of those who decide they want out,” writes Isabel Kershner in the New York Times (February 17). Organizations that assist ultra-Orthodox Jews in leaving the fold or managing the transition into modern Israeli society have reported a rise in the demand for their services. Although there is no clear estimate on the scale of defections, Naftali. Yawitz, head of the division of the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry that helps fund such organizations, said there has been a “very significant wave” in recent months of both new leavers and ex-ultra-Orthodox seeking help.
While the role of Islam has increased in Indonesia’s foreign policy and efforts have been made to promote the rights of Muslims persecuted abroad, the government has also taken its economic interests, regional relations, and domestic politics into consideration, while its own experiences have made it aware of the complexity of conflicts involving Muslims, writes Ann Marie Murphy in an analysis published by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies (December).
Monastic schools are a key mechanism in Myanmar’s education system to combat marginalization and aiming to include the poorest in society, as the government has come to recognize their importance in delivering education to segments of the population where the state system might be unable to reach, writes Marie Lall (UCL Institute of Education) in a chapter on alternative monastic education of her newly published book Myanmar’s Education Reforms: A pathway to social justice? (UCL Press, University College London, £ 25, open-access PDF available).
The new book The Routledge Handbook on Religion and Cites (Routledge, $250; e-version, $47.65), edited by Katie Day and Elise Edwards, presents the state of the art on research about religion in the urban context. In the introduction, Day and Edwards write that while there has been renewed attention to religion and cities, there has been less focus on the specific places and spaces and how they interact with religious institutions at the community level.
The Republican Brotherhood, a reformist and esoteric Muslim movement from Sudan, has largely been dispersed to the Gulf States and the U.S., but in the process, it faces new difficulties in sustaining itself. The Republican Brotherhood was founded in 1956 by Mahmoud Mohamed Taha to promote social reform based on divine revelations he claimed to receive.
While the election of Joe Biden as U.S. president seems to be ushering in a new era of liberal Catholic (and, in general, liberal religious) influence, by closely aligning themselves with the Democratic administration, liberal Catholic activists and leaders run the risk of being perceived to be as partisan as evangelicals were under the Trump […]
There is new division and conflict between charismatic and Pentecostal leaders and their followers over their failed prophecies concerning the reelection of President Donald Trump, particularly after the riots and attempted insurrection of January 6.
In the face of social and political polarization as well as the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, a segment of religious conservatives are pulling up stakes and moving to northern Idaho, a deep “red” state that is considered friendly to religion and traditional values, writes Tracy Simmons on the website Religion Unplugged (December 29).
