■ 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 […]
Talk of a religious revival among American elites and creatives may be an exaggeration, but there are signs that those in the art worlds and other elite segments of society are showing a new interest in spirituality and religion. The New York Times (July 14) reports that a group of tech savvy young artists are […]
Faced with the prospect of closing their houses of worship, an increasing number of congregations are repurposing their properties to provide affordable housing, especially as the housing crisis intensifies, writes Nadia Mian in The Conversation (July 19). It is estimated that 100,000 congregations may close in the next few decades due to declining membership, aging […]
■ Recent church planting efforts tend to be near each other and are concentrated in Northeastern and West Coast areas as well as Florida and Texas, a new analysis finds. In his newsletter Graphs about Religion (July 25), Ryan Burge discusses the results of his study of two leading church planting networks, Acts 29 and […]
While religious communities are often thought to be resources for the integration of migrants, the opposite can also be true, as Helmar Kurz (University of Muenster, Germany) writes in an article in the International Journal of Latin American Religions (June) based on his research on the role of Brazilian Spiritist centers in Germany for migrants. […]
