Many faith-based charities that have long partnered with the government have experienced setbacks to the point where they will not be likely to return to their former missions and levels of activity, according to leaders of religious social services during a recent New York conference attended by RW. The conference, sponsored by Religion News Service […]
While trap music, an increasingly popular form of southern hip-hop, has been known for its infatuation with wealth and money, its songs also show a strong if unorthodox spiritual current, writes Rachel Bomalaski in the journal Anthropology of Consciousness (online in October). Trap emerged from the American South’s urban centers in the late 1990s and […]
There is a resurgence of ancestral and “idol worship” for prosperity in Nigeria which is drawing an increasing number of young Christians to its ranks, according to Edlyne Anugwom of the University of Nigeria. In a paper presented at the Minneapolis meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in early November, attended […]
Muslim women have taken up a significant role in the protests and provocations over Palestinian rights, signaling significant changes in traditional Islamic gender roles, writes Salwa Alinat-Abed in the journal Contemporary Islam (online in October). Alinat-Abed focuses on the growing role of Muslim women in the protests and activism at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, demonstrating […]
Silent retreats, where participants follow monastic practices based on “quiet and listening,” are finding a new popularity among Buddhists, Christians, Jains, and Jews, reports the Washington Post (September 20). Ben Brasch writes that leaders from various traditions are reporting a growth in demand for their silent retreats, often from non-affiliated people. The uptick in interest […]
Catholics in Europe are experiencing their own version of the same culture wars and internal divisions as their counterparts in the U.S., writes Massimo Faggioli in Commonweal magazine (September 21). “The continent is at a crossroads, and the soul-searching extends to European Catholicism. The church is divided over issues like Europe’s rearmament, the war in […]
While environmental activism is typically associated with left-wing politics, a less visible and less numerous but significant movement of conservative Christian environmentalists has emerged in France, report Emmanuel Pellat and Côme Torquebiau in the French Catholic daily La Croix (Sept. 22). These individuals and groups advocate for what they call “integral ecology”—an approach that combines […]
The growing interference of the Military Rabbinate in military affairs and the influx of soldiers from religious Zionism have represented a significant shift for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), turning them into something quite different from the apolitical and areligious army dreamed of by the state’s founding fathers in 1948, writes Samy Cohen (Sciences Po […]
Although Catholicism remains central and widespread in the Philippines, the religious landscape is diversifying, with a noticeable growth and development of evangelical churches, writes Jérémy Ianni in Ad Extra (September 26), the French Catholic website of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, dedicated to reflections and dialogue about missionary work. While Catholicism, a legacy of Spanish […]
“Divine femininity” has become a popular phenomenon on social media, particularly TikTok, for its teaching that women need to harness a particular feminine energy to improve sex relations and everyday life, reports the magazine Teen Vogue (August 13). Sithara Ranasinghe writes that divine femininity is based on the idea that everyone holds two core energies […]
