The recent soccer player-buying spree by Saudi Arabia also involves both geopolitical and religious dimensions, writes James M. Dorsey in his Substack newsletter The Turbulent World (August 5). There is no doubt that salaries motivate high-profile players—some of them Muslim, but not all—to move to Saudi Arabia, but religious affinities with a country that is […]
In regime-controlled areas of war-torn Syria, there are now 620 centers where people can practice yoga and meditate for free, reports Petra Ramsauer in the newspaper NZZ am Sonntag (August 6). The International Day of Yoga on June 21 is now officially promoted in Syria and provides the opportunity for public yoga events. While there […]
Pope Francis’s recent naming of 21 new cardinals in early July is likely to be decisive in tilting the vote of the next papal conclave and keeping the papacy in the mold of Francis, according to reports. The National Catholic Reporter (July 21–August 3) notes that 18 of the 21 new cardinals are under the […]
Departures from the United Methodist Church (UMC) are increasing, reaching over 6,000 congregations—a fifth of the U.S. total—that have now received permission to leave the denomination, the Associated Press reports (July 6). The departure of conservatives over theology and the role of LGBTQ people in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination and the numbers leaving are […]
Witchcraft has become a multibillion-dollar business, with a level of commercialization that has been affecting these Pagans’ practices and relation to the natural world, writes sociologist Helen Berger in The Conversation (July 26). Today, witch kits are sold by large companies and in stores—“something unheard of when I began my research in 1986,” Berger writes. […]
Lab-grown meat has become a topic of interest for startups, as the possibility of its being certified kosher or halal could open up access to millions of potential consumers among religious communities, writes journalist Nina Schretr in the Swiss daily newspaper Le Temps (July 15). Her article pays special attention to discussions in Israel, after […]
Originally a youth movement born in U.S. evangelical circles in the early 1990s for promoting sexual restraint before marriage, purity culture has become a trans-denominational subculture and has also reached other countries, gaining an influence, for instance, among German Evangelicals since the early 2000s. Writing in the Zeitschrift für Religion und Weltanschauung (July–August), Claudia Jetter […]
Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) are aligned in the fight for “traditional values,” but politics and religion have been parting ways more when it comes to abortion, Pal Kolsto writes in the current issue of the journal Religion, State, and Society (51:2). While in the past, the issue of abortion has not […]
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has further divided the Orthodox Christian world, putting pressure on Orthodox churches in the Baltic States to take a clear stance against the war and distance themselves from the Moscow Patriarchate, writes Sebastian Rimestad (Leipzig University) in Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost und West (June). In the small Orthodox Church […]
China has been increasingly using religion as a diplomatic tool to further its foreign policy goals, especially in relation to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), writes Juyan Zhang (University of Texas at San Antonio) in The Review of Faith and International Affairs (21:2). Sometimes called the New Silk Road, the BRI was launched in […]
