Pentecostal and Holiness churches that practice snake handling are rethinking their longtime rejection of medical care and belief that it shows a lack of trust in God’s healing powers, writes Julia Duin in National Geographic magazine (February 1). Much of this change in theology has taken place among younger serpent-handling preachers after a number of deaths of leaders in the movement.
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).
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).
The orthodox scientific view that has ruled out the existence of UFOs is coming into question—
raising new dilemmas and prospects for the relationship between science and religion writes University of Chicago anthropologist Hussein Ali Agrama in the science and religion journal Zygon (December). In the last few years, there have been a series of disclosures of military programs and research involving UFOs that claim encounters with these alleged phenomena.
Increased financial capital and growth in the global South (mostly in several African countries)
have allowed the Church of Christian Science to cope with a declining number of churches, societies and practitioners, ensuring its continuing existence in the foreseeable future, writes independent scholar Elise Wolff in the Journal of Contemporary Religion (October 2020).
Among other trends, the post-pandemic future of American churches is likely to include significant growth in convocational ministry, smaller satellite congregations, the continued use of digital church strategies to complement live services, and a new emphasis on healthy churches “adopting” and fostering weaker ones, according to church growth researcher Thom Rainer in a blog post on his website Church Answers (December 21).
