● Belief in the “prosperity gospel”—that God financially blesses faithful believers—does not have a strong effect in making individuals successful entrepreneurs, according to a study by Kevin Dougherty and colleagues of Baylor University. The researchers did find that prosperity beliefs can be linked to values associated with entrepreneurialism, such as power and achievement, but found […]
Although affected itself by the economic crisis that Greece has been experiencing since 2009, the Greek Orthodox Church has become an active source of social support for impoverished people, thus seizing an opportunity to position itself as a relevant institution in contemporary society, writes Lina Molokotos-Liederman (Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, January–March). As a […]
Even as Hungary has drawn admiration from conservative Christians for its strong support of the traditional family and maintaining its “Christian heritage,” the central European nation has appeared to change little in its tendency to restrict the freedom of minority religions in the last decade. Glowing reports on how Hungary serves as a beacon of […]
The fire in Paris’ historic Notre Dame Cathedral in early May was mourned as a loss to French Catholicism, but there has been a trend of church fires and desecrations in France that are more mysterious and even suspicious, writes Nina Shea in the National Catholic Register (May 12–25). She writes that, “For those who […]
The announcement on March 14 by Cardinal Reinhard Marx that the Catholic Church in Germany would start a “synodal process” to deal with issues of priestly celibacy, teachings on sexual morality, and clerical power marks an attempt to assert its peculiar identity and to promote a reform agenda of its own, writes Jean Bernard in […]
“Africa is emerging as an important remnant of the Islamic State, even if the continent is too divided along cultural and tribal lines to restore its caliphate,” reports Bloomberg Businessweek (May 22). Paul Wallace writes that the loss of the core of the Islamic State (IS), the caliphate, was a devastating blow to the movement. […]
While leaders of the pro-democracy movement in Sudan seem reluctant to make Islamic law a source of legislation, the country’s ruling military council insists that “Islamic Sharia and the local norms and traditions in the Republic of Sudan should be the sources of legislation” (BBC, May 8). At a time when tensions between the democracy […]
The fact that the latest (2019) edition of the World Almanac of Islamism (American Foreign Policy Council, $119) has expanded to two huge volumes (totaling about 1,500 pages) suggests that there has been a significant increase in groups and individuals involved in Muslim-based political activism. But it should be noted that the term “Islamist” is […]
Police programs in the United States using undercover officers in mosques to monitor members suspected of extremism are facing pushback from the Muslim community, which tends to view such tactics as anti-Islamic and sinful, and are fostering distrust in Islamic institutions, according to Ibrahim Bechrouri of the Institute of Geopolitics at the University of Paris. […]
Nashville, Tennessee, has emerged as a center of Coptic Orthodox Christianity in the U.S. and also serves as a case study of Muslim-Coptic coexistence outside of a context of conflict and persecution, writes Lydia Yousief in the blog Public Orthodoxy (April 17). There are 10,000 to 20,000 Copts in Nashville, based on counts of worshippers […]
