Something that has become increasingly clear after more than five years with Pope Francis at the helm of the Roman Catholic Church is that he has strong pastoral reasons for addressing issues. He is also a pope who tends to launch processes and then waits to see what emerges from the ensuing debates. This may […]
The massive evangelical men’s gatherings of the 1990s have largely disbanded while women’s ministries have since flourished, but new forms of ministry to men have emerged that stress community-building and activities based on a common purpose, reports Christianity Today magazine (June). Large-scale men’s ministries and gatherings, such as Promise Keepers, have disappeared and congregation-based men’s […]
The interest of scholars in the relation of sports and religion is catching up to the level of attention that religious groups have given to athletes and sporting events in recent years, writes Nick J. Watson in the journal Theology (vol. 121, no. 4). In recent years, there have been major academic conferences on religion, […]
The recent annual meeting of Southern Baptists suggests that a generational shift is taking place in the denomination that may moderate its longtime religious-right stance, writes Jonathan Merritt in The Atlantic (June 16). The election of 45-year-old pastor J.D. Greear from North Carolina as president of the denomination is viewed as a changing of the […]
Efforts to bridge the divide between evangelical and Eastern Orthodox churches in the Middle East are paying dividends of renewed evangelistic and missionary involvement for both traditions, writes Jayson Casper in Christianity Today (June). Much of the impetus behind this conciliatory mood is the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and its theologian Thomas Schirrmacher, who joined […]
A form of individualized and demanding pilgrimage for young adults has rapidly spread across Poland, replacing Marian-based pilgrimages and devotions, according to an article in the journal Religion, State and Society (vol. 46, no. 2). Known as the “Extreme Way of the Cross,” the spiritual discipline involves participants’ making exhaustive treks across designated routes as […]
It is not only in the Muslim world that attempts to legally repress blasphemy or other actions offending the feelings of believers take place. In the strongly Orthodox Christian Republic of Georgia, the commission on human rights of the Parliament has created a working group to draft a law for protecting the feelings of believers, […]
Roman Catholics and evangelicals have shared social and political priorities over the past three decades “but now find their agendas diverging in the era of President Trump and Pope Francis,” according to a National Public Radio report by Tom Gjelten (May 25). In recent decades their shared opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage and common […]
Rituals, like spirituality itself, are increasingly being separated from their communal and religious contexts and being designed for and in some cases marketed to the non-affiliated (or “nones”). In The Atlantic (May 7), Sigal Samuel reports on the work of the Ritual Design Lab in Silicon Valley, where a small team of “interaction designers” is […]
Ireland’s vote to overturn its constitutional ban on abortion was not only another sign of the country’s weakening Catholic identity but has also been seen as pointing to a pattern that may be followed by another European country, namely Poland, according to the Wall Street Journal (May 29). Ireland’s vote on abortion last month “echoed […]
