A study of American Jews shows that younger Jews are moving toward a “more or less Jewish” mentality that embraces self-autonomy and openness to non-Jews to a greater extent than that of their parents’ generation, said sociologist Steven Cohen in a talk he gave at the Committee on Religion at the City University of New […]
Psychedelic music festivals have become increasingly mainstream since their countercultural beginnings in the 1960s, but the large gatherings still generate a sense of spiritual identity for their fans, according to Scott Muir. In a paper presented at the Boston meeting of the American Academy of Religion in mid-November, which RW attended, Scott Muir of Duke […]
The election of Donald Trump has set off a battle among witchcraft and occult practitioners seeking to either bless or throw a magical wrench into the administration of the new U.S. president. A special session of the recent Boston meeting of the American Academy of Religion brought together both scholars and magical practitioners to address […]
Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, Yoga Vidya claims to organize the largest number of yoga seminars in Europe and to maintain the largest training institute for yoga teachers on the continent, having already trained more than 10,000 teachers and 800 to 1,000 more every year, writes Katharina Sigel (Bayreuth University) in Materialdienst der EZW […]
Far-right religious extremism is making an appearance in the Balkans after a long period of Westernization in the region, reports The Economist magazine blog Erasmus (November 27). Religiously inspired nationalism and ultra-nationalism has flourished in Greece under such parties as Golden Dawn, but more recently such currents have been felt in Serbia with the rise […]
Unrecognized by other Orthodox churches, the Macedonian Orthodox Church has now approached the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, expressing its willingness to recognize it as its “mother Church” in order to receive from Bulgaria its autocephaly (independent status), according to several media reports (Balkan Insight, November 20). The Macedonian Orthodox Church had proclaimed its autocephaly unilaterally in […]
The lack of a powerful religious establishment that could enforce ultra-conservative social norms may be one of the reasons why the strict version of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism did not transform Qatar into a country similar to Saudi Arabi, writes James M. Dorsey (S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore) in the Huffington Post […]
Young practicing Catholics are increasingly involved in “trans-parish networks” and other organizations outside the traditional parish, according to Kathleen Garces-Foley of Marymount University. Garces-Foley, who was part of the Changing Spirituality of Emerging Adults project, presented a paper at the mid-October meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Washington, which RW […]
As the percentage of Mormons decline in Utah due to population changes and its least committed members leaving the fold, the LDS church is becoming more “sect-like” and ideological in a way similar to that of Mormons in other parts of the world, according to Rick Phillips of the University of North Florida. Since the […]
The millennial generation is showing interest in astrology and witchcraft, in some cases as alternatives to organized religion, reports the web site Market Watch (October 23). Writer Kari Paul cites the surveys showing a growing detachment from institutional religion and notes that “more than half of young adults in the U.S. believe sociology is a […]
