A preliminary study of British Islamic leadership finds that while imams in the UK are shifting toward a British-born, Anglophone modality, they do not have the resources and support among mosque members required to enhance their skills to meet members’ needs. Writing in the current issue of SocrelNews (Spring), the newsletter of sociologists of religion in the UK, Riyaz Timol of Cardiff University notes that his study included two-thirds of all (1,825) British mosques and approximately 2,001 imams (many mosques employ more than one imam), making it the most comprehensive dataset on British imams compiled to date. Beyond leading prayer services and conducting rites of passage, many British imams work as de facto marriage counselors and “are often the first port of call for British Muslims experiencing marital difficulties,” Timol writes. But many of the imams interviewed did not feel their training equipped them for such work, claiming a mismatch between the textual-based educations they received and the people-centered ministry they were often called to perform. There is a huge demand among the imams for continuing education in these areas, but mosque management committees claim a lack of resources to support such extra training, leaving imams to depend upon informal means like YouTube lectures or peer support. Timol also found that imams are “resoundingly overworked and underpaid; many do not have employment contracts and those that do complain about inadequate or unclear terms and conditions.” This “disgruntled underbelly” in the British imamate discourages many younger students from pursuing a mosque-based vocation as the primary source of their livelihood, he writes.
Source:De Montfort University, Leicester.
Large-scale Jewish migration from Russia and Ukraine in the last two years has been proceeding at levels not seen in Europe since last century, a study finds. The report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (July 4) identifies three peak periods of Jewish migration in the past century—from Germany in the 1930s, North Africa in the 1960s, and the former Soviet Union in the 1990s—and points out that these periods saw 50 to 75 percent of national Jewish populations migrate in no more than a decade. While no European Jewish population has shown signs of migration at anywhere near that level for several decades, recent patterns in Russia and Ukraine point to that possibility over the coming years. According to the report, for Russian and Ukrainian Jews, 2022 was a “watershed year: if migration from these countries continues for seven years at the levels seen in 2022 and early 2023, 80–90 percent of the 2021 Jewish population of Ukraine and 50–60 percent of the 2021 Jewish population of Russia will have emigrated.”
(The study can be downloaded from: https://www.jpr.org.uk/reports/jewish-migration-today-what-it-may-mean-europe)
While growing restrictions against religion in China particularly affect Christians, a new study finds that this government regulation also dampens the importance of religion for those without religious affiliations. Last month, RW reported (in the Findings & Footnotes section) on the loss of growth in China’s Pentecostal churches under the new government-imposed restrictions, and the new study by Andrew Francis Tan confirms that while some religions have flourished under persecution, state regulation of religion can have serious effects on both adherents and non-adherents. Appearing in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (online in June), Tan’s analysis of longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies is the first study to estimate the effects of Chinese regulation of Christianity on religious identification and importance in a population sample of adults. The researcher found no evidence that Christianity in China is strengthened by regulation, finding instead that the higher the regulation, the lower the degree of religiosity at the individual level. Most important for Tan was the finding that for those who did not identify with Christianity in any of the waves of the survey, regulation still had a negative effect on the importance of religion. But for those who did identify with Christianity in at least one wave, regulation was not associated with the faith’s importance. Although only 3 percent of the Chinese population identifies as Christian, Tan was struck by the finding that regulation of Christianity would impact the overall population. “Unintentionally or by design,” he writes, “regulatory action may deter individuals from religious participation generally.” Actions such as removing publicly visible crosses, razing church buildings, and disrupting services create a coercive environment for political discipline and impose a secular state morality upon the population, he writes.
(Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14685906)
January 2018 demolition of the Golden Lampstand Church (source: Religious Freedom Institute).
