Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

Findings & Footnotes: January 2015

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01: The field of Islamic studies is among the liveliest (and most employable) in religion today and, as might be expected, also the most contentious over its purposes and methods. The current issue of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion (November) focuses on the controversies and factions that have developed in Islamic studies, especially the […]

Featured Story: New church plants reproducing mainline identity?

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Mainline denominations have recently started to emphasize church planting, usually in ways that vary considerably from evangelical church plants that are likely to perpetuate their liberal identity, according to recent research. A major study of 260 new congregations from six old-line denominations presented at the recent meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of […]

Presbyterian schisms—deeper roots and long time coming

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Hundreds of congregations and clergy have left mainline Protestant denominations since 2000. In 2009 the ELCA and in 2011 the PCUSA adopted policies allowing ordination of gay clergy. Research reported at the Religious Research Association conference in Indianapolis this past October looked at the recent exodus of conservatives from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, […]

New religious movements shaping American eating habits

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Many of the innovations in food that have been introduced by new religious movements  (NRMs) have become so much a part of mainstream America that they are not easily recognized, according to University of Oregon sociologist Marion Goldman. In presenting preliminary results from her study at the recent meeting of the Society for the Scientific […]

Current Research: December 2014

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01: People tend to think differently about spirituality and God according to what time of the day it is and the activities they are engaged in, according to a study by sociologist Bradley Wright of the University of Connecticut. Wright, who presented a paper at the recent meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of […]

Freedom of religion curtailed around the world

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From 2012 to 2014, changes pertaining to religious freedom in the world have mostly been for the worse, according to the Catholic NGO Aid to the Church in Need in its report Religious Freedom in the World 2014, which was released in November in several languages at events in various countries in America and Europe. […]

The future of religion—the same, only more so?

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While the numerical progression of Islam is likely to slow down alongside the persistence of powerful movements promoting re-Islamization during the coming decades, both charismatic Christianity and revivals of Asian religions should continue to prove attractive in non-Western countries, writes Swiss theologian and scholar Georg Schmid, in the October issue of Informationsblatt (Evangelische Informationsstelle Kirchen […]

Findings & Footnotes: December 2015

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01: Religious imagery, concepts and practices are often featured in online video gaming but only recently has this become a topic of study among religion scholars. The current issue of the online Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet (Vol 5, 2014) is devoted to religion in digital games, providing an interesting mix of case […]