01: A survey of 3,000 people in 40 communities across the U.S. finds that those who are active in religious life are more likely to know and trust other people, and socialize with friends and neighbors. Americans are also more likely to trust people at their church or synagogue than at their workplace or in their […]
Gay-based MCC finds mainline acceptance
The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC), a largely gay, bi-sexual and transsexual denomination, is gradually moving into mainline Protestantism, reports the Christian Century (March 21-28). Although the MCC has been repeatedly rejected for membership in the National Council of Churches, the 44,000-member denomination is finding acceptance among mainline seminaries, such as Chicago Theological Seminary and […]
Evangelicals founding sexual recovery ministries
Although evangelicals have been involved in self-help groups for several years, “sexual recovery ministries,” appear to be striking a strong chord among such believers. The Los Angeles Times (March 30) reports that a “small but growing number of evangelical and Pentecostal churches across the U.S. are starting sexual recovery ministries” for those addicted to pornography and prostitution. […]
Unificationists make new effort to gain black church support
Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, is currently seeking to strengthen his movement’s ties with black churches, an effort meeting with mixed success. In the San Francisco Chronicle (March 13) Don Lattin reports that Moon’s recent 49-city tour of the U.S. is showing a new interest in building a coalition between black churches and his […]
Responses to social service initiative reveal racial divide
The attempt to fund faith-based social services through the government is revealing deep fissures between white and black as well as suburban and urban churches, according to two reports. The Washington Times (March 26) reports that minority religious leaders who work with the urban poor tend to back the government’s call to expand a 1996 law that […]
On/File: March 2001
01: The Community of the Beatitudes, a growing French Catholic movement that represents a different kind of religious order, has launched its first U.S. “pilot” community in Denver. The community consists of priests, nuns, and laity — single and married — living together as they engage in contemplative prayer and ministry to the poor. The community was […]
Findings & Footnotes: March 2001
01: Habitat for Humanity is among the most well-known and respected of Christian charitable organizations in the U.S. But in his new book, Habitat for Humanity: Building Private Homes, Building Public Religion (Temple University Press, $24.95), Jerome Baggett investigates how the organization reflects and often encourages the tendency toward individualized religion divorced from denominational and congregational attachments. […]
Hindu-based schools flourish in India with help from nationalists
The number of Hindu-based schools in India started by nationalists has grown sharply since they have gained power in the nation, reports the Christian Science Monitor (Feb. 16). A growing network of k-12 schools teaching Hindu values and nationhood started by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak (RSS), the religious parent organization of the Hindu nationalist Dangh Parivar movement, has […]
Liberation theologians warm to charismatic renewal in Brazil
An “unlikely” alliance is being sought by Brazil’s liberation theologians to the charismatic and other spiritual renewal movements, reports Alejandro Bermudez in the National Catholic Register (Jan. 21-27). Since its inception in the 1960s and 1970s, liberation theology, which links salvation to social activism, has often scorned the charismatic movement, claiming it is escapist and too individualistic […]
Conservatives driving new church growth in the Netherlands
While mainline churches continue to decline in the Netherlands, evangelical and charismatic and even Catholic churches are showing new growth in this liberal and secular nation. Quadrant (March) the newsletter of the British Christian Research Association, reports that the smaller Protestant denominations, such as the various conservative offshoots of the Dutch Reformed Church, are showing […]
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