A new interest in Catholic products — from rosaries to videos — is propelling the growth of Catholic marketing, reports the National Catholic Register (Feb. 13-19). The newspaper reports that the expansion is evident in the four-year-old Catholic Marketing Network,, a Dallas-based firm that holds trade shows for Catholic store owners and other suppliers of religious goods from […]

A spate of highly publicized scandals in the American Orthodox Jewish community has “touched off a campaign of intense soul-searching among American Jews” concerning ethics. Moment magazine (February) reports that in the last few years, prominent Orthodox, particularly Hasidic, Jewish leaders and sometimes whole communities have found themselves mired in scandals involving allegations of corruption and […]

Recent events in China suggest that religion is emerging as the most serious threat to the ruling party’s monopoly on power, reports the Washington Post (Jan. 10). In early January, an important lama of Tibetan Buddhism made a dramatic escape to his faith’s exile community in India, even though he was hand-picked by Chinese officials to squelch […]

The evangelical men’s ministry Promise Keepers may be faltering in the U.S. but it appears to be just picking up steam in Latin America. Religion Today.com reports that “through small groups, pastors’ conferences, and PK’s hallmark stadium events, the vision of inspiring men to live Christian lives is spreading. Men’s ministries are growing in at least […]

The on-going, often acrimonious controversies within Israel over its true religious history and its mission today has recently taken on a new dimension among archeologists and public leaders over the nation’s proper use of the Bible. An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Jan. 21) finds at least three competing camps of interpretation have stirred major […]

Christianity is far from exhausted at the turn of the new millennium, but many of the regions where it gained status as an established religion are likely to remain in the free fall of secularism, writes sociologist David Martin. In the National Post (Jan. 1), a Canadian newspaper, Martin maps where Christianity is likely to retain its […]

While more Americans believe there is a hell than from a few years ago, they, and religious leaders in general, are also less inclined to view hell in literal terms, according to an article in U.S. News & World Report (Jan. 31). Last summer, the Vatican and then the pope himself illustrated the revisionist mood when they […]

A controversy among American Muslims is raising the question of how authority is delegated in the diverse Islamic community. The controversy surrounds Shaykh Kabbani, leader of the Washington-based Islamic Supreme Council (ISC),   who stated in an address at the U.S. State Department last year that many American Muslim groups had connections with terrorist groups, or were […]