While many devotional publications have appeared and disappeared over the last several decades, the 75-year-old Daily Word continues to reach new readers. Sponsored by the Unity Church for Christianity, it is now being sent to 1.2 million readers, with another 6.5 million connected through pass-along. According to the report in the Washington Post (June 21), the appeal of […]
American Muslims create own business network
American Muslims are turning to Islamic law to help them run their businesses, according to an Associated Press report (June 22). The cornerstone of Islamic business transactions is the religion’s ban on interest payments, or usury. The Koran is specific in requiring Muslims to share the risk of an investment while sharing the profits from it and prohibits […]
Sufism reconciling with Islam after long divorce
Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, is reviving its ties to the Muslim faith after a long period of divorce from the tradition and syncretism among many of its Western, especially American, practitioners. Gnosis magazine (Summer), a quarterly on esoteric spirituality, reports that the closing of such a gap between sufi “gurus” and practitioners and traditional Islam […]
Catholic growth found in conservative or liberal dioceses?
Some observers and scholars have speculated that conservative Catholic seminaries and dioceses — like their conservative Protestant counterparts — are more likely to draw in members and vocations than more liberal groups. In reporting on a conservative and liberal dioceses, writer Charles R. Morris found that there is something to this speculation, but not everything. Writing […]
Darwinism comes under increasing attack from religious and secular critics
While Pope John Paul II recently endorsed much of Darwinism’s biological underpinnings, the theory is drawing some sharp attacks from American neoconservative writers, academic anthropologists and social theorists. The libertarian Reason magazine (July) reports that such American neoconservatives as Irving Kristol are asserting that human society must rest on the permanent moral foundations found in religious faith. Darwinism’s […]
Supreme court decisions open new era in church-state relations
The late June decisions by the Supreme Court on church-state relations effectively open a new era in the potentially explosive world of religious freedom and judicial sovereignty. In the decision to allow publicly funded school teachers to offer instruction in parochial schools, and in the declaration that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is unconstitutional, the nation’s […]
Money matters stymie clergy and laity
Whether it’s about deciding between simple living or prosperity “gospels” or about how church members approach the matter of giving and financing, there is growing ambivalence about the relation of money to religion, according to recent reports. In his new book Crisis In The Churches (Oxford, $30), sociologist Robert Wuthnow looks at the relation of clergy and laity to […]
On/File: June 1997
01: Most of the new charismatic Christian networks and denominations active in the U.S. are home-grown. So the establishment of Christian Outreach Centres in the U.S. imported from Australia is something of a novelty. The Brisbane -based group has 10 newly affiliated congregations in the U.S., reversing a “trend in which several church groups from America–such as the Assemblies of […]
Findings & Footnotes: June 1997
01: Millennium Rage: Survivalists, White Supremacists, and the Doomsday Prophecy (Plenum, $25.95) is an absorbing look at the current wave of militias, white supremacists, and other similar groups. Author Philip Lamy attempts to show how so-called “hate groups” have manufactured an apocalyptic ideology that fits in with their racist ideologies. Millennium Rage is useful for those with an interest […]
Catholic Church in Chile still carries public weight
While Catholicism has been reported to be losing influence in many Latin American countries due to the rise of secularism and evangelicalism, Chile seems to be an exception. The influence of Catholicism in Chilean society, and particularly in the media, was recently demonstrated in a conflict between Catholic-based media and the government, reports the Economist (May 10). President Eduardo […]