Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

Religious minorities’ role in Ukraine conflict raises new tensions with Russia and Orthodoxy

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The involvement of Protestant Christians as well as Greek Catholics in the recent political developments in Ukraine causes concern to Russians as well as to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. Not only is the new acting Ukrainian president, Aleksandr Turchinov, a Baptist, but there are a number of people belonging to other […]

Muslim converts to Christianity chart their own evangelical path

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While counting and identifying Muslim converts to Christianity is difficult because such conversions are usually penalized in many Islamic societies, recent research suggests this group of Christians might be distinct both from the traditional churches of their own lands and from Western missionaries and their method of “contextualization,” or making Christianity relevant to a particular […]

Saudi Arabia reassessing jihadist challenge

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While Saudi Arabia has used Salafism and jihadism to promote its foreign policy interests, it faces more and more of such groups challenging the Kingdom’s official clerics’ status as a source of authority for Salafism. This has led Saudi Arabia to declare recently two jihadist groups in Syria as terrorist organizations, writes Kamran Bokhari  on […]

Current Research: April 2014

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01: Religious belief and involvement remain high for American Indians—whether in aboriginal traditions or Christian churches, and for both men and women, according to one of the largest surveys of religion among this native population. The study, published in the current issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Vol. 53, No. 1), […]

American Muslims creating `third spaces’ between mosque and society

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The growth of Islamic community centers, Muslim sports teams and youth groups and religious discussion groups, are finding a following among younger Muslims who might find mosques confining and the wider society inhospitable to Islam, reports The Christian Science Monitor Weekly (Feb. 17). Many less-than-40 Muslims regard mosques “as little more than sites for weddings […]

Featured Story: African-Americans’ new interest in roots causes new divisions among Yoruba faithful

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In a quest for roots as well as authenticity, African-American followers of Santeria (aka Lukumi) and related religious groups with roots in the Yoruba tradition are traveling in increasing numbers to Africa. But their attempt to adjust practices to what they have seen in Nigeria has created friction among such practitioners in the U.S., reports […]

Islamic extremism reviving through franchising, regrouping

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Despite significant gains in dismantling the leadership of extremist Islamic terrorist groups, religiously based terrorism is on the upswing and more diversified than ever, according to two reports. Foreign Policy magazine (March/April) traces the genealogy of the name al-Qaida from its inception in 1988 (used by Osama bin Laden as a term for his training […]

On/File: March 2014

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Alpha Lambda Mu at the University of San Diego is the first Muslim fraternity in the U.S. The fraternity was founded by Muslim students to offer fellow believers a way to express both their American and Islamic identities. While the fraternity is similar to its secular counterparts in that it offers members a menu of […]

Findings & Footnotes: March 2014

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01: The Atlas of Pentecostalism is a new online database that seeks to map the rapid growth of global Pentecostalism as a diverse and networked religion. The database uses new and old methods, including global crowdsourcing, big data, cinematography, interviews and academic collaborations to provide an independent perspective on Pentecostalism as it changes. The database expands […]