Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

On/File: October 2015

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Expected to take over the leadership of the spiritual activities of the Unification Movement after the passing away of his father Rev. Sun Myung Moon (1920-2012), Hyung Jin (Sean) Moon (b. 1979) has broken with his mother, Hak Ja Han, and has started a dissident movement, the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, more commonly called […]

Findings & Footnotes: September 2015

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01: The Journal of Religious and Political Practice is a new annual publication that examines the interplay of religion and politics in an interdisciplinary and global perspective. In the inaugural issue, the editors state that the journal will “explore ideas about religion and politics, not just as ideologies or belief systems, but as rituals, practices, […]

‘Shiite Crescent’: Arab Spring and Iranian interests

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The Arab Spring has added an entirely new dimension to the discussion of Shia geopolitics, writes Cenap Çakmak (Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Turkey) in The Review of Faith and International Affairs (summer). Due to lack of national identity and sentiments in the Middle East, when a more democratic order is established, Shiites will be prone to […]

‘Prophetic Medicine’ flourishing in Muslim societies

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The use of religious healing methods among Muslims is spreading due to limited health options but also high levels of trust in Islamic healers and their faith-based practices. In a report in Global Plus (July 31), a blog published by the Association of Religion Data Bases (ARDA), Algerian journalist Larbi Megari writes that shops selling […]

Israel-Palestine conflicts challenge ecumenical relations

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Facing unending cycles of violence, Christians in Israel and Palestine find themselves on both sides, which raises questions about their possible role in the conflict and its resolution as well as about relations between them, writes Israeli Jesuit David Neuhaus in the journal Proche-Orient Chrétien (1/2/2015). Being a minority and facing potential decline through emigration, […]

Current Research: September 2015

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01: When it comes to welcoming other races and ethnicities to church, evangelicals have it over mainline Protestants, according to a novel experiment carried out by University of Connecticut sociologist Bradley Wright and reported in Christianity Today (July-August). Seeking to test the hypothesis that evangelicals have a higher rate of implicit racial bias than other […]

Women serve as ‘willing victims’ in Korean exorcism

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Recent cases of “Korean exorcism” in the U.S. and other countries suggest that women in Korean-American churches are more likely to be the “willing victims” of such deliverance practices, in some ways paralleling their involvement in similar shamanic practices in Korea, writes Kyung Hong in the International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society (Vol. […]

Gay marriage and the secularizing of American foreign policy

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The growing distance between religious teachings and American cultural norms as represented by the recent legalization of gay marriage may well lead to new conflicts in foreign policy, writes Andrew J. Bacevich in Commonweal magazine (Aug. 14). Bacevich writes that the Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of gay marriage in the Obergefell vs. […]

Women moving to high level leadership roles in Mormonism

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The addition of women to three high-level councils in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) may have “far-reaching consequences in a denomination led exclusively by men,” writes Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune (Aug. 27). Three women were added to the church’s Priesthood and Family Executive Council, the Missionary […]