A long-expected split within the ultra-orthodox Chabad-Lubavich Jewish movement over messianic beliefs may be in the wings, and politics as much as religion may be the most immediate cause of such a schism, reports Forward.com (Jan. 9). A long-standing conflict in the Chabad-Lubavich ranks over the status of its leader, Menahem Schneerson, with a group […]
Growing number of women priests serving Catholics on the margins
Frustrated with the refusal of the Vatican to discuss the ordination of women, a growing number of women are taking matters into their own hands and ordaining themselves as priests, and in the process are drawing disaffected and marginal Catholics to their ministries. The National Catholic Reporter (Dec. 7) notes that the organization sponsoring such […]
New technology puts religious journalism in the hands of amateurs, volunteers?
The rise of blogs and websites and the decline of print media tends to favor amateurs and volunteers over professionals—a tendency that may eventually have a significant impact on religious institutions and their public image. Writing in the conservative Catholic magazine New Oxford Review (December), journalist Tom Bethell mainly focuses on Catholic publications when he […]
Christian immigrants join the ranks of the culture wars?
A hate-crime trial taking place in California may also be revealing a new and more global front in the culture wars. The trial concerns the assault and eventual killing of a man by Slavic immigrants that prosecutors charge was motivated by anti-gay sentiment. The Christian Science Monitor (Jan. 4) reports that gay leaders in Sacramento […]
Current Research: November 2007
01: The rise of “political anti-fundamentalism” is largely a reaction to messages about conservative Christians from the media, according to a recent study by political scientists Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio. In a paper presented at the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics and Culture (ASREC) in Tampa, Florida in early November, Bolce and […]
Findings & Footnotes: December 2007
01: For its 40th anniversary issue (#3, 2007), Faith & Form, a magazine on religious architecture, features an in-depth symposium on how the appearances and functions of congregations and the spaces surrounding them are changing in response to religious and social transformations. The lead article by Richard Vosko sees the shift away from organized religion so […]
South African churches seen as playing new role
South African churches, including the Dutch Reformed Church, are perceived as playing a greater social role since the fall of apartheid, even if they may be ill-equipped to serve such a function, according to recent research. South Africa has remained a strongly religious nation in the 13 years since apartheid was dismantled, with a recent […]
Islam in Germany faces pressure to organize
Expectations and pressure from German authorities and society are increasingly forcing Muslims in Germany to coordinate and create representative organizations, reports the Muslim newspaper Islamische Zeitung (November). This follows the pattern observed in several other European countries, though Islam in Germany is unique in several ways. According to some estimates, there may be up to 3.4 million […]
Mother Teresa’s order thriving 10 years after her death
The Missionaries of Charity is enjoying steady growth even though it was widely predicted that the order might shrink after the death of its founder Mother Teresa 10 years ago The Catholic World Report (November) notes that the number of Missionaries of Charity homes, which stood at 594 in 1997, now total 757, spreading to 134 countries […]
New apostolic church feels winds of change
Since the 1990s, the New Apostolic Church (NAC) has initiated a cautious process of change and engagement with other Christians, writes a German Protestant scholar, Andreas Fincke, in a new report in the German publication EZW-Studien (No. 193). While it has been given relatively little attention by scholars, the NAC is the third largest Christian denomination in […]
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