A state sponsored program to build mosques in foreign countries has emerged as a foreign policy instrument for Turkey and a way to assert a leadership role in the Muslim world, writes Thomas Seibert in Al Monitor (Feb. 13). The Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) runs the international mosque-building program through a foundation. Most recently, […]
German-speaking atheists more organized, visible
While the number of people belonging to atheist and other secularist organizations remains low in Germany and Austria, representatives of atheist views have managed to gain more media attention in recent years, and atheism is on the rise, according to the current issue of Weltanschauungen – Texte zur religiösen Vielfalt (No. 101), a Catholic publication […]
Interfaith groups growing, seeking direction in UK
The last 15 years have seen a burgeoning of interfaith organizations in the UK, writes Abdul-Azim Ahmed, a UK-based researcher on contemporary Islam in Britain in On Religion (Winter 2015), a new independent magazine on religion and society. According to Ahmed, there are today “hundreds” of interfaith organizations in Britain. Some of the early interfaith […]
Baltic Lutheranism faces challenges inside and out
In comparison with Lutheran Churches in Germany and Scandinavia, the Lutheran Churches in the Baltic States have become more conservative, and those in Latvia and Lithuania moved closer to the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), writes Priit Rohtmets (University of Tartu, Estonia) in Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost und West (January). Both in Estonia and Latvia, […]
The “Holy and Great Council” and its implications for Orthodox Christianity
It came as a surprise when the heads of Orthodox churches, at their March 2014 gathering, announced that the long awaited “Holy and Great Council” would finally convene in 2016 in Istanbul. Early initiatives toward the convocation of such a Council go back to the early 20th century, but turmoil affecting Orthodox countries throughout the […]
Conversion moves on to political agendas in India and elsewhere in Asia
Conversions and reconversions, whether to Christianity or back to Hinduism, are becoming an increasingly contested political issue in India and other South Asian countries, according to several reports. Stating that his party is “against forceful conversions and re-conversions”, president of nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Amit Shah, has asked secular Indian political parties to support […]
Freedom of religion curtailed around the world
From 2012 to 2014, changes pertaining to religious freedom in the world have mostly been for the worse, according to the Catholic NGO Aid to the Church in Need in its report Religious Freedom in the World 2014, which was released in November in several languages at events in various countries in America and Europe. […]
The Orthodox Church—a junior if influential partner of Russian State
The Russian Orthodox Church aspires to be the custodian of Russian identity and soul, but the State considers it as a junior partner that should not escape its control, explained journalist Konstantin von Eggert, former chief correspondent of BBC Russian Service and currently chief editor of the private channel Kommersant FM, at the Eastern European […]
The future of religion—the same, only more so?
While the numerical progression of Islam is likely to slow down alongside the persistence of powerful movements promoting re-Islamization during the coming decades, both charismatic Christianity and revivals of Asian religions should continue to prove attractive in non-Western countries, writes Swiss theologian and scholar Georg Schmid, in the October issue of Informationsblatt (Evangelische Informationsstelle Kirchen […]
Diverse chaplaincies seen as military asset
The military is optimizing religious diversity for military priorities and are making chaplaincies an integral part of its efforts to maintain “full-spectrum dominance,” writes Ed Waggoner (Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, TX) in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (September). While military chaplaincies have a long history and are seen as being of […]