01: The third Faith Communities Today (FACT) survey, conducted in 2008, finds a “persistent downward drift in congregational vitality,” according to David Roozen of Hartford Seminary. Roozen, who directed the study in 2000, 2005 and 2008, said that across eight years, congregational health, including financial stability, has declined. Roozen, who presented his findings at the […]
Fringe groups find fertile ground in Quebec Catholicism
While classical Catholic traditionalism in the line of the late Archbishop Lefebvre has not developed very strongly in Quebec, a variety of very specific Catholic groups originating in Quebec itself have found fertile ground there. Some of them have been undergoing changes and realignment in recent years, either attempting to remain within the sphere of […]
Western followers bring changes to the Ni’matullahi Sufi Order
Based only in Iran until the 1970s, one branch of the Ni’matullahi Sufi Order came to the West after its head, Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh (d. 2008), emigrated following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The past 30 years have brought radical changes to the group, reported Eliza Tasbihi (Concordia University, Montreal) at the November conference of […]
New Sanctuary movement—less sanctuary and more identity problems
While the New Sanctuary movement has revived activist hopes of a revived national church movement for immigrant rights, the current move to protect undocumented immigrants is more locally based, less mobile, and has found recruitment and building a common identity more difficult than the pioneering movement of the 1980s, according to a recent study. The […]
New models of guru–disciple relationships
In the American context, the traditional model of guru has frequently given way to a new type of spiritual masters having a non-exclusive relationship with their disciples, Lola L. Williamson (Millsapas College) explained at the Montreal conference of the American Academy of Religion (Nov. 7–10), which RW attended. During what Williamson described as “phase one,” […]
On/File: September/October 2009
Willigis Jäger, a former Benedictine monk and highly successful Catholic meditation teacher in Germany, has recently created his own Zen Buddhist lineage, after leaving the Sanbô-Kyôdan Zen school in January. In recent years, Jäger had trained thousands of people at his center (since 2003) called Benediktushof, in Holzkirchen (Germany), a former Benedictine monastery bought by […]
Findings & Footnotes: September/October 2009
01: The new book Holy Mavericks (NYU Press, $20) casts a wide net in its study of evangelical innovators, profiling charismatic televangelists Joel Osteen and Paula White, megachurch pastors Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes, and “emerging church” pioneer Brian McLaren. Co-authors Shayne Lee and Phillip Luke Sinitiere see these evangelical innovators as helping to create […]
Hindu extremists target Nepal’s Christian institutions
Christian institutions in Nepal are getting regular threats from Hindu extremist groups since the May bomb attack against a Roman Catholic church, which killed three people and severely wounded 15 others, reports Eglises d’Asie (Sept. 1). This represents a case of non-Muslim terrorist activities claiming a religious background. A number of prominent Hindu leaders, including […]
Hizbut Tahrir movement makes progress in Malaysia
The Islamic Liberation Party, Hizbut Tahrir (HT), is becoming increasingly prominent in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia and Malaysia, reports Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (July). The article focuses especially on HT in Malaysia, a country where it had never been researched before. A truly transnational […]
Sufi orders an unlikely alternative to political Islam in North Africa
In Morocco and Algeria, Sufism is increasingly seen as an alternative to political Islam, either because it plays that card, such as the Alawiyya in Algeria, or because Sufi orders are politically instrumentalized by the regimes in power, as it is by the Moroccan monarchy and the Bushishiya order. But such hopes could prove to […]
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