Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

You are here: Home / Archives for Richard Cimino

Featured Story: Alcoholics Anonymous caught between ‘secularizers’ and ‘fundamentalists’

by

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is showing growing conflict and diversity over the role and meaning of spirituality in its meetings, although the organization is likely to hold together, write psychologists Ernest Kurtz and William White in the current issue of the online journal Religions (No. 6, 2015). In the last few years there have been feuds […]

Online ordinations put to unconventional spiritual uses

by

Online ordinations groups, such as the Universal Life Church (ULC), are branching out from mainly offering the public “priests for the day” for friends and family members’ weddings to appealing to more serious spiritual entrepreneurs seeking a license for their unconventional ministries, writes Heather Adams in the Washington Post (Jan. 13).  The ULC and related […]

Adventists’ evangelical temptation

by

There is a growing clash in Seventh Day Adventism between those who want to move closer to evangelicals in worship style and shared beliefs and those pressing for maintaining Adventist identity, reports Christianity Today (January/February). For more than a decade, there has been a movement of Adventists toward contemporary evangelical worship styles and closer cooperation […]

Church constructions decline but not necessarily church planting

by

While church construction has fallen 80 percent since 2002, now down to its lowest level since record keeping began in 1967, new congregations are being established at a rapid rate, reports the Wall Street Journal (Jan. 15). Rob Moll reports that the $3.15 billion spent in the construction of religious buildings is half the level […]

Current Research: February 2015

by

01: The conflict between religion and science in the U.S. is often portrayed as being between conservative believers and secular Americans but a recent study finds that a “post-secular” camp who tend to view both science and religion favorably. The study, conducted by Timothy L. O’Brien and Shiri Noy and published in the American Sociological […]

The ‘motherteresafication’ of Albania?

by

Mother Teresa has become a national symbol of Albania, even though it is a Muslim dominant and secular nation, writes Cecilie Endresen in the journal Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations (26:1). Since her beatification in 2003, Mother Teresa has been embraced by Albania’s ruling party as a national symbol, with her name, statues and portraits appearing […]

Blasphemy enforcement expands on the Internet

by

More governments, as they pursue violators on the Internet, are newly enforcing blasphemy laws. Voice of America (Jan. 13) reports that many of these governments are most notably majority Muslim nations and are turning to anti-blasphemy laws to punish transgressions against Islam that move beyond targeting public offenses to ones expressed over the Internet. The […]

Findings & Footnotes: February 2015

by

01: Although it is far off the agenda of most Western churches, witchcraft remains a live and pressing issue in much of the global South. The January issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research is devoted to the controversial subject, particularly about the effects of “witch hunts” on Christian churches. The debate about the […]