01: American youth tend to espouse a generic and practical faith that has little relation to particular beliefs and practices, according to a major research project. In an interview with Books & Culture (January/February), sociologist Christian Smith discusses findings from the National Survey of Youth and Religion he conducted, one of the largest studies of its kind. Smith […]
Evangelism dividing Jewish believers in Jesus
Tensions and divisions are growing among Jewish believers over the importance of Jewish rituals and evangelism to fellow Jews, reportsChristianity Today (February). In the last three decades, Jewish-Christians have formed Messianic synagogues which uphold Jewish rituals and teachings while affirming a belief in Jesus. But now some Messianic leaders and theologians are saying that traditional evangelism […]
Southern Catholics influencing church and nation?
Southern evangelical culture and a number of other demographic factors account for the fast growth and potential national influence of Catholicism in this region, reports Time magazine (Feb. 14). While the once-Catholic strongholds of the Northeast and Midwest are showing lower Mass attendance, parochial school closings, and the aftershocks of the sexual abuse crisis, the church in […]
Revisions in psychology make room for religion
As psychology has moved away from a strictly scientific orientation, it has gradually become more hospitable toward religious influences, writes Paul Vitz in First Things magazine (March). The older Freudian approach of viewing psychology, particularly psychotherapy, as an objective science has waned and today prominent psychologists locate the discipline in the humanities, and thus more related to […]
On/File: March 2005
01: Awe-Inspiring Experiences is a group based at the University of California that seeks to study phenomena relating to wonder, transcendence and the feeling of oneness with the world. Awe-inspiring experiences can include the mystical state of oneness or being part of one community or any other events or episodes leading to “changes in consciousness.” The three-year-old […]
On/File: February 2005
01: Youth churches, comprised solely of adolescents, are a growing phenomenon in Great Britain. The movement got its start in the late 1990s, when an attempt to integrate a youth church plant in London failed to integrate into the larger church. Youth churches (in contrast to youth congregations) are usually not affiliated with any denomination […]
Findings & Footnotes: February 2005
01: Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Wordwide (Cambridge University Press, $24.99) by political scientists Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, represents a major attempt to chart the rate of secularization on a global level. Relying on the World Values Survey, the European Values Survey, longitudinal data, and a large collection of sociological literature, the authors break new […]
Charismatic hotspots in Asia, Africa
Charisma (January) magazine looks at the 10 “spiritual hot spots,“ or places where evangelical, particularly charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity, is growing the fastest and finds most of them in Asia and Africa. Researcher Justin Long writes that Christianity is growing most rapidly in those places “considered unreachable [in terms of Christian missions] a few decades ago. […]
Buddhist NGO’s expanding in Japan
Partly as an attempt to express Buddhism’s relevance in today’s Japanese society, a number of Buddhist NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have emerged and are expanding following the events of 9/11 and the developments in Iraq. In a report on Buddhist NGOs in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (Vol. 13, No. 2, 2004), Jonathan S. Watts (Jodo Shu […]
British religious schools lacking in tolerance teaching?
Many Muslim and independent Christian schools in England are getting failing grades for their narrow curricula and teaching civic concern and tolerance to their students, according to a recent British government report. The Economist (Jan. 22) reports that independent religious schools are growing rapidly in England; there were 170 in September of 2003 and now there […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- …
- 193
- Next Page »