Immigrants from the Philippines remain highly Catholic even if they are staying in the church at a lower rate than they did in their home country, according to Stephen Cherry of the University of Houston. Cherry found that 85 percent of Filipinos have retained their Catholicism, with only 21 percent claiming Protestant affiliation. But they […]
Family transmission of religion still holds strong in US
While Americans are known for switching and shopping for faiths, family ties and influence are still the main way that religious identity, and beliefs and practices are spread. That is the argument of the recent book Families and Faith (Oxford University Press, $29.95) by Vern L. Bengston, with Noella Putney and Susan Harris. It’s probably […]
On/File: November 2013
A Continuing Survey of New Groups, Movements, Events and People Impacting Religion 01: The Sunday Assembly is the most recent effort to form an atheist “church,” providing a sense of community and secular spirituality for non-religious people. The assembly, founded by British stand-up comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, started as a series of services […]
Findings & Footnotes: November 2013
01: The current issue of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion (September) is devoted to religion and comedy, going beyond the usual somber philosophical and theological reflections on humor. Several articles look at the interactions between comedians and satirists and institutional religion, including the faceoff between the creators of the animated series South Park […]
Newly mobile Chinese embrace secular religiosity
While recent research shows that the Chinese are demonstrating high rates of religious practice, a recent Gallup poll finds that almost half of China’s people—47 percent—are “convinced atheists.” In the blog The Imminent Frame (posted October 10), sociologist Richard Madsen notes that surveys have found that as much as 85 percent of China’s population carry […]
Nationalism emerges among Egypt’s Christians and Muslims as alternative to Islamism
Both Egyptian Christians and Muslim are embracing nationalism to counteract the growing Islamist sentiment in the country, reports the Washington Post (Oct. 3). The “swell of nationalism” the country is experiencing started during the revolution of 2011 and intensified when citizens took to the streets last summer to demand the removal of President Mohammed Morsi […]
New self-image emerging among Yezidis in the Caucasus
Despite being ethnic Kurds, a growing number of young Yezidis in the Caucasus now emphasize a specific Yezidi identity instead of the Kurdish one, reports Allan Kaval in Rûdaw (October 14), an independent online newspaper, based in Iraqi Kurdistan. Kaval recently traveled to Georgia and Armenia for researching developments within Yezidism, an ancient, syncretic religion […]
Nigerian dynamic reverberates throughout global Christianity
Nigeria, home to the largest Pentecostal movements in the world, is also increasingly at the forefront of broad changes that are impacting Christianity in both the global South and the West, writes Allan Effa in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (October). Nigerian Christians are reshaping global Christianity through their growing voice in mainline churches, […]
New forms of religiosity take root in Turkey
Religious diversification is also taking place in countries with a majority Muslim background, such as Turkey, where a variety of new religious movements are active, reported several researchers at a workshop held in Istanbul on October 25-26, which RW attended. This was the third workshop of the research project “The Yogi and the Dervish: New […]
Current Research: November 2013
01: U.S. college students show an almost equal division between three distinct worldviews: religious, secular and spiritual, according to the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) series from Trinity College in Hartford, CT. The study, done in conjunction with the secular humanist Center for Inquiry (CFI), found that 32 percent identified their worldview as religious; 32 […]
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