The strongly conservative economic and political tone of conservative evangelical colleges, particularly those most active in Christian Right causes, are taking the emphasis off politics and concentrating more on theology, reports Christianity Today (December). The change is most evident at The King’s College in New York, which appointed conservative writer and speaker Dinesh D’Souza as […]

The idea of the afterlife is being reconfigured through the New Age culture of personal well-being. Extraordinary experiences claimed by proponents of near-death experiences and lucid dreaming provide material to support this redefinition, eliding questions of salvation and traditional notions of heaven and hell, writes Raymond L.M. Lee in the Journal of Contemporary Religion (Vol. […]

Latinos are increasingly interested in Islam and, judging by the current issue of The Message International (November/December), the publication of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Muslims are returning the favor. The issue, half of which is in Spanish, is devoted to Hispanics and Islam, and cites the recent American Mosque 2011 study which […]

Since the 1990s secular and religious rights organizations in Turkey have managed to cooperate, although issues such as gay rights pose new challenges to cross-cleavage partnerships, writes Melinda Negrón-Gonzales (University of New Hampshire) in Turkish Studies (September). While there has been much political polarization in Turkey between secular and Islamic forces, cooperation among human rights […]

Emerging in recent years as a serious security threat in Nigeria and increasingly reported in Western media for its attacks against state and Christian targets, the Islamic militant movement Boko Haram is a product of competition among Muslim movements in northern Nigeria, according to Roman Loimeier (University of Göttingen, Germany), writing in the latest issue […]

Controversial information on their faith found on the Internet is reported to lead a number of European members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) to develop questions and doubts about the church, according to a letter sent by the Europe-area presidency of the church to LDS Church leaders in Northern European […]

While Amsterdam has been considered a major secularized city, immigration—both Christian and Muslim—may move it toward more of a religious marketplace, according to a study by Martin van der Meulen (Protestant Theological University in the Netherlands) presented at the SSSR conference. Using figures from the bi-annual survey of the Amsterdam Statistics Bureau, Van der Meulen […]

Spreading since the 1960s, the idea that there was an esoteric National Socialism is actually a post-war invention without an historical foundation in the Third Reich, writes Julian Strube (University of Heidelberg, Germany) in an article in German published in the Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft (2012/2). If one is to believe a number of best-selling authors […]

While there is the possibility that the Unification Church may face schisms after the death of founder Sun Myung Moon in September, it appears that the church is headed in the direction of a denominational church, write David Bromley and Alexa Bronner in Nova Religio (November), the journal of new religious movements. Since its founding, […]

Eastern Orthodox theology is undergoing a renaissance , but it is largely taking place outside of Orthodox institutions and is propagated by converts to the faith, reports First Things magazine (December). An older renaissance of Orthodox theology in Europe was largely the province of émigré scholars arriving at newly established seminaries, such as Georges Florovsky, […]