Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

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Gay marriage and the secularizing of American foreign policy

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The growing distance between religious teachings and American cultural norms as represented by the recent legalization of gay marriage may well lead to new conflicts in foreign policy, writes Andrew J. Bacevich in Commonweal magazine (Aug. 14). Bacevich writes that the Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of gay marriage in the Obergefell vs. […]

Women moving to high level leadership roles in Mormonism

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The addition of women to three high-level councils in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) may have “far-reaching consequences in a denomination led exclusively by men,” writes Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune (Aug. 27). Three women were added to the church’s Priesthood and Family Executive Council, the Missionary […]

Polling problems pose new challenges in understanding today’s religion

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Religious polling is facing the same loss of confidence from the public and other problems as polling in general, but surveys on religion may face particular challenges, writes sociologist Robert Wuthnow in First Things magazine (Aug./Sept.). In an article adapted from his forthcoming book on religion and polling, Wuthnow writes that religion polling’s use of […]

New women-based prayer rituals gain pan-Jewish popularity in Israel and beyond

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Rituals known as “amen ceremonies,” which involve group prayer and sharing of personal stories, needs and alleged miracles, have caught on among both observant and non-observant women in Israel and more recently Europe and the U.S., writes Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar in the journal Contemporary Jewry (July). Amen ceremonies consist of women sitting in a circle, […]

Reformed Christianity finds growing appeal in China

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Both Reformed (or Calvinistic) theology and church practice are finding growing appeal among Christians in China, reports Paul Peng in China Source (June 26), an online evangelical Chinese newsletter. Peng writes that Reformed thought has becoming increasingly influential among Chinese Christians, largely due to the translation of Reformed literature into Chinese and the evangelistic and […]

Megachurches’ future may be brightest outside US

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Megachurches abroad now have the higher average attendance in the world, even though the vast majority of megachurches are still in the United States, reports the Washington Post (July 24). While there are 230 to 500 such churches elsewhere in the world, the Hartford Institute estimates that there are about three times more megachurches in […]

‘Back to Judaism’ in Indonesia

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Beside a handful of native-born Jews residing in Indonesia, seventy-seven Indonesians have officially converted, while 200 more are on their way to conversion, reports photographer Anna Clare Spelman, who documents Jewish migration to Asia, in Jerusalem Report (July 13). Scattered around islands of Indonesia, there are reported to be people of Jewish-Dutch heritage — since […]

The ‘nones’ embracing ‘Good Samaritan ethic’?

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The growing attention to non-affiliated often assumes they are biblically illiterate, but many are actually engaged with the Jewish and Christian scriptures, even if in a non-traditional and individualistic way, writes Elizabth Drescher in the Jesuit magazine America (June 8-15). In her research and soon-to-be published book on the non-affiliated, or the “nones,” including both […]