A recent study in the journal Social Forces (June) reports that college-educated Americans are more likely to be religious than the non-college -educated. Such a finding is another reminder that religion remains a vital force on American campuses. In a paper presented at the mid-August meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion in New York, […]

Groups of Iranian Muslims are eager to promote the message of Mahdism as answering the expectations of the entire world – and not only of Muslims – for a Savior figure. This was made clear at the Third International Conference on Mahdism Doctrine, meeting in Tehran from August 26-27, which RW attended. The conference gathered participants from […]

Christian churches are increasingly divided about the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but not necessarily along traditional Protestant and Catholic lines, according to sociologist David Smilde. Writing in the current Sociology of Religion Newsletter (Spring), a publication of the American Sociological Association, Smilde notes that Chavez has long sought to draw support and activism from churches […]

In their efforts to find ways to integrate Muslims in Western societies, governments increasingly insist on the need for ministers of Muslim congregations in the West to be familiar with local culture and fluent in local languages. Such expectations also match those of young Muslims in the diaspora. In the United Kingdom, a Labour peer, […]

Many young American Jews are “institutionally unaffiliated, but Jewishly engaged,” according to a new study by social scientists Steven M. Cohen and Ari Y. Kelman. As cited in the magazine Jewish Currents (July-August), the study confirmed earlier surveys findings that most Jews under 35 are not affiliated with synagogues and other major institutions of Jewish life. The […]

Along with a conservative theological emphasis, there is a new stress on masculine spirituality among seminarians and other educators in American Catholic churches, according to the cover story in the conservative Crisismagazine (July/August). Todd Aglialoro writes that a new generation of Catholic men are rebelling against what they see as pastoral or “feminine” -based catechesis and […]

Death has become an important issue in the New Age movement, and its longtime concern with spiritual transformation can now be seen in the practice of “conscious dying.” Trends in the diffuse New Age movement have closely tracked the life stages of its baby boomer pioneers–from middle age concerns with holistic healing to ruminations about […]

By drawing on some ideas from once-decried Confucianism, the Chinese state may actually delay religious freedom for all, writes Magda Hornemann in an article published on June 21 by Forum 18 News Service, an independent Christian news service reporting on religious freedom. Confucianism has made a comeback in recent years. Faced with declining credibility of Communist […]

Both in the Muslim world and in the West, intellectuals are raising questions and launching debates which may be the starting point of a reform movement within Islam, writes journalist and anthropologist Nadia Khouri-Dagher in a report published in Le Monde 2 magazine (June 9). While it is true that many reformers face strong opposition, and possibly […]

The Russian Orthodox Church is aligning itself with Russia’s hardline foreign policy, reports The Tablet (June 16). Russia has reasserted its power after more than a decade of relative tranquility, most evident in President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to block deployment of U.S. missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic, as well in recent skirmishes between Moscow […]