Russian Protestant churches are encountering a new wave of religious restrictions challenging their ownership of property, according to Forum 18 (Feb. 20), a news service reporting on religious freedom in post-communist lands. While foreign religious groups have in the past registered the most complaints against the government for restricting religious freedom, today the complaints are also coming […]

The network of groups pressing for a dialogue between religion and science that has mushroomed in the U.S. is now spreading to Europe, reports Science & Theology News (February). Until recently, largely secular Europe and post-Communist Eastern Europe have resisted the movement that they say smacks of church-state collaboration. But today are several major initiatives that bring […]

There is a “Buddhist boom” in Brazil just as in the U.S., though Brazilian converts tend to blur the line between ethnic and convert Buddhism far more than their American counterparts. Anthropologist Cristina Rocha arrived at that and other conclusions in her book Zen in Brazil (University of Hawaii Press), a study of “elite Brazilans” adopting the […]

While still defying predictions of its demise, the National Council of Churches (NCC) has been significantly scaled-down and is finding new funding sources. An article in the conservative magazine Touchstone (March) notes that the NCC has escaped from near-bankruptcy by significantly trimming its staff and budget (from over $10 million ten years ago to $6.5 million today). […]

Baptist churches are observing Lent and even holding Ash Wednesday services– complete with putting ashes and sign of the cross on the forehead of the faithful, according to news reports. RW recently reported the rise of Catholic ideas in the US, but it seems that the observation can also apply to Catholic rituals. This trend should […]

Although Catholics have lagged behind Protestants in environmental activism, that situation may be changing with the growth of local church efforts in this cause, reports America magazine (Feb. 13). The article cites historian Mark Stoll as saying that the reason Catholics have not been prominent environmentalists is that their religious worldview encouraged a sense of sacredness among […]

The greatest challenge to traditional religion is waiting in the wings, as science and new technologies are converging that offer “humans extended lives within information systems, robots, or genetically engineered biological organisms,” according to the Futurist magazine (March/April). A convergence of cognitive science with information technology “already threatens traditional beliefs that are the heart of religion, notably […]

The issue of the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate and its freedom in Turkey has assumed a new prominence in deliberations on the nation’s admission to the European Union. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament adopted on January 26 the draft of a strategy report regarding its relations with present and possible future candidates […]

Following the victory of Hamas at Palestinian elections, commentators, such as the Christian Science Monitor‘s Howard LaFranchi (Jan. 27), wonder if the campaign for democracy in the Middle East will actually serve to promote Islamists. Such electoral results are however not only related to religious fervor, but also to the partial failure of secular regimes to […]

The controversial issue of 12 anti-Muslim cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has taken unexpected social and religious dimensions. Ambassadors have been recalled, Danish (and Norwegian) embassies have been torched in Arab capitals, and thousands of angry Muslims have demonstrated from the UK to Yemen, from Indonesia to Afghanistan. If there are people still doubting the […]