The following list is drawn from past issues of RW (in which case we cite the specific issue after each item) and from original sources. The terrorist attacks in Paris and in California confirmed two recent aspects of Islamic extremism—the reach of ISIS beyond its base in Iraq and Syria into the West and the […]

With this issue, Religion Watch marks its 30th year of publication. This issue also reports some important changes for the newsletter. We are now an open source publication; in other words, RW is free. Newsletters, more than any other type of publication, have moved gradually from a subscription-based model to an open-access one, mainly because […]

Haredi rabbis continue to fight a losing battle against the spread of digital tools within their communities, reports The Economist (Sept. 5). In late June, the Council of Torah Greats, a gathering of respected ultra-Orthodox rabbis, enjoined pious Jews to stop using the smart phone application WhatsApp as well as to buy only smart phones […]

Some U.S. $50 billion will likely be stolen from money given by Christians to churches, parachurch organizations and secular organizations around the world in 2015. Fraud is exploiting the trust that exists within a religious community, and with the constant development of new groups, networks and movements, financial accountability will continue to represent a constant […]

A new approach in Buddhist-Muslim relations and dialogue is for the Buddhist participants to discuss their equivalent of God in order to relate to Islam on a doctrinal level, writes Kieko Obuse in the journal Numen (62). The trend is not coming from those societies facing Muslim-Buddhist conflict and even violence, such as Sri Lanka, […]

At a time when Orthodox observance and yeshiva study enjoy unprecedented resurgence across the Jewish world, it is difficult to see clear successors to those (often European-educated) rabbis who defined Orthodoxy in the second half the 20th century, writes Andrew Friedman in The Jerusalem Report (June 29). In recent years, several haredi—or ultra-Orthodox—leaders have died, […]

The religious right is losing much of its political capital as its old fiscal conservative allies in the Republican Party have made a sharp turn to the left on cultural issues, reports The New Republic magazine (May 14). Writer Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig writes that Mike Huckabee’s recent entry into the Republican presidential race has already […]

Women rabbis are at the forefront of starting new synagogues, even if they don’t go by that name as they push at the boundaries of traditional Reform, Conservative and Orthodox branches of Judaism. These “indie synagogues” are known for their exuberant prayer styles and their success at attracting larger numbers of unaffiliated young Jews has […]

While the Messianic movement started as organizations for Jewish converts, Messianic congregations attract today on average a majority of Christian-born seekers, reports Hillary Kaell (Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec) in the current issue of the journal Religion (January). Since the mid-1990s, not only has the interest of U.S. Pentecostal and Evangelical Christians in Messianic Judaism grown, […]