01: A recent effort known as the Jewish Community Legacy Project (JCLP) helps disappearing Jewish communities plan on what assets they will leave behind. In a place such as Pocahontas, Va., both the general and Jewish population declined as coal mining diminished. After the Jewish community there disappeared, the community of nearby Bluefield took over […]

Expected to take over the leadership of the spiritual activities of the Unification Movement after the passing away of his father Rev. Sun Myung Moon (1920-2012), Hyung Jin (Sean) Moon (b. 1979) has broken with his mother, Hak Ja Han, and has started a dissident movement, the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, more commonly called […]

A cell-based approach to parish life, borrowed from Korean Pentecostal churches, is spreading in world Catholicism. The Parish Evangelization Cell System, known as “Pecs,” was first adopted by St. Eustorgio’s parish in Milan, Italy, turning it from a moribund inner-city church with fewer than 100 Mass attenders to a community of 1,000 people involved in […]

While the name of 57-year-old Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila had already been mentioned as a “long-shot” candidate to be pope at the 2013 conclave, his election on May 14 as the new head of Caritas Internationalis (an international confederation of Catholic charity agencies, including Catholic Relief Services) has increased the profile of this […]

A Continuing Survey of New Groups, Movements, Events and People Impacting Religion The Practice is an “experimental gathering” that began last year and takes place within Willow Creek, one of the premier megachurches in the U.S. Although Willow Creek was influential in the spread of seeker-sensitive services and “entertainment evangelism,” the new service, which is […]

01: The growth of the Coptic Mission of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia represents an unusual case of transplanting a strongly ethnic form Orthodox Christianity in a Latin American context. The mission started almost by accident in 2000 when an Egyptian monk was sent to Bolivia to minister to Coptic Christian migrants only […]

01: Endowed with a powerful voice, Ahmet Muhsin Tuzer is an unusual full-time imam because he is also an active part-time singer in a rock band, wears jeans, sports long hair and rides a Kawasaki motorcycle. He has been performing with his Firock band since 2010 and has become a celebrity, although conservative Muslims denounce rock […]

01: While it may be a temporary solution to the decline of urban parishes, the phenomenon of Mass mobs is at least calling attention to the plight of “Rust Belt Catholicism” and other cases of parish decline and closure. Mass mobs are modeled after “smart mobs,” where spontaneous gatherings started by social media to make […]

01: Overseas adoption has become a major concern of many evangelicals, but a less publicized movement has been growing among some evangelical churches dedicated to supporting prospective foster families in the U.S. Known as the 127 movement, it was first started as a project in Colorado in 2004 to provide the state mandated orientation and […]