01: AASTHA, India’s leading religious broadcasting station, is being beamed through satellite throughout the world and has recently entered the U.S. market. The U.S. satellite provider DirectTV is now offering the 24-hour channel, which, according to promotional literature, is said to be “America’s first Asian Indian spiritual and cultural network.“ The Mumbai,-based company began broadcasting […]

01: Awe-Inspiring Experiences is a group based at the University of California that seeks to study phenomena relating to wonder, transcendence and the feeling of oneness with the world. Awe-inspiring experiences can include the mystical state of oneness or being part of one community or any other events or episodes leading to “changes in consciousness.” The three-year-old […]

01: Youth churches, comprised solely of adolescents,  are a growing phenomenon in Great Britain. The movement got its start in the late 1990s, when an attempt to integrate a youth church plant in London failed to integrate into the larger church. Youth churches (in contrast to youth congregations) are usually not affiliated with any denomination […]

01: The Qatar-based and widely respected Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has emerged as the leading religious authority in the Muslim Brotherhood groups, according to an analysis by Israeli analyst Reuven Paz in the Nov. 2004 occasional paper of his Project for Research of Islamist Movements (PRISM). Paz notes the launching by Qaradawi in 2003-2004 of the […]

01: The launching of the Center for Moral Clarity (CMC) last July by charismatic minister and televangelist Rod Parsley is one more sign of the growing charismatic involvement in social and public policy issues. The center works to mobilize Christians around public policy issues that are said to have spiritual roots, such as abortion and same-sex […]

01: ChristianExodus.org is part of a small separatist movement among conservative Christians who are opting out of the political system. The group is seeking to get groups of 12,000 people to migrate to South Carolina in hopes of creating a Christian state that will be governed by the Ten Commandments. The group was formed because of […]

01: Under editor-in-chief Atoosa Rubenstein, the girls’ magazine Seventeenhas added a faith section that includes inspirational messages, personal stories of spiritual struggle, and testimonials on such issues as prayer and gay teens who attend church. Verses from the New Testament are printed beside sayings from the Prophet Muhammad. The teachings of Pope John Paul II and […]

01: Hillsong Church is becoming an “emerging religious powerhouse in Australia, ” both because of its influential music ministry and the new interest politicians have in such megachurches and their members. The Sydney-based church, with close to 18,000 weekly attenders, is known by evangelicals for its music ministry and festival, with a recent CD of […]

01: Church of Fools, undertaken by the British Christian magazine, the Ship of Fools, is one of the first fully virtual churches. Going online for three months starting from May 11, this 3D church creates a virtual sanctuary where people literally from all over the world meet for worship. Upon entering the church, one can […]

01: Many monasteries and convents today have a website and engage in marketing for new recruits. But not many are attempting to recruit new members over the Internet. The Adrian (Michigan) Dominican Sisters have made the Web a key component of a marketing campaign now in its third year, which also includes TV ads and […]