July—August, 2009 (Vol. 24, No. 9-10)

A new phenomenon in Israel has been the rise of spiritual communities fusing their Israeli and Jewish identities, and thus producing a new type of loosely organized, “post-denominational” Judaism, without predefined rules and rituals, writes Eetta Prince Gibson in the Jerusalem Report (June 22).

While there are some genealogical links with Reform or Conservative Judaism, and some people involved now train to become Reform rabbis, these groups are not a North American import, and only a minority of people active in the emerging communities are immigrants (and mostly from the former Soviet Union). Thus, the communities can be described as a “search for an Israeli indigenously-inspired form of Judaism.” These groups vary in their practices, but tend to create their own rituals and may creatively mix elements from traditional Jewish prayers with new rituals, insights from Eastern tradition or guided meditation. Communal singing also plays a role, sometimes accompanied by drums and guitars.

The pluralism and the absence of hierarchical structures are appealing to secular Jews—who find in such groups adequate opportunities for expressing their connection to their Jewish roots. The emerging communities also attract people who were raised in religious homes, but no longer feel comfortable with standard religious ways. For many in the emerging communities, the traditional boundaries between “religious” and “secular” no longer make sense.

Those groups clearly perceive themselves as Jewish, while finding new ways for living a Jewish spirituality and acknowledging the principle of individual choice in a post-modern environment. They feel that they are creating ways for the perpetuation of Judaism, while Orthodox Jews are reluctant to view these groups as reflecting authentic Judaism. While people active in the Israeli emerging communities see little connection to the Jewish Renewal Movement in North America, some observers nevertheless see parallels between both expressions in terms of a “generational phenomenon.”

Recently, contacts between these movements have been made. According to the Jerusalem Report article, there are some 50 such groups in Israel, and 17 of them have formed the Israeli Network of Non-denominational Spiritual Communities, with a few more considering whether to join. They are not planning to become a registered entity at this stage, but feel that networking may help in sharing experiences.

(The Jerusalem Report, P.O. Box 1805, Jerusalem 91017, Israel, http://www.jrep.com)

While English-speaking African churches have often been viewed as representing global South Christianity and influencing the North, Francophone African nations, especially the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), are playing a role in religion far beyond their borders.

Philip Jenkins writes in the Christian Century (June 16) that the DRC could be placed alongside the evangelical powerhouses of Nigeria and Uganda (with their impact on global Anglicanism) because of its numbers alone: it claims 33 million Catholics, 14 million Protestants and several million indigenous Christians.

With one of the world’s highest fertility rates, the DRC’s population and the percentage of Christians will expand to among the world’s largest. Just as Nigeria has become a prominent diasporic community throughout the English-speaking world, the Congolese now play a large role in Francophone countries.

Jenkins concludes that in both “France and Belgium, the Catholic priesthood maintains its depleted ranks by drawing on recruits from the global South— from Vietnam, but also from the Congo and Cameroon … Congolese-founded Protestant and Pentecostal churches abound in Paris, London and Brussels, and these are some of Europe’s largest and most fervent megachurches.”

While the Messianic Jewish movement—i.e. Jews converted to Christianity while keeping their Jewish identity and some Jewish practices—has only existed in Germany since 1995, it numbers now some 40 groups with about 1,000 members, reports Stefanie Pfister in the German monthly Materialdienst der EZW (July).

The appearance of Messianic Judaism is linked to the revival of Jewish life in Germany following the immigration of Russian Jews. More than 198,000 of them migrated to Germany between 1993 and 2006, but a number of them actually had Jewish descent only from their fathers’ side, which does not make them Jews from a traditional Jewish viewpoint, thus making their integration into Jewish religious life difficult. This and other reasons explain why only half of the “Jewish” immigrants actually belong to a Jewish congregation.

The first Messianic Jewish groups in Germany were established by people who had already become Messianic believers in the former Soviet Union (FSU) in the early 1990s after interacting with evangelicals. Fifty-five to 75 percent of those attending Messianic services are of Jewish descent, and other immigrants from the FSU make a significant percentage of the rest, reports Pfister, who in 2008 published a doctoral thesis on the movement (in German). These services take place on Shabbat and have a strong Jewish flavor (including menorah, Israeli flags, shofar, kippa and tallit).

Most services are celebrated in Russian, but leaders of the movement see this as a transitory stage, before moving to German and expanding—something that will be needed even more due to the slowing down of Jewish immigration from Russia to Germany. The movement is not homogeneous: some of the groups are independent, while others are connected to various Jewish or Israel-oriented evangelical groups.

(Materialdienst der Evangelischen Zentralstelle für Weltanschauungsfragen, Auguststrasse 80, 10117 Berlin, Germany, http://www.ezw-berlin.de)

“Indigo children” have become a popular phenomenon in alternative spiritual and New Age circles, blending millennial concepts and psychic beliefs with child-rearing concerns.

The Skeptical Inquirer magazine (July/August) reports that the phenomenon of children who are said to be the next stage in evolution and possessing a spiritual energy has found a hearing among parents who believe their children are special beings living in troubled times. The concept of the Indigo child was established in the early 1970s in the writings of Nancy Tappe, who claimed that she could intuitively see people’s life mission by their indigo-colored auras (indigo being the color of spiritual energy).

But the movement did not take off until 1999, when Carroll and Jan Tober wrote the book The Indigo Children: The New Kids Have Arrived. Since then, the Indigo movement has been featured in books, spiritual workshops and even a feature film. Writer Benjamin Witts notes that new categories have recently been created to designate other types of special and creative children, such as Crystal and Rainbow children. Parents are instructed that they can find out if their children are Indigo by their display of such qualities as independence, creativity and experiencing difficulty with fitting into school life. In Nova Religio (February), a journal on new religious movements, Sarah Whedon notes that Indigo children are viewed as harbingers of a new age where the old institutions of oppression will be overturned.

These children help parents and adults get in touch with their inner child and heal the self by manipulating their auras. But Whedon argues that the movement is rooted in fears over child violence and the excessive medication of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). Much of the Indigo children literature deals with children with ADHD and how they have been misunderstood and misdiagnosed: “Instead of being seen as sick, Indigo children are seen as special children who will bring about the New Age.

For those who believe in the Indigo children, the problem has become the solution,” Whedon writes.

(Skeptical Inquirer, P.O. Box 703, Amherst, NY 14226; Nova Religio, Univ. of California Press, 2000 Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223)

Gay Jewish synagogues are finding a growing number of heterosexual Jews in attendance and even playing leadership roles, mostly due to the welcoming and experimental nature of these congregations, reports the website Forward.com (June 4).

In some cases, synagogues established originally for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and trans-sexual Jews now even have a majority of straight members. Jay Michaelson writes that gay synagogues have been in the forefront of creating rituals, structures and language that welcome outsiders to the Jewish community and establishment. Especially in areas outside such centers of Jewish activity and populations as New York, less-affiliated Jews have felt excluded from synagogue life (for instance, for not knowing enough Hebrew).

What such unaffiliated Jews “find at most gay synagogues is a community that welcomes them warmly and effectively, with fewer judgements, raised eyebrows or grumbles about political correctness,” Michaelson writes. The gay synagogues specialize in reinventing tradition—from creating new rituals to celebrating a gender change or writing a new liturgy for becoming an adoptive “co-parent”—and are attractive to liberal Jews seeking to change the tradition.

Michaelson adds that today gay synagogues are at a crossroads: many are becoming “irrelevant” as mainstream synagogues become more accepting of gay rights, while others have lost their gay identity as more straights have joined. But such leading gay synagogues as Beth Simchat Torah in New York and San Francisco’s Congregation Sha’ar Zahav have written new prayer books and have become leading political actors in the gay marriage battle.

A movement of Gentiles observing some aspects of Jewish law and teachings and usually coming from Christian or Messianic Jewish backgrounds, the Noahides are reported to be experiencing growth, as the Internet allows such believers to find information, interact and make their ideas known much more easily, reports Ben Harris of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (June 22).

In the past decades, Noahide individuals and groups existed, but it was not always easy for non-Jews interested in the Seven Laws of Noah to find likeminded people or Orthodox rabbis willing to help them. The Internet has changed all that: not only are a variety of books and websites available, but the Internet “also has helped foster a sense of community for Noahides,” who can much more easily locate groups around the world and participate in discussion groups. There is even a WikiNoha and a Noahide Online Association of Homeschoolers. However, the need is felt to go beyond the Internet as a primary means of connection.

There have recently been several conferences of Noahides, the last one near Dallas in early June. The efforts should now be focused on building communities, according to Harris, with rituals and ways to pass the teachings on to children, but there are limitations here, since Noahides are prohibited from creating a separate religion and must follow rabbinic instructions. Harris’ article also mentions another difficult issue for a relatively small and scattered group with unique beliefs: finding spouses who share the same views.

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency, http://www.jta.org)

Several high-level defections from the Church of Scientology have led to new accusations of abuse by the leadership in the controversial organization, as well as allegations that the church is struggling with a loss of membership.

A special 35-page report in the St. Petersburg Times newspaper (June 21–22) is based on the accounts of top executives from the Church of Scientology who left the church in the last few years and are speaking out about alleged abuses involving its long-time leader, David Miscavage. The ex-members, who include former spokesperson Marty Rathburn; the former head of Scientology headquarters, Tom DeVocht; and Amy Scobie, who helped create the church’s celebrity network, allege that physical violence permeates the organization’s management.

Miscavage is said to have beaten many church staffers over minor infractions and for challenging his leadership. Church officials deny these accusations and charge that the defectors are trying to stage a coup and seize control of the church. Another issue that the defectors are bringing up is the case of Lisa McPherson, a member who died while in church custody. While the church was cleared on charges of wrongful death, a defector such as Rathburn, who handled the case for the church, alleges that abuse and neglect surrounded the event.

The defectors also claim that Miscavage’s leadership has stifled church growth. These former leaders claim that they had access to internal data reports that show a gradual decline of key statistics, including the “value of church services delivered” and the number of auditing hours and courses completed. Rathburn said that to pump up revenue, the church has repackaged its old books as new writings to sell back to members at high prices—a charge the church denies.

Congregations are feeling their way through the “social media,” such as Facebook and Twitter, and are finding they need to develop new forms of etiquette to adapt such innovations to their ministries.

The National Catholic Reporter (May 29) notes that the cell phone texting network known as Twitter is the “newest technology arriving in contemporary church services … church leaders are inviting worshippers to tweet and text their way through services as a way to share their prayers and reflections with neighbors in the pew” or with their families and friends who may not be attending services. In some churches, pastors pose questions to worshipers, asking them to text responses, which are displayed on a screen.

The other type of twittering is more informal, as parishioners “tweet” their reflections to the service, much as they might take notes. The New York Times (July 5) notes that while evangelicals pioneered the use of the social media for their churches, today “religious groups from Episcopalians to Orthodox Jews have signed up” for such networks. The article continues: “In online debates and private discussions, leaders of all faiths have been weighing pros and cons and diagramming the boundaries of acceptable interactions: Should the congregation have a Facebook page, or should it be the imam’s or the priest’s? Should there be limited access? Censoring? Is it appropriate for a clergy member to `friend’ a minor?”

A central question is whether these forms of media sidestep traditional authority and means of control. When worshipers can intersperse their own comments with the liturgy and sermon, such interactions are a particular challenge to centralized and hierarchical institutions, such as the Catholic Church, that have a standardized form of worship. Another effect of these networks is that they create varying levels of “community” within a congregation.

For instance, Trinity Church on Wall Street in New York has attracted a small, but growing community of followers from as far afield as Europe and California, as well as those nearby. A church employee transmits snippets of the service, with participants following on Twitter. These “slender” connections to the church are sometimes interspersed with actual visits to a service.

The increased outreach of the Democrats to Catholics has paid off, with a new breed of liberal Catholic activists and politicians gaining a place in the Obama administration.

The National Catholic Reporter (June 26) notes that “Catholics are visibly more active in the Obama administration than in any other Democratic administration in recent memory.” These Catholics represent the key chunks of the American Catholic population that moved from the Republican to the Democratic Party in the last election. Other liberal Catholics who felt alienated by the Republican resurgence in the last three decades are among the leaders now on the inside track. One-third of the Obama cabinet is now Catholic, including such leaders as Vice-President Joseph Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

President Obama has also made overtures to the Hispanic Catholic community with the nomination of Judge Sonia Sottomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court and Latino theologian Miguel Diaz as US ambassador to the Holy See. In fact, some non-Catholic leftists are struggling with the “leverage” that liberal, though often pro-life, Catholics are having on the administration. The Tablet magazine (June 6) provides more details about the new kind of Catholic Democrats in Washington: “Their curricula vitae are likely to include experience as an activist or community organizer.

They are younger and they plug into their constituencies through blogs and e-mails, rather than visits to the union hall,” writes Michael Sean Winters. Representing these Catholics are new organizations such as the Catholics in Alliance, Catholics United, and the interfaith, but sympathetic, Faith in Public Life. Such progressives argue that the Obama administration has been cooperative in working on such issues as reducing abortions, even while eschewing most of the pro-life agenda.

But conservative critics charge that Obama has tried to intervene in Catholic matters and sidestep the church’s leadership by such actions as speaking at the University of Notre Dame commencement and seeking agreement on various issues with the pope. By going over the heads of the bishops, who opposed his speaking engagement, Obama is deploying a strategy of “disintermediating” the church leaders —cutting out the middlemen between the faithful at home and the hierarchy in Rome, writes Joseph Feuerherd in the National Catholic Reporter (May 29).

He notes that the same strategy was used by Ronald Reagan, who was opposed by the more liberal U.S. bishops of the 1980s, but found a hearing among the “Reagan Democrats” and the Vatican.

(National Catholic Reporter, 115 E. Armour Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111; The Tablet, 1 King Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 0QZ UK)

Al Qaeda is in trouble, as a dwindling number of Muslim scholars are willing to approve its views and actions, but the terrorist organization might also be facing a more practical challenge besides an ideological one: a shortage of cash.

According to Reuters‘ William Maclean, not for the first time, Al Qaeda is in financial trouble, experiencing tighter curbs on financing sources, associated concerns about the legal consequences for potential donors, the current recession and a probable drop in support. All this presents a serious problem and may lead the group to depend more on local affiliates.

Donations are now being encouraged as another way of fighting, and a recent study reports that volunteers for the jihad from the West are being asked to pay for their training.

(http://blogs.reuters.com/williammaclean/)

In recent years, a number of pirate radio stations have sprung up in Pakistan’s tribal areas, reports Mukhtar A. Khan in the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor (May 26).

It started with the establishment of an extremist Sunni radio station in 2003. Infuriated by the views spread on this station, a Sufi group then launched its own channel. The war of words resulted in bloody fighting on the ground. More FM channels opened propagating a variety of sectarian views. Radio has even been used for recruiting and organizing fighters, and its contribution to the radicalization of Pashtun society should not be overlooked, Mukhtar explains.

Both FM channels and FM radio sets are cheap locally, compared with other types of radio. Attempts have been made to launch counter-propaganda channels, but they seem to be successful only insofar as there is a local ownership.

(http://www.jamestown.org/program s/gta/terrorismmonitorgta/)

Calvinism may have a brighter future than Pentecostalism in China, writes Andrew Brown in his blog on the Guardian website (May 27).

As China has liberalized it policy on religion, seeking an ideology and ethic for its elite classes, observers have speculated on potential candidates that may play this role. Brown writes that for Chinese elites, Pentecostalism and its unbridled emotions are not very attractive.

In contrast, Calvinism is reported to spread fastest at the elite universities, especially among intellectuals studying literature, philosophy and languages, but outside of the control of officially recognized churches. Brown sees a possible parallel between the developments in China and the situation in South Korea, where the largest Presbyterian churches in the world can be found.

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commen tisfree/andrewbrown)

Although it has not been successful with all who went through it—some re-emerged later as jihadist fighters—Saudi Arabia’s rehabilitation program for former militants has been praised as a success.

But it cannot easily be exported to other Muslim countries, writes Kamran Bokhari in Stratfor’s Global Security and Intelligence Report (May 14). Aside from the financial resources available to Saudis, a powerful religious establishment and the specific tribal structure of Saudi Arabia “enable Saudi Arabia to make considerable progress on the homefront.”

Much more than exporting this culture-specific program, the Saudis could be more effective by using the ideological proximity of Wahhabism (the major form of Islam in Saudi Arabia) to Islamist currents to help undermine Islamist radicalism, Bokhari concludes.

(http://www.stratfor.com)

Despite discrimination experienced in Saudi Arabia, the Shiite minority is unlikely to engage again in actions such as the bloody street protests of the 1970s and 1980s.

This is especially the case since “Saudi Shiites are strongly aware of their limited political options” and prefer to seize options offered by the political system and to ally themselves with people intent on changing the Saudi Kingdom through reforms, writes Dutch scholar Leo Kwarten in a monograph published in June by the Conflicts Forum and available online.

Questions about the prospect of an uprising were raised after clashes between Shiite pilgrims and religious police in Medina last February, something that caused resentment in the (oil-rich) Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, where Shiites form a majority in some places, while they make up 10–15 percent of the total Saudi population. The fact that Shiites have been oppressed and discriminated against in various ways for a long time does not help.

Despite some angry calls for secession after the Medina events, most Shiite leaders were eager to reconfirm their loyalty to the government. Doing field research, Kwarten discovered that most Shiite leaders—whom most Western journalists rarely interview—are not dreaming about revolution, but rather about reforms in Saudi Arabia, in order to overcome discrimination against them. They realize that Wahhabis do not make up the majority of the population, despite their strong links with the government, and that followers of other schools of Islam are more numerous.

Thus, Shiite leaders whom Kwarten met feel that supporting reformist politics may bring the desired results and lead to religious and political pluralism over time. Contacts and meetings with liberal Sunni intellectuals have become increasingly frequent. This allows Shiites to make their demands part of a national agenda rather than a sectarian one, a much safer approach, especially considering the developments that have taken place in Iraq in recent years.

(Leo Kwarten, “Why the Saudi Shiites won’t rise up easily,” June 2009, http://conflictsforum.org/2009/why-the-saudi-shiites-won’t-rise-upeasily/)