October 2015 (Vol. 30, No. 12)

Mormon dissenters from church teachings on women and gay rights have been switching to their liberal sister denomination, the Community of Christ, reports the Guardian (Oct. 1). Formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints, the 250,000-member denomination changed its name in 2001 to reflect its increasingly traditional Protestant identity. The church accepts women pastors and has recently made steps to the full participation of gay members, writes Garnet Henderson. The denomination has yet to have a woman leader, known as a prophet. Such a prominent Mormon feminist as Kate Kelly, who was excommunicated for her activism on women’s rights in the church in 2014, points to the Community of Christ as becoming attractive particularly in the Mormon heartland of Salt Lake City.

The change has been relatively recent. By 2012, the Community of Christ congregation in Salt Lake City had dwindled down to about six active members. Today, the congregation has a “full slate of classes and worship every Sunday, and our numbers are running between 50 and 100 at each service,” says Robin Linkhart, a church official. While both the LDS and the Community of Christ share foundational texts, including the Book of Mormon (although Mormons also use the Pearl of Great Price, a collection of writings by founder Joseph Smith), the decentralized nature of leadership that provides for more doctrinal change might be the sharpest difference from the hierarchical LDS.

Contrary to media reports, evangelicals are unlikely to change their attitudes on sexuality any time soon, writes Russell Moore in the magazine First Things (October). With the recent Supreme Court decision on gay marriage and the growing public acceptance of gay rights and other liberal positions on sexuality, several commentators have reported liberalization in some quarters of evangelicalism. Polling data of Millennials in general support for gay marriage and the acceptance of gay rights by some prominent evangelical congregations have encouraged such speculation. But Moore writes that surveys of Millennial evangelicals shows little softening of attitudes upholding a conservative sexual ethic. He adds that the same group of “megachurches” are often presented as being in the vanguard of progressive change. But these congregations are often outliers in the evangelical world and number less than a half a dozen. For instance, a church in Franklin, Tenn. is often cited as a prominent congregation that has change its mind on homosexuality, but it is far from being a megachurch by Nashville standards.

Some see the influence of evangelical feminists as foreshadowing evangelical liberalization on sexuality. Moore himself previously thought that evangelical feminism would earn wide support in evangelical circles, but the movement never gained traction. “It is now hard to find leaders of evangelical feminist organizations who are recognized by the rest of the movement as solidly conservative and orthodox…The largest evangelical denominations and church planting organizations and conferences are now complimentarian [teaching different roles between men and women].” In fact, it is the evangelical feminists who have shown the greatest likelihood of moving toward progressive change on homosexuality. Moore acknowledges that older ways of resisting “secularization and sexualization” are no longer viable. Evangelicals can no longer depend on national or even regional culture to support them in their positions on “traditional family values.” In this case, he argues that evangelical churches will likely operate in a “missional” context where conservative family teachings are preserved for eventual rediscovery.

(First Things, 35 E. 21^st St., Sixth Fl., New York, NY 10010)

A segment of megachurches are experimenting with ethnically homogenous small groups as a way to actually grow more diversity on the wider congregational level, reports Christianity Today magazine (September). These churches combine maximal inclusiveness in major Sunday worship services with smaller groups meeting during the week to allow members of various ethnic groups to worship in their own languages. These groups may consist of Latinos, Filipinos, South and East Asians, and Indonesians. Morgan Lee reports that this practice is spreading, including such prominent megachurches as New Life Fellowship in New York and Christ Fellowship Church in Miami.

At New Life, the ethnic groups are seen as entry points into the multiethnic church, while Christ Fellowship uses weekly volunteering programs that bring the members of the different subgroups together. But there is little desire to forsake the large multi-ethnic Sunday services, since leaders believe they are important in witnessing to Christian unity. Also, the children of immigrant families like the large services; they enjoy the many programs for children and they have no problems with English. Their parents often attend, and even if they do have a language problem, they can have the opportunity later in the week to meet with other adults who “look like me.”

(Christianity Today, 365 Gundersen Dr., Carol Stream, IL 60188)

The growing Protestant house church movement in Cuba promotes a social ethic that is friendlier to the Cuban socialism than might be expected, writes Rose T. Caraway in the Journal of Religion & Society (Vol. 17). The number of Protestant house churches in Cuba has grown rapidly; a 2013 report from the U.S. State Department estimates that there are between 2,000 and 10,000 of such congregations. Another estimate finds that house churches have increased from more than a 100 in the late 1990s to at least 2,000 today. The Cuban government requires a lengthy process of registration for a new church to meet, leading many Cubans to hold religious services within private homes. Because even these house congregations are regulated (with permits denied to Cubans who live within two kilometers of an officially registered church), some have started unofficial “prayer houses.” The formation of these house churches is partly a result of the economic crisis and food shortages (known as “The Special Period”) brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Networks of these house churches and prayer houses are often connected to local Baptist or Pentecostal churches. These home-based congregations are also connected to networks of social welfare programs.

Rather than promoting an otherworldly or individualistic faith, Caraway finds that these house churches promote a form of solidarity among neighbors. They have grown “not only due to the more intimate and familiar spaces of private homes, but because religious leaders and lay participants are using social welfare programs to provide for the basic needs of local citizens.” The notion of carrying one another’s burdens is an important feature of these groups, helping to create “alternative networks between friends and family to compensate for the lack of fulfillment on the part of the state.” Caraway adds that the house church movement is similar to the Catholic base communities in Latin America in the 1980s; they both rely on “lay leadership, tight-knit interpersonal networks and the reading of biblical passages in the light of everyday life circumstances and issues.” While regulations put in place in 2005 allows government officials to monitor house church activities for subversion against the state, Caraway argues that these groups tend to value autonomy from U.S. mission boards and “may have more in common with revolutionary ideals than previously thought.”

(Journal of Religion & Society, http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/toc/2015.html)

Churches in Europe are being pulled in conflicting directions as they respond to the hundreds of thousands of people seeking asylum from war and persecution on the continent, according to The Economist (Sept. 6). The magazine reports that, “On one hand, European churches and religious charities have played a prominent role in supporting migrants and campaigning for them to be treated decently. On the other, politicians on the nationalist right are beating the drum of Christian nativism; they have redoubled their warnings about the threat to Europe’s long-established religious culture.” This has led to conflicts as right-wing politicians and Christian activists and humanitarian agencies have sparred over what Christian ethics and responsibility entails. Pope Francis has taken the lead, calling for parishes and religious communities to accommodate refugees. In Germany, progressive church leaders have taken aim at the anti-Muslim movement Pegida, and churches have formed their own sanctuary movement as they take in Christian and Muslim migrants on their properties.

Nativist and nationalist groups, such as the Northern League in Italy and the Golden Dawn in Greece, argue that they speak for many lay people in the churches. But the magazine notes that “even for churches and charities who have no political agenda, the influx of migrants poses dilemmas.” For instance, some are asking whether they are obligated to take in both Muslims and Christians or do they have a special obligation to those of their own fold, especially since Christians have suffered severe persecution by extremist Muslim groups. Another dilemma is the matter of evangelizing the migrants. A Protestant pastor in Berlin has baptized hundreds of immigrants from Afghanistan and Iran, raising the question of the sincerity of converts who think it might be easier to gain asylum; then again, if these asylum-seekers are turned back to their homelands, they can face charges of apostasy and even execution.

The instability of the Balkan countries, the growth of Salafi Islam and their proximity to Western Europe has made this region an important target in the strategy of the Islamic State, according to the Terrorism Monitor (Oct. 2), a newsletter published by the Jamestown Foundation. During the past two years, over 1,000 foreign fighters from the Balkan nations have joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. During the past year, authorities in the region have conducted a series of arrests of imams charged with facilitating recruitment for terrorism. Ebi Spahiu writes that radical imams and similar groups are filling the vacuum left by the lack of credibility of state institutions, while also replacing moderate religious leaders. There are reports of increased loyalty to Islam and Salafist imams by youth.

Hardliners sympathetic to the Islamic State have established a physical presence in the region. They have purchased vacant real estate deserted by the warring factions during the ethnic conflicts of the 1990s, and have marked their presence by displaying flags of the Islamic State and other radical groups. There is fear that radical Islamic groups may combine with criminal gang activity; hints of this could be seen in the south of Albania where cannabis production and export has attracted a group of youth also implicated in a series of explosions near the village of Lazarat. The five men charged showed support for the Islamic State while leading “glamorous lives, involving expensive cars and Mediterranean trips.”

(Terrorist Monitor, http://www.jamestown.org/programs/tm/)

Anti-Muslim Buddhists are entering the political mainstream of Myanmar (Burma), according to a report in Reuters (Sept. 1). The Buddhist group the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion, headed by 77-year-old Buddhist abbot Ashin Tilawkar Biwonsa (Ma Ba Tha), passed four bills by Parliament and signed them into law. Critics say the new laws effectively legalize discrimination against women and the country’s minority Muslims. In preparing for the first free vote in Myanmar in the last 25 years, Ma Ba Tha has stepped up the group’s activism, launching a magazine and running programming on one of the most popular satellite channels. The abbot came out of the 969 movement, a loose collection of monks linked to a wave of violence against the country’s Muslim minority in 2012 and 2013. While Buddhists have been in the forefront of pro-democracy protests, but after a quasi-civilian reformist government took power in 2011, some outspoken monks claimed Islam was eclipsing Buddhism and weakening the country. The growth of militant anti-Muslim Buddhist groups has also taken place in Sri Lanka and Thailand. In the Buddhist state of Bhutan, the rights of Christians and members of other minority faiths have faced restrictions of their rights.

In the journal Social Research (summer), writer Min Zin attempts to explain the upsurge of militancy among Myanmar Buddhists so soon after they had become a model of peaceful activism. Zin writes that much of the violence against Muslims before 2012 (the period before the transition to democracy) were one-time events; “even if the events occasionally recurred, the clashes were never sustained over time as a series of organized campaigns.” Today, there is “undeterred propagation of hate speech coupled with clear political coordination. Unlike under previous regimes, where anti-Muslim hate speech was either-word-of-mouth propaganda manufactured by military intelligence officers or underground publications, people can now hear vitriolic attacks against Muslims in religious sermons from the intrusive loudspeakers of local monasteries or donation stations,” often with clear support by the government, Zin writes. But there may be a limit as to how much lay Buddhists will take of such overt discrimination by the Buddhist monks; the taboo against criticizing monks has been shattered. Civil society groups and players have charged that the monks are using Buddhism as a tool for extremism and nationalism, even while upholding the value of Buddhist spirituality.

(Social Research, http://www.newschool.edu/cps/social-research/)

Across denominations, Orthodox Christians in Syria tend to be supportive of the Assad regime, since it is seen as protective of non-Muslim minorities, writes Christoph Leonhardt in the journal Ostkirchliche Studien (63/2). More than loyalty to the regime itself, the rejection of opposition groups makes these churches supportive of the status quo, he adds. The Greek (or “Rum”) Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, which is not Greek but Arabic Christian, numbers some 4 million faithful. Although a majority of them no longer reside in the Middle East, The Syriac Orthodox Church (belonging to the group of the pre-Chalcedonian, Oriental Orthodox Churches) numbers around 1 million followers around the world (two-thirds in India) and is reported to gather some 200.000 Christians in Syria; 70 percent of them are descendants of those who fled the Ottoman genocide in 1915.

In interviews with Christians in Syria, Leonhardt finds that most of them are critical of the Syrian opposition. While moderate and secular voices exist in the opposition, they have little influence at a time when armed groups have the say. Christians agree that rebel forces are eager to overthrow Assad’s regime, but hold that they show little concern for minorities. Christians feel safe in government-controlled areas, but not in rebel-controlled areas, where they are often targeted. In the eyes of Orthodox Christians, it is more important to preserve their religious freedom than to aspire to political freedom. They often had initial sympathies for the quest of political reforms but soon became distanced, as Islamic references became a key reference for the protests (mosques indeed were one of the few places where people could gather freely in an authoritarian state). The fear that Syria could turn from secular into Islamic is a major reason for emigrating. Especially in comparison with other Muslim-majority countries in the area and the worsening circumstances for Christians after Islamist turbulences and political upheavals, the Syrian Christians believe that the Damascus regime currently offers them the best conditions: a stable social status, with freedom to build churches and to practice their religion openly.

(Ostkirchliche Studien, Ostkirchliches Institut an der Universität Würzburg, Steinbachtal 2a, 97082 Würzuzburg, Germany – http://www.echter.de/zeitschriften/ostkirchliche-studien)

A tiny remnant of an old community, Samaritans are now reduced to some 780 souls, as they find their greatest challenge in finding ways to marry while keeping their religion, writes Ahmad Melhem in Al Monitor (Sept. 20). Of those 780 Samaritans, 380 live in Gerizim (in the northern West Bank), near the mount that is considered their sacred center, while the other 400 reside in the city of Holon, in Israel. They hold Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian passports. Samaritans claim to use the “authentic” Torah, written in Hebrew 13 years after their ancestors reached the Holy Land. There are reportedly “7,000 differences in verses and words between the Samaritan and the Jewish Torah,” according to Melhem. Their highest religious authority is a high priest and elected committees in Gerizim and Holon manage community affairs. With so few members, survival represents a constant demographic challenge, especially because of the lack of females. During the past 40 years, according to a Samaritan priest who is the curator of the Samaritan Museum, young Samaritans have managed to marry 40 girls who have converted.

(Al Monitor, http://www.al-monitor.com)