Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

Church-state battles move to symbolic grounds

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The public display of religious symbols and mottos has become the most contested church-state issue of recent years, with key battles being fought out in Congress as well as the Supreme Court. The Wall Street Journal (May 27) reports that a case involving the display of a cross in a national preserve in California is likely to […]

Findings & Footnotes: May 2005

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01: The May issue of Harper’s magazine devotes several articles to the Christian right, portraying the movement in clearly alarmist tones. Lewis Lapham’s ediorial is written in the style of the secularist jeremiads issued  by H.L. Mencken, as he expresses astonishment that the “problem of religious belief” and “superstition” have returned, this time in the form of  “dominionists.” […]

Internet censorship targets Religion in China

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Popular Internet portals in China were flooded with comments and prayers about the pope on the day his death was announced, but they all had disappeared two days later, reports AFP (April 4). The companies running the website confirmed the censorship, enforced through the use of sophisticated technology, claiming that “religious issues are special” and potential problems […]

Extremist Islam’s growing hit list

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The trajectory of radical, “jihadist” Islamic groups indicates that they will increasingly target wider categories of groups, including Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims, perhaps limiting their appeal in the Muslim world, writes Quintan Wiktorowicz in the journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (March). The radicals belong to one segment of the Salafi or Wahabbi movement in Islam, which […]

Religion and consumerism driving Russia’s revival?

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While religious consumerism is a global force, the mixing of  religion organizations and practices with economic goods and services is no metaphor in Russia. In the journal Religion, State and Society (March), anthropologist Melissa L. Caldwell writes that religion has been divorced from spirituality in an unusual way in Russia; it is not only that seekers have […]

Current Research: May 2005

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01: Faculty at religious colleges are sharply divided between those pressing for the integration of faith and learning and “separatists” who are against bringing faith perspectives into the classroom and the curriculum, according to a new study. The study, in the March issue of Sociology of Religion,  is based on a survey of 1,902 faculty respondents at […]

From evangelicals to Hare Krishna: Praise for the pope

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Few events in recent years have demonstrated as strongly the lasting impact of religion in a supposedly secularized world as the passing away of Pope John Paul II. Every news channel and print media devoted extensive coverage to the event as well as to the election of Benedict XVI. The events affecting the Roman Catholic […]

Findings & Footnotes: April 2005

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01: A Mormon and Evangelical in Conversation is the name of an unusual dialogue touring the U.S. Longtime friends Robert Millet, a prominent Latter-day Saint author and educator, and Greg Johnson, a Baptist pastor, seek to demonstrate how Mormons and evangelicals can converse and build bridges through staging public dialogues and conversations in churches, colleges, and Mormon […]

Limited internet use shown by Japanese religions

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While 60 percent of the Japanese population are Internet users, there is at this point relatively little use of the Internet for counseling by Japanese religious bodies. This observation was made by Takanori Tamura  (Kanto Gakuin University) and Hajime Kaneko (Kansai University) at a session on religion and information and communication technologies (ICT) organized during […]