Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

On/File: March 2005

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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 […]

On/File: February 2005

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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 […]

Findings & Footnotes: February 2005

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01: Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Wordwide (Cambridge University Press, $24.99) by political scientists Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, represents a major attempt to chart the rate of  secularization on a global level. Relying on the World Values Survey, the European  Values Survey, longitudinal data, and a large collection of sociological literature, the authors break new […]

Charismatic hotspots in Asia, Africa

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Charisma (January) magazine looks at the 10 “spiritual hot spots,“ or places where evangelical, particularly charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity, is growing the fastest and finds most of them in Asia and Africa. Researcher Justin Long writes that Christianity is growing most rapidly in those places “considered unreachable [in terms of Christian missions] a few decades ago. […]

Buddhist NGO’s expanding in Japan

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Partly as an attempt to express Buddhism’s relevance in today’s Japanese society, a number of Buddhist NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have emerged and are expanding following the events of 9/11 and the developments in Iraq. In a report on Buddhist NGOs in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (Vol. 13, No. 2, 2004),  Jonathan S. Watts (Jodo Shu […]

British religious schools lacking in tolerance teaching?

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Many Muslim and independent Christian schools in England are getting failing grades for their narrow curricula and teaching civic concern and tolerance to their students, according to a recent British government report. The Economist (Jan. 22) reports that independent religious schools are growing rapidly in England; there were 170 in September of 2003 and now there […]

Current Research: February 2005

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01: A recent survey comparing religious Americans in 2000 and 2004 finds a decreasing willingness to support political compromise. The survey, conducted by the public policy group Public Agenda,  found  a smaller number of Americans who believe that devout elected officials sometimes have to compromise in the political arena, with “major decreases among those who attend […]

New crossover appeal for Orthodox Jewish music

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Orthodox Jewish musicians are finding growing “crossover” appeal in the secular world and even encouragement from their own rabbis, reportsMoment magazine (February). Jewish-themed pop music has been gaining popularity in the last decade, with such bands and musicians as Neshama Carlebach,  Moshav Band, Pey Daled and Beis Groove, gaining a hearing among mainstream secular audiences. The […]

Dissenting Orthodox and conservative Jews form prayer groups

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A movement of alternative minyanim, or prayer groups, ?has emerged among young American Jews who want a middle ground between Conservative and Orthodox Judaism. Touchstone magazine (January/February) reports that young Orthodox Jews unhappy with the male-only leadership of their synagogues, and young Conservative Jews believing that their denomination is not traditional enough, have joined forces to […]

Media, politics mark ‘most influential evangelicals?’

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Political viability and media sophistication mark those who are considered the most influential evangelicals in America by Time magazine (Feb. 7). The magazine composed a list of the 25 most influential evangelicals with input of preachers, politicians, scholars and activists. Number one is Rick Warren, megachurch pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life, a best-selling book […]