Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

Findings & Footnotes: April 2015

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01: The April issue of the quarterly journal The Muslim World is devoted to the little known branch of Ibadi Islam, which is the majority faith in Oman but also present in Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Zanzibar and along the East Africa coast. The Ibadi developed from conflicts over successors of Mohammad and tended to stress […]

On/File: April 2015

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01: The growth of the Coptic Mission of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia represents an unusual case of transplanting a strongly ethnic form Orthodox Christianity in a Latin American context. The mission started almost by accident in 2000 when an Egyptian monk was sent to Bolivia to minister to Coptic Christian migrants only […]

Featured Story: Mormon feminists find problems and promise amidst church crackdown

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Feminists and other Mormon liberals have faced new setbacks in recent months as the LDS church has sought to discipline dissenters and limit their roles in leadership and church activities. The recent excommunication of feminist Kate Kelly over her views on women’s ordination has been only the most publicized case of other disciplinary measures brought […]

Gun control moves on to mainline, ecumenical agendas

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Mainline Protestants and other ecumenical religious groups are using a range of strategies to fight for gun control, writes David A. Graham in The Atlantic (February). “A coalition of mainline Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church, and Jewish and Muslim leaders are now among the staunchest institutional backers of stricter gun control,” he adds. Some of […]

Current Research: March 2015

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01: The growth of the non-affiliated (or “nones”) continues unabated among incoming American college students, and it may be diminishing the importance of spirituality among such young adults, according to the American Freshman, an annual study  conducted by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute. The study, which has consistently asked incoming students their religious affiliation, surveyed 153,015 students […]

Not all Pentecostals are growing in Latin America

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Although Pentecostalism shows few signs of decline in Latin America, one prominent denomination is seeing serious losses, and it may be because they are behind the curve in using technology and media. For the first time since its inception, the Congregação Cristã in Brasil (CCB) has lost members— 200,000 members in the last decade—while other […]

Jewish rebirth in Ukraine

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Since 1991, a number of Jewish communities and organizations have reappeared in Ukraine, writes Juliana Smilianskaya, director of the Institute for Jewish Studies in Kyiv, in Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost und West (February). Their number has regularly grown since Ukrainian independence and has enjoyed the support of international Jewish organizations. Currently, 290 Jewish communities […]

Turkey’s new ‘mosque diplomacy?’

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A state sponsored program to build mosques in foreign countries has emerged as a foreign policy instrument for Turkey and a way to assert a leadership role in the Muslim world, writes Thomas Seibert in Al Monitor (Feb. 13). The Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) runs the international mosque-building program through a foundation. Most recently, […]

Findings & Footnotes: March 2015

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01: The International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society devotes its current issue (No. 28) to Muslim chaplaincy in prisons in several countries of Europe—an issue closely linked to Islamic extremism in recent years. Reports that prisons have served as breeding grounds for jihadist Muslims has led various European governments and law officials to view chaplains […]