A new generation of leaders is rising in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which might lead to changes in this influential Islamist movement, reports Paul Schemm in Middle East International (Jan. 23). On Jan. 9, Ma’mun al-Hudaybi passed away at the age of 83. He was the last major figure of his generation. While the new leader, Muhammad […]

Ten years after a courageous struggle by the Catholic Church against Sicily’s Mafia, there is a loss of momentum in such efforts, even as religious and quasi-religious currents are now playing a prominent role in this criminal culture. Britain’s The Tablet (Jan. 31) notes that 1993 marked the height of church protests against the Cosa Nostra, when […]

Funerals are increasingly departing from traditional and somber rituals and assuming a more informal, flexible and celebratory nature, reports theNew York Times (Feb. 11). Nationwide, but especially in the American West, funeral homes are embracing a trend known as “personalization,” where services are tailored to individual preferences. A deceased person’s ashes may be sent heavenward via […]

As the Salvation Army attempts to reassert its religious roots, the organization is becoming increasingly torn between its religious and charitable functions, reports the New York Times (Feb. 2). The Salvation Army branch in New York has served as the flashpoint in the conflict. Long regarded as the least religious in its programs, the New York division […]

As the burgeoning world of evangelical fiction grows more diverse, tensions are emerging over authors who are “crossing over” from the Christian to the secular markets. The conflict is similar to the situation in the contemporary Christian music industry, where artists who seek to reach beyond the evangelical niche are accused of compromising their message. Charisma magazine […]

Aside from generating controversy over its alleged anti-semitism, Mel Gibson’s new film, The Passion of The Christ, has become a new ecumenical icon among American evangelicals. Gibson, an aderent to a traditionalist Catholicism that still views Protestants as heretics, is hailed in Christianity Today (March) as creating a vision of Christ that resonates with “all classical believers…In […]

Scholars and other observers of American religion are realizing that immigration is more likely to replenish the declining ranks of Christian churches than create sizable blocs of world religions in the country. In Christian Century magazine (Feb. 10), sociologist R. Stephen Warner writes that the “new immigrants represent not the de-Christianization of American society but the de-Europeanization […]