Theologians and groups on the right and left are pressing the churches to incorporate new religious symbols and discard old ones in order to reach out to contemporary culture, writes Christine Wicker in the Dallas Morning News (Nov. 16). The most organized and well-known of the attempts to revise and discard traditional Christian symbols is the Jesus […]

At the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Toronto, the sessions on Islam were bigger than ever, reports Leslie Scrivener in the Sunday edition of the Toronto Star (Nov. 24). One of those sessions was devoted to they way the study of Islam has changed in North American universities after 9/11. “Professors found they […]

Several workshops at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Toronto, held Nov. 23-26, dealt with the changing relationship between scholars and law-enforcement.officials on new religious movements after Sept. 11. Only a decade ago, the threat level from new religious movements (NRMs) was perceived as so low that actions committed in the […]

The November joint meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and Religion Research Association in Salt Lake City had as as its official themes “Practicing Religion in the 21st Century” and “Theory and Applied Research.” Along with the usual conversations and debates about data, both themes revealed an ongoing concern about the […]

On Oct. 31, the 234-member Tamil Nadu assembly in South India approved a controversial bill banning forced religious conversions. The new law imposes penalties of up to three years in prison for converting someone by force or inducement.There have been heated debates during the entire month of October about the decision taken by the authorities […]

Throughout the former Soviet Union, opposition has emerged against “nontraditional” religions. But Georgia is the only country in Eurasia where officially-condoned, organized mob violence against adherents of nontraditional faiths has developed as a continuing problem — and the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been the primary target of that campaign, reports Michael Ochs, staff advisor at the […]

As rumors of war heat up, Saddam Hussein has intensified the public and unifying role of Islam in Iraq, reports the Toronto Star (Oct. 13). Since the Gulf war of over a decade ago,  Hussein has sought to build ties to the different Muslim groups and unify the country under a single, and loyal Islam, drastically challenging the […]

While the recent attack in Bali has put Indonesia and its extremist Muslim groups in the spotlight, there are also increasing instances of Christian-Muslim clashes in some areas and attacks against Christian churches around the country. Christians — Catholics and Protestants all taken together — make up about 10 percent of the Indonesian population. In […]