The closer relations between American evangelicals and Roman Catholics that have developed in the last few years appear to be entering a new stage that involve joint evangelism and ministry projects, according to America magazine (July 15-22). Evangelical-Catholic relations have been strengthened through coalitions on social issues (such as abortion) and joint statements on doctrine and practice […]

In recent years, charitable foundations have played a large role in both spurring research and supporting ministries in American religion. Both conservative and liberal religious groups are at the receiving end of generous donors  who might have different and sometimes conflicting religious outlooks and ideological goals. Christianity Today (July 12) reports that a primary factor in the resurgence […]

The Serbian Orthodox Church is attempting to shed its past image as a stronghold of nationalism and foster interfaith and ecumenical dialogue. At a mid-June New York conference RW attended, Boris Milosavljevic, Yugoslavian Deputy Secretary of Religious Affairs, and Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montanegro and the Littoral spoke of plans to hold an interfaith conference next year that would […]

Some 300 Mexican Indians have converted to Islam in Chiapas in the southern part of the country since 1995. Fifteen of them have already made the pilgrimage to Mecca last November, reports Inter Press Service (June 18). Those conversions are the result of missionary efforts launched by Spanish members of the Murabitun (http://www.murabitun.org), a sometimes controversial group […]

The strong Internet presence of the Lutheran Church in Estonia as well as in Finland, two countries on the shores of the Baltic Sea, came as a surprise to RW during the ECIC’s conference. In Estonia, 20 percent of the population connects to the Internet at least once a week. The country is far ahead of the […]

Around the mid-1990s, members of Protestant and Catholic Churches in several European countries began to pay attention to the Internet. Since then, the growth of interest and involvement has been rapid. For instance, there are today no less than 6,200 Catholic websites in Italy, Fr. Franco Mazza, web coordinator of the Conference of Italian bishops, […]

There doesn’t seem to be any sign that ecumenism will recover from its doldrums, particularly as interfaith relations and a concern for coexistence now outweigh the drive for church unity among most denominations. In an article in Ecumenical Trends magazine (June), Lutheran ecumenist William  G. Rusch offers the above prognosis on ecumenism, noting that a long term decline […]