01: The current issue of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion (September) is devoted to religion and comedy, going beyond the usual somber philosophical and theological reflections on humor. Several articles look at the interactions between comedians and satirists and institutional religion, including the faceoff between the creators of the animated series South Park […]
Newly mobile Chinese embrace secular religiosity
While recent research shows that the Chinese are demonstrating high rates of religious practice, a recent Gallup poll finds that almost half of China’s people—47 percent—are “convinced atheists.” In the blog The Imminent Frame (posted October 10), sociologist Richard Madsen notes that surveys have found that as much as 85 percent of China’s population carry […]
Nationalism emerges among Egypt’s Christians and Muslims as alternative to Islamism
Both Egyptian Christians and Muslim are embracing nationalism to counteract the growing Islamist sentiment in the country, reports the Washington Post (Oct. 3). The “swell of nationalism” the country is experiencing started during the revolution of 2011 and intensified when citizens took to the streets last summer to demand the removal of President Mohammed Morsi […]
New self-image emerging among Yezidis in the Caucasus
Despite being ethnic Kurds, a growing number of young Yezidis in the Caucasus now emphasize a specific Yezidi identity instead of the Kurdish one, reports Allan Kaval in Rûdaw (October 14), an independent online newspaper, based in Iraqi Kurdistan. Kaval recently traveled to Georgia and Armenia for researching developments within Yezidism, an ancient, syncretic religion […]
Nigerian dynamic reverberates throughout global Christianity
Nigeria, home to the largest Pentecostal movements in the world, is also increasingly at the forefront of broad changes that are impacting Christianity in both the global South and the West, writes Allan Effa in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (October). Nigerian Christians are reshaping global Christianity through their growing voice in mainline churches, […]
New forms of religiosity take root in Turkey
Religious diversification is also taking place in countries with a majority Muslim background, such as Turkey, where a variety of new religious movements are active, reported several researchers at a workshop held in Istanbul on October 25-26, which RW attended. This was the third workshop of the research project “The Yogi and the Dervish: New […]
Current Research: November 2013
01: U.S. college students show an almost equal division between three distinct worldviews: religious, secular and spiritual, according to the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) series from Trinity College in Hartford, CT. The study, done in conjunction with the secular humanist Center for Inquiry (CFI), found that 32 percent identified their worldview as religious; 32 […]
Witchcraft appealing to new generation of teenage girls
The interest in witchcraft among teenage girls in the 1990s, was reflected in such shows and movies as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Craft. Now it seems to have carried over to a new generation of youths, reports The Guardian (Oct. 26). “In the young-adult section of bookshops, shelves that recently groaned under the […]
Unpaid, bi-vocational clergy gaining traction among mainline Protestants
A “growing breed of mainline Protestant clergy” are serving congregations in exchange for little or no compensation, reports Christian Century magazine (Oct. 18). Although evangelical churches have most commonly used unpaid and part-time clergy, that is changing as many mainline Protestant clergy can no longer afford full-time or nearly full-time pastors. Scott Thumma, a Hartford […]
`None’ uprising leading to new approaches, innovations in seminaries
Seminaries are struggling with the swelling number of religiously unaffiliated young Americans, with some of them retooling their programs to cater to this population. In Trust (Autumn), a magazine on seminary education, reports that reactions of seminary leaders to the polls showing the rising tide of “nones” has run the gamut from “I told you […]
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