The Catholic Church in France “has returned vigorously to the public scene” after decades of invisibility, according to an article in the magazine Inside the Vatican (January). Opposition to a law on same-sex marriage and gay adoption is being led by the archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, who started a controversy when he publicly […]

Quakerism is growing at its conservative and liberal edges, but showing decline at its moderate center, according to an analysis of Quaker denominational membership figures by Richard H. Taylor. In a paper presented at the November meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Taylor looked at the history of the various Quaker […]

A movement of American Buddhists, mostly converts, who are seeking to create an alternative to the predominant white Buddhist community is emerging. The Huffington Post (December 11) reports that Buddhists from native American, Hispanic and African-American backgrounds have organized separate faith communities or “sanghas” in various cities in this fledgling movement. Known as People of […]

The strongly conservative economic and political tone of conservative evangelical colleges, particularly those most active in Christian Right causes, are taking the emphasis off politics and concentrating more on theology, reports Christianity Today (December). The change is most evident at The King’s College in New York, which appointed conservative writer and speaker Dinesh D’Souza as […]

The idea of the afterlife is being reconfigured through the New Age culture of personal well-being. Extraordinary experiences claimed by proponents of near-death experiences and lucid dreaming provide material to support this redefinition, eliding questions of salvation and traditional notions of heaven and hell, writes Raymond L.M. Lee in the Journal of Contemporary Religion (Vol. […]

Latinos are increasingly interested in Islam and, judging by the current issue of The Message International (November/December), the publication of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Muslims are returning the favor. The issue, half of which is in Spanish, is devoted to Hispanics and Islam, and cites the recent American Mosque 2011 study which […]

Since the 1990s secular and religious rights organizations in Turkey have managed to cooperate, although issues such as gay rights pose new challenges to cross-cleavage partnerships, writes Melinda Negrón-Gonzales (University of New Hampshire) in Turkish Studies (September). While there has been much political polarization in Turkey between secular and Islamic forces, cooperation among human rights […]