Pentecostal women are gaining a new place in the politics of Kenya, both on an official and unofficial basis, according to Damaris Parsitau of Egerton University. Parsitau, who was presenting a paper at the ASR meeting in Boston, said that Pentecostal female clergy in particular are moving into Kenyan public life and taking on new […]

Western countries apply their principles only when they suit their interests, and Russia should have the ability to resist attempts to make it subservient to the West, said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations (DECR), in late August on a Russian television channel (Interfax, Sept. 2). […]

A recent memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed Aug. 18 between the Shiite party Hezbollah and certain Salafist clerics from Tripoli in North Lebanon reveals the emergence of a new brand of Salafism, more independent of the local political scene and less focused on an exacerbated confessional discourse. The MOU stands in contract with the process […]

Since the several attempts to establish the Wasat party as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood since 1997, innovation inside the Islamic organization seemed to be guided by a liberal, even a democratic, spirit. But this tendency is now being reversed by the assertion of a strong conservative Salafist current inside the organization. Traditionally, Egyptian […]

Urban congregations are increasingly redeveloping their property for profit, and in the process are forming new partnerships with secular organizations, as well as changing the way they interact with their own members, according to new research. At the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) meeting in Boston in August, which RW attended, Nadia Mian […]

Ex-Muslims who have become Christians are increasingly forming a movement of “Muslim-background believers” in North America, reports Christianity Today (September). While there are few reliable figures for the number of ex-Muslims who have converted to Christianity, either in their home countries or in the U.S. and Canada, there are at least 50 organizations that seek […]

The 2008 U.S. election was supposed to be different than the previous presidential races, at least when it came to religion and politics. This was the case for the Democrats especially, as the party made early strides to engage religious, even evangelical voters, and close the “faith gap”. Meanwhile, 2008 was the year in which […]