The close working relationship between the Vatican and the U.S. government since the 1980s, known as the “Holy Alliance,” may be coming to an end or significantly changing as it faces a new era of world power relations, reports Inside the Vatican magazine (April). The alliance was born when President Ronald Reagan and the Vatican […]

Sufi groups in India are currently engaged into efforts to establish a network around the country in order to try to prevent terrorist attacks, reports Farzand Ahmed in India Today magazine (Jan. 28). The idea behind this civic organization is to create a “Sufi corridor of peace” connecting some 400 Sufi centers across India. The […]

The Turkish-based movement founded by the American-based preacher Fethullah Gülen now represents one of the most influential and effective Muslim networks in the world, reports The Economist magazine (March 8). The movement claims to have established 500 schools in 90 countries and has even built up a presence in northern Iraq, with schools, a university […]

Islam in the Muslim areas of the former Yugoslavia is becoming more diverse, with a development of neo-Salafism, but the prospects for any type of Islamic state are not very good, write experts Xavier Bougarel and Bashkim Iseni in the newly published issue of Politorbis (No. 43, 2007), a journal of international affairs published by […]

While Scientology has been more effective than most religions in controlling its teachings and official writings from online use and criticism, recent events suggest that the dynamics of the Internet have overtaken the controversial church. David Sarno, writing in the Los Angeles Times (March 3), reports that there have been a series of challenges to […]

The failed candidacy of Mitt Romney both created greater visibility for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and served as a painful reminder to Mormons that they are still not fully accepted in American society. The Wall Street Journal (Feb. 8) reports that the high rates of opposition to or wariness about […]

Critical comments from several mainline Protestant churches regarding current policies in Israel and calls to divest from companies involved in some specific types of business with Israel are creating tensions between those religious groups and Jewish organizations, Nathan Guttman writes in the Jewish daily Forward (Jan. 30). While relations with the Presbyterian Church are also […]

America’s “Fourth Great Awakening,” marked by a period of evangelical revival and reform, is coming to an end, judging by the failure of such religious and moral change and programs to gain wide resonance in the U.S., writes Ronald Bailey in the libertarian magazine Reason (April). Bailey’s reference to the Fourth Great Awakening is taken […]

From Burma to Tibet, from Thailand to Sri Lanka, more and more Buddhists are taking to the streets and supporting increasingly assertive political movements, in contrast to the usual image of Buddhism as “Asia’s quietest religion,” writes Christian Cary in Newsweek (March 1). The recent protests in Tibet and across the Tibetan diaspora that erupted […]