Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

On/File: March/April 2008

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01: The Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), a conservative coalition of churches that have split from or were established apart from mainline Episcopal and Anglican bodies, has embarked on its own kind of ecumenism by openly appealing for the pope to restore Anglican unity with Roman Catholicism. The TAC is said to be the largest of […]

Findings & Footnotes: March/April 2008

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01: The March issue of Atlantic Monthly features a cover story on religious competition and conflict around the world. The lead article by Eliza Griswold is a photographic essay on the Christian-Muslim conflict in Nigeria, where she finds new forms of competition and even hints of reconciliation. Griswold reports that while the conflict continues, some […]

Findings & Footnotes: January/February 2008

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01: Several evangelical leaders made news last summer when an open letter was issued calling for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most of the winter issue of the Review of Faith & International Affairs is devoted to the statement and the controversy and issues surrounding it. Along with reprinting the statement, the issue […]

More Muslim women running for U.S. political office since 9/11

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More Muslims, particularly women, are running for political office, spurred by the perceived erosions of their civil liberties. The soul searching that followed the 9/11 attacks prompted more woman to step into leadership roles, a trend encouraged by the community, says Agha Saeed, founder of the American Muslim Alliance, which has been tracking Muslim candidates […]

Kazakhstan targets unofficial Christianity

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Although granted most favored nation status by the U.S. government, Kazakhstan, under the authoritarian president Nursultan Nazarbayev, is cracking down on Christians, particularly Protestant groups that have been established in recent years. Chronicles magazine (December) reports that as the U.S. seeks to establish a strategic position in the Central Asian country because of its oil […]

Extremist Muslims step up efforts to influence the west and youth through the Internet

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Extremist Muslims are seeking to reach and influence non-Arabic speaking audiences by setting up English-language pages on existing Arab websites, reports Memri (Dec. 4), an Israeli news service that monitors and analyzes Middle Eastern media. One of the apparent goals of the Islamist forums and blogs in English is to erode support among the Western […]

After peace comes secularism in Northern Ireland?

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In the wake of the peace settlement in Northern Ireland, secularism has advanced among both Protestants and Catholics, according to David Porter, director of the Center for Contemporary Christianity in Belfast. Although Northern Ireland has always been at the top of the charts on belief and church attendance (both among Protestants and Catholics) and the […]

Danish cartoons marked the start of Christian backlash?

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The Danish cartoons caricaturing Muhammad that enraged Muslims around the world in 2005 may also have started a Christian backlash in Europe. Historian Philip Jenkins writes in the conservative magazine Chronicles (January) that since the cartoon controversy, “the prospects for Christianity in Europe seem better than they have for decades.” It wasn‘t so much that […]

Current Research: January/February 2008

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01: Recent immigrants are less likely to practice their faith than in their home countries, especially in the period when they first come to the U.S., according to a new study. In a preliminary study of the religious involvement of new immigrants, Phillip Connor of Princeton University found a decline in active religious participation among […]

Exorcism embraced by secular therapists

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A new breed of therapist is seeking to heal “the mentally ill not with talk and drug therapy but by releasing troublesome or malevolent spirits who have attached themselves to their victims,” writes California State University professor Stanford Betty in the National Catholic Reporter (Dec. 28). These therapists are not religious healers, but secular and […]