Healthcare ministries are increasing, with the fastest growing creating partnerships between congregations and established clinics and medical personnel, reports Advance, the online newsletter of Leadership Network (April 11). There are four models of healthcare ministries that churches have embraced: the traditional clinic, which uses the church structure or separate building to house an actual health clinic; […]

Although the covenant-marriage movement has gained wide support among conservative churches, the national effort to safeguard marriages against easy or no-fault divorce has stalled, according to Chronicles magazine (May). The covenant-marriage movement began in the late 1990s under the leadership of Southern Baptist pastor Phil Waugh. The movement sought to encourage churches to promote extralegal covenant-marriages in […]

Far from winding down, the controversy over evolution and intelligent design appears to be intensifying and spreading into new areas of American society, according to recent reports. The intelligent design movement suffered a significant loss after a court in Pennsylvania ruled against the public school’s curriculum citing the theory. But the movement is still alive […]

The fact that Hong Kong’s bishop Joseph Zen was chosen as one of the new cardinals made by Benedict XVI in March is widely seen as one more indication of the Pope’s desire to reach out to China. Choosing a bishop either from Taiwan or from mainland China as a new Chinese cardinal would have […]

India is becoming a leader in biotechnology, not least because of its Hindu-based tolerance on such issues as stem cell research and cloning that has influenced even minority Christians, reports Science & Theology News (March). Along with its rising reputation in information technology, India’s biotechnology industry has also sprouted in the last few years Chhavi Sachdev writes […]

A new entrepreneurialism sweeping across parts of Turkey has been dubbed “Islamic Calvinism” for its combination of Islamic piety with pro-free market and business attitudes. BBC News (March 13) reports that this trend particularly applies to Kayseri and a handful of other cities in the region of Anatolia that are industrializing at a rapid rate. Unlike the […]

The New York Times Magazine (March 12) reports that counter-terrorism specialists, both in the government and academia, are using a theory known as network analysis to identify potential Islamic extremists. Network or “link analysis” involves searching for associations and other connections between seemingly disparate individuals and groups. Terrorists may be located by identifying “network hubs” or centers […]

The recent admission of evangelical churches into France’s mainstream Protestant federation shows the new influence of evangelicalism in the country. On March 11, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in France became a full member of the mainstream French Protestant Federation (FPF). At the same time, one Evangelical and three Pentecostal/Charismatic groups (including the Foursquare Gospel Church) […]