Summer is the time for conventions both political and religious, but so far it is the denominational gatherings which reveal long-range trends that may outlast the season. As expected, at their June convention, Southern Baptists voted to withdraw from the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), the international pan-Baptist organization over its alleged theological liberalism and theological pluralism. The […]

RW recently attended a workshop during the Parliament of the World’s Religions (PWR) in Barcelona (July 7-13) and found that Neo-Paganism is emerging in countries, such as Spain and South Africa, from which it was absent until a few years ago. The PWR, first initiated in Chicago in 1893, attracted some 8,000 participants this year, offering […]

The defeat of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in India signals the loss of political power of Hindu nationalism as well as renewed Christian hopes of relaxed restrictions against evangelization. The victory of the secularist Congress Party and the marginalization of the BJP primarily means the loss of political influence of Hindu nationalism, reports India Abroad newspaper […]

Despite divisions among themselves, Iraq’s Shi’a will shape Iraq’s future, and Iraq will be the first Arab country to become openly Shi’a, according to an article by Vali Nasr in the Summer issue of the Washington Quarterly, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Shi’as number around 130 million people globally, most of […]

Christian universities are multiplying worldwide and represent a new stage in the development of Christianity in the Third World, writes Joel Carpenter in the Lutheran magazine The Cresset (Trinity, 2004). He writes that in the three years he has been researching the rise of the new Christian universities in Latin America, Africa and Asia, their numbers have […]

Buddhism is “enjoying an unprecedented boom in Germany,” reports the German newspaper Deutsche Welle (June 9). The number of Buddhist groups is rising along with Eastern religious teachings being popularized by best-selling books and even in the secular media. Although the German government does not keep statistics on Buddhism, the German Buddhist Union estimates that there are […]

Books and movies on world religions and their ancient texts are drawing individuals and groups into study and dialogue between different faiths, reports the e-newsletter Religion Bookline (June 1). Feeding much of this interest are productions such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ, as well as semi-scholarly and popular books by Karen Armstrong, Dan Brown (author […]