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 […]

A statement on belief and reason recently signed by a group of Catholic and Shiite scholars evokes some skepticism, even in circles close to the Vatican, reports Rudolf Zewell in the German Catholic newspaper Rheinischer Merkur (May 8). Following the sixth meeting in Rome (April 28–30) between representatives of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue […]

After 15 years of declining political influence, Christians are making a comeback in Lebanon, according to a recently released report of the International Crisis Group (July 15). There has been a reassertion of Christian political leadership in the country, such as Amine Gemayel, Michael Aoun, and Samir Geagea, since Syria’s withdrawal in 2005. These leaders […]

Although the trend is not yet as developed as it has become in the US or UK, Hindu temples in Germany tend increasingly to play a role beyond providing rituals, especially in educating Hindu children born in the West and conveying to them Hindu traditions, writes German scholar Carina Back (Hanover University) in her book, […]

Encouraged by Benedict XVI’s motu proprio (July 2007) allowing for a wider use of the celebration of the pre-Vatican II mass, French Catholic traditionalists in union with Rome have created a strong lobbying effort to obtain from their bishops more celebrations of what is now officially called “the extraordinary form of the Roman rite.” Groups […]

A raid on a meat plant in Iowa bearing the Orthodox Union’s kosher symbol caused a supply problem in US kosher markets, but also caused some to raise new issues about the meaning of the term “kosher.” On May 12, US immigration authorities raided Agriprocessors’ plant in Postville, IA and arrested 390 illegal immigrant workers […]