It is difficult to make many generalizations regarding secularization or religion in Eastern Europe. Local situations are quite different, but churches are still are in a period of adjustment to new environments, reported several papers delivered at a day-long meeting of Christians Associated for Relationship with Eastern Europe (CAREE), which took place in Washington on […]

The number of Catholics attending pre-Vatican II Latin Masses roughly make up the size of two average French Catholic dioceses, writes Fr. Claude Barthe in the Fall issue of the conservative French quarterly Catholica. At a time when there are rumors that the use of the Latin or Tridentine liturgy may soon become widely authorized by […]

Mormonism is entering the academic mainstream as several universities inaugurate Mormon studies programs. Just as there has been the creation and growth of endowed Jewish and Catholic studies at secular universities in the past two decades, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is endowing chairs in the academic study of Mormonism, reports Baptists […]

The rise of public intellectuals in religion and the financial challenges of technology are changing the nature of scholarly religious publishing, according to Publishers Weekly’s Religion Update (November 20). Academic publishers’ traditionally issuing monographs on specialty subjects are facing decreasing library budgets and less demand for class texts (due to professors using reading packets) as well as […]

“One of the most important new facts about Christian theology is the sudden popularity of the theologians and pastors, monks and bishops, martyrs and missionaries, who first fashioned a Christian culture nearly two thousand years ago,” writes R.R. Reno in First Things magazine (November). The renewed interest in the early church fathers can be seen in the […]

There has been a Pagan explosion since 1990, increasing more than thirty-eight-fold in the USA between 1990 and 2001, said James Roger Lewis (University of Wisconsin) during the Contemporary Pagan Studies Consultation at the November conference of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in Washington. While statistics should be handled with caution and are not […]

After the Christian right suffers some major defeat it has not been uncommon for analysts and commentators to pronounce the imminent demise of the movement. It could be the widespread realization of the staying power and adaptability of the Christian right that this did not happen after the recent elections where Democrats turned the tide […]