The early January announcement by the Archbishop of Canterbury (and head of the Anglican Communion), Dr. George Carey, that he would retire before the end of the year, has put into motion a search for a successor who will be a key shaper of world Anglicanism and the Church of England. There have been many […]

Christian coffee houses, a staple of the Jesus movement and subsequent evangelical outreach in the 1970s, are making a comeback, reports the Washington Times (Jan. 14). Coffee houses were mainly for evangelism mixed in with entertainment and fellowship for evangelical young people in the late 1960s and 70s. But as the patrons got older and had families […]

“Fixed-hour prayer,” a practice common among Christians from liturgical churches, is finding a wider appeal among other believers, reports Cutting Edge (Winter), a newsletter of the charismatic Vineyard churches. In an interview with the newsletter, author Phyllis Tickle says that the interest in the practice (also called the “office of the hours” or divine hours), consisting of […]

Although it may sound like science fiction, a new period of space exploration and eventually colonization is beginning, and religious groups and thinkers are clamoring to be on board. After a nearly 30-year hiatus, the space program has been revived with ambitious plans for exploration. The completion of the $60 billion International Space Station as […]

American Indian and Australian Aborigines are divided among themselves over Western New Agers, Pagans and other alternative spiritual groups adapting and marketing their traditions, according to an article in the Journal of Contemporary Religion (January). For close to two decades, there has been a conflict between alternative spirituality-New Age groups and native spiritual leaders who accuse the […]

The Reconstructionist movement in Judaism is gradually entering the mainstream after 47 years of existing on the edge of Jewish life. The Jewish Week (Jan. 18) reports that new leadership and maturity is bringing? greater stability and acceptance, if not sharp growth, to the smallest and youngest Jewish branch in the U.S.. Reconstructionist Judaism, founded by Modecai Kaplan, […]

A division and impending split in a national Jewish organization is also serving to highlight a conflict between Jews in the Eastern U.S. versus those in the West, according to two reports. The Jewish Week (Jan. 11) reports that the firing of a popular West Coast director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the leading Jewish defense organization […]

The latest issue of the Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions (No. 115, July-September, 2001) includes an article by French expert Olivier Roy suggesting that ethnicity and nationalism will continue to play a key role in Central Asian Islam, even in its militant strain. Islam had not entirely disappeared from Central Asia during the Soviet period: in […]

Sri Lanka continues to be caught in an escalating civil war between the majority Buddhist and minority Hindu factions, although there is an emergence of a religious peace movement. The Buddhist magazine Tricycle (Winter) notes that nationalism and opportunism have as much to do with the decades-old conflict as religion. The conflict mainly centers on the Sri […]

The warming of relations between the Assyrian Church and the Roman Catholic Church was vividly demonstrated by the Vatican’s recent “Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East.” The Church of the East, often described as “Assyrian” in order to emphasize its Persian heritage and to […]