The personal ordinariates established for allowing Anglicans to keep their religious patrimony while coming into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church may become a new bridge toward Rome for “a whole range of Protestants Christians,” writes Fr. Dwight Longenecker in the magazine Inside the Vatican (February). Ordinariates have now been erected in England and […]

The strong ascetic nature of Jainism has not prevented a growing movement within the religion from appealing to yoga-seeking Westerners with practices and teachings stressing a healthy mind and body, writes Andrea Jain in the journal Nova Religio (February). The Jain religion has traditionally emphasized spiritual enlightenment through renunciation of the body and its senses, […]

Buddhism in the U.S. today represents a global religion more than an American one, particularly as it is entering a stage of “hybridity,” according to Buddhist scholar Charles Prebish. In an interview with the Buddhist magazine Tricycle (Spring), Prebish says that talk of developing an “American Buddhism” is “almost passé … Buddhist communities everywhere in […]

Black theology has often occupied the radical edge of the Christian theological spectrum, but a spate of recent books by black theologians suggests that it is reaching back to more traditional sources, reports the Christian Century magazine (February 8). Such theological works as Willie Jennings’ The Christian Imagination, J. Kameron Carter’s Race: A Theological Account […]

The most obvious sign of the strength of the Catholic-evangelical alliance is the wide support of evangelicals for Catholic Rick Santorum in the Republican primary races. Time magazine (April 2) notes that the force propelling Santorum to his unexpected victories is his “devout and driven network of social conservatives,” made up of religious leaders, anti-abortion […]

The use of the label ‘emerging’ for describing a variety of congregations suggests similarity, but it actually covers a range of distinctive practices, writes Jason Wollschleger (Withworth University, Spokane, WA) in an article published in the Review of Religious Research (March). The article is primarily based on case studies of three congregations in the Pacific […]

Religious freedom has become a new galvanizing force in the Catholic–evangelical alliance, particularly as Christianity is coming under new repression in Islamic societies and as orthodox Protestant and Catholic churches charge that their convictions are being driven out of the public square in the West. Evangelicals and Catholics Together, an ongoing dialogue group organized by […]

Over ten months have passed since Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Sociologist Peter Berger once said that religion legitimates the “marginal situation” that is best represented by death. This legitimation can be seen individually and collectively, and the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami will definitely be seen as “marginal situations.” Although it did not become […]

From near extinction, Buddhism has been on a path of renewal in China since the 1980s and has been growing to the extent of now being the religion with most adherents in China—at least 100 million, according to reports by several scholars in an issue of Social Compass on “Social Implications of Buddhist Revival in […]