Deposits in Pakistan’s Islamic banks rose from $3 billion to $4 billion last year, reports Pamela Constable (Washington Post, April 30). According to business experts, the trend is a consequence both of turmoil in the Western financial systems in recent years and of a surge in religious feelings. Not only banks, but also all kinds […]

Evangelical churches’ involvement in running a large number of rehabilitation centers for substance abusers in Russia is bringing a new wave of participants into congregational life, but is also causing conflict with the more middle-class constituencies they are also reaching. Christianity Today (April) reports that this is particularly the case in Siberia, where visitors to […]

Due to support given to the church by the state, Greek Orthodox institutions are feeling increasingly under pressure in the crisis-hit country. According to Greek sources quoted by the Paris-based Service Orthodoxe de Presse (May 23), the Greek government intends to cut by half the budget used for paying the salaries of Greek clergy. Moreover, […]

Chaplaincies in European jails have to meet the challenges of a growing religious diversity, while those of different Christian denominations are increasingly drawn into cooperating with one another and integrating the various religious traditions that they encounter into their practical work. Beside such common features, there is, however, a considerable variety in the space given […]

The rise of faith-based social service organizations in the developing world is undisputed, but determining just how many of these groups there are and the types of people receiving these services is far more difficult to ascertain, according to World Bank specialists speaking at a special session at the ASREC conference attended by RW. Jill […]

The growing genre of Christian rap has taken an unexpected turn towards conservative Reformed or Calvinist theology, reports Christianity Today (May). The magazine reports that not since contemporary praise music came from Calvary Chapel and the Jesus movement in the 1970s “has a genre of Christian music become so associated with a specific stream of […]

Universities are increasingly putting their chapels and religious affairs offices to use in fostering interfaith relations and religious tolerance, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education (April 15). The Obama administration has recently issued a message to American universities to encourage interreligious tolerance and local service projects, but there was little reference to the way university […]

Since the death of Osama bin Laden, security analysts have been anxiously surveying the prospects for new terrorist threats. Writing in the journal National Interest (May/June), terrorism analyst Jessica Stern writes that contrary to the message of the recent Congressional hearings on Islamic extremism, most threats come not from “radicalized” mosques and clerics as much […]

A proposal to ban circumcision in San Francisco is only the latest sign of conflict growing over this traditionally Jewish practice. The proposal will appear on the November 2011 ballot in San Francisco, after enough signatures were collected from city residents. If it passes, it would make the circumcising of males under the age of […]

The debate on gay rights that has raged in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for more than three decades culminated in the recent ratification of a measure allowing the ordination of gay and lesbian ministers and lay leaders while giving regional church bodies the ability to decide the issue for themselves. The denomination is the fourth […]