The strong influx of Russian immigrants since the 1990s has greatly complicated religious demographics in Israel, since many of them cannot be technically considered as Jews from a religious perspective, writes Jesuit researcher David Neuhaus in a detailed analysis published in the Jerusalem-based journal Proche-Orient Chrétien (No. 1, 2008). According to 2006 religious statistics (which […]

Interfaith centers—small congregations seeking to draw people from all religions—are reportedly increasing in the US, according to the Harvard University-based Pluralism Project. The establishment of interfaith centers surged after the 9/11 attacks and now there are about 550 such groups in the US, with the largest numbers in New York, California, Massachusetts and Illinois. A […]

The Emerging Movement, stressing intimacy, community and experiential, “post-modern” worship and theology, is gradually moving from small, independent start-up ministries to gaining greater denominational support and sponsorship. Theology, News and Notes, the magazine of Fuller Theological Seminary, devotes its fall issue to the new place denominations are making for emerging ministries, with case studies of […]

The religious–political configurations in the 2008 election of Barack Obama are still being analyzed, but it may be the case that slight variations in religious voting patterns made all the difference. In his e-newsletter Sightings (Nov. 10), Martin Marty notes the conflicting reports about the changes in the religious votes. For instance, post-election day, the […]

Across the world, the current financial crisis has also had an impact on religion—not only with people turning to faith in difficult times, but also with reassessments of business approaches. The Christian Century (Nov. 18) reports that while reassuring clergy and retirees that their pensions are safe, mainline churches are concerned about how the economic […]

Pentecostal women are gaining a new place in the politics of Kenya, both on an official and unofficial basis, according to Damaris Parsitau of Egerton University. Parsitau, who was presenting a paper at the ASR meeting in Boston, said that Pentecostal female clergy in particular are moving into Kenyan public life and taking on new […]

Western countries apply their principles only when they suit their interests, and Russia should have the ability to resist attempts to make it subservient to the West, said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations (DECR), in late August on a Russian television channel (Interfax, Sept. 2). […]

A recent memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed Aug. 18 between the Shiite party Hezbollah and certain Salafist clerics from Tripoli in North Lebanon reveals the emergence of a new brand of Salafism, more independent of the local political scene and less focused on an exacerbated confessional discourse. The MOU stands in contract with the process […]

Since the several attempts to establish the Wasat party as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood since 1997, innovation inside the Islamic organization seemed to be guided by a liberal, even a democratic, spirit. But this tendency is now being reversed by the assertion of a strong conservative Salafist current inside the organization. Traditionally, Egyptian […]

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 […]