The popularity of Scandinavian crime fiction in Europe may be due to these writers’ attempt to describe and explain the presence of “radical evil” in strongly secularized and socially managed societies, writes Risto Saarinen in the journal Dialog (June). In recent years, Scandinavian writers have become popular practitioners of crime novels, (now the leading fiction genre in […]

Contemporary Catholic music is finding a growing audience, suggesting a growing affinity between young Catholics and their evangelical counterparts. National Catholic Register (June 22-28) reports that the “paradigm is shifting” from the contemporary Christian music category being overwhelmingly dominated by evangelical Protestant performers. “Until recent years, Catholic music distributors primarily geared their offerings to the tiny liturgical […]

Charter schools have become more open to religious sponsorship and inspiration as they have expanded to most U.S. states — a development  leading to a new round of church-state battles. Church & State, a magazine promoting strict church and state separation (June), reports that charter schools and their supporters are finding themselves in court battles […]

The U.S. victory in Iraq and a host of other factors has awakened a missionary fervor among American evangelicals to win the hearts of Muslims, even while they are divided about strategy. A cover story in Time magazine (June 30) reports on the growing evangelical attention to Islamic countries [a trend unfolding for some years; see September, 2002 […]

Churches may not yet have become virtual, but they need to be accessible online if they want to reach people. Such were the views of the participants to the Eighth European Christian Internet Conference attended by RW. The conference, which took place on a ship between Helsinki and Stockholm in early June, gathered webmasters and other […]

Conflicts over the doctrine of God, postmodernism and views of the afterlife are emerging as the new theological battleground for evangelicals, writes Roger Olson in the journal Dialog (spring). Olson writes that conflict in the evangelical theological community has unfolded in a series of “convulsions” thoughout the last century. Up until the 1990s, the battles were largely […]

A controversial charismatic group’s recent founding of a political party in New Zealand is the latest of several attempts by evangelicals to create a Christian political movement in the nation. The formation of Destiny New Zealand as an offshoot of the charismatic Destiny Churches network is raising concern that the “Christian party end of the […]

In association with several other organizations, Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) has recently initiated a “See Change” campaign in order to change the status of the Roman Catholic church at the United Nations. Since 1964, the Holy See has enjoyed a privileged status as a “Non-member-state Permanent Observer,” since the Vatican is a State […]

Freemasons are having a quiet yet noticeable impact on Islam in much of the Middle East, reports the French quarterly on the Arab and Muslim world, Cahiers de l’Orient. The journal devoted its latest issue to Freemasonry in Muslim countries and in an interview with the French newsweekly L’Express (May 29), Antoine Sfeir, editor of the journal, reports […]

The growing popularity of Yoga now includes children, with an increasing number of schools offering courses on the spiritual and physical discipline. Voice of America (May 20) reports that both private and public schools offer yoga classes, although these courses tend to stress the “relaxing” effect of the technique more than its Hindu content. The introduction […]