Looking beyond the walls of churches, synagogues, and denominational officialdom to examine how religion really affects, and is affected by, the wider society. Published every month, its digital content is unique because it focuses on long-range developments that lead to, and result from, global current events.
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Past Issues“Griefbots” and other AI technologies are changing the rituals and spirituality surrounding mourning as they revive the role of mediums and psychics for people who have lost touch with traditional ways of mourning the dead, writes Joseph Davis in the journal Social Research (Fall).
Churches and denominations are turning to nonprofit foundations to fund projects and structures that have traditionally been the responsibility of members and denominational leadership, according to Aaron Renn’s Newsletter (September 17).
With the rapid growth in Muslim migration to the West over the last two decades, reports of Muslim conversions to Christianity have become more common. To discuss how these conversions are taking place, at least in one particular case, RW interviewed (by email) Matyas Bodi, the recent author of How Somali Muslims Become Christians in Europe (Routledge). Bodi is a research fellow in Freedom of Religion or Belief at Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford.
The Indonesian Ulama Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia or MUI), an umbrella group for most of the nation’s Muslims, sustains its authority not by choosing between doctrinal exclusivism and state-sponsored moderation, but by navigating between them, argue Erni Budiwanti (National Research and Innovation Agency, Jakarta) and Levi Geir Eidhamar (University of Agder, Norway) in an interpretive synthesis published online in Religions (September 15).