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Both narcos and those who fight against them actually turn to the skeleton saint known as Santa Muerte for spiritual favors and protection, writes Kate Kingsbury and Andrew Chesnut in the <i>International Journal of Latin American Religions</i> (June 2020). In over ten years of observation in Mexico and abroad, the researchers found that the growing cult of Santa Muerte extends beyond the narco subculture (see <strong>RW</strong>, Nov. 2017).

Afro-Brazilian religions abroad do not only serve the religious needs of Brazilian diasporas, but also encounter the religious searches of diverse audiences for spiritual practices of Brazil, giving rise to new experiences and religious groups operating according to different logics, writes Amurabi Oliveira (Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil) in the <i>International Journal of Latin American Religions</i> (June 2020).

The Church of England and the wider Anglican world are experiencing “accelerated changes” from the pandemic which may have serious consequences for “brick-and-mortar” church life after this crisis, according to reports. <i>The Economist</i> (June 4, 2020) reports that “Empty pews in the Church of England have been replaced by packed-out virtual congregations. A quarter of Britons have attended an online religious service since lockdown began, providing a boost to a faith that has seen dwindling church attendance.”

While much of the far-right targets Islam as a foreign and undesirable religion, Muslims and ex-Muslims are “increasingly prominent” in the West European far right groups, bringing a new spirituality to this often secular movement, writes Julian Gopffarth and Esra Ozyurek in the journal <i>Ethnicities</i> (online in June, 2020).

The Russian Orthodox presence online has been strongly developed after initial skepticism, especially as a way to attract young people and to show the Church as intellectually vibrant, and its significance is bound to increase as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic, writes Jacob Lassin (Davies Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University) in the monthly magazine <i>Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost und West</i> (June 2020).

COVID-19 has “increased the goddesses’ workload,” as deities are being repurposed from other causes by Hindus to help fight the virus, reports <i>The Conversation</i> (June 15, 2020). Anthropologist Tulasi Srinivas writes that there have historically been several goddesses that have been delayed during many deadly pandemics in India from ancient to modern times.

Business-friendly evangelical churches originating in the Wenzhou region of China are expanding globally, serving as a new model of missions, but may also be spreading Chinese nationalism, according to two reports. In the evangelical Hong Kong-based journal <i>China Source</i> (June 8, 2020), Brad Fulton looks at how Chinese Christians from Wenzhou—considered China’s Bible belt—have pioneered in a model of missions where church planting networks follow the circuit of business entrepreneurs and their overseas contacts and opportunities.

Last month, we neglected to mention an important special issue of the journal <i>International Affairs</i> (March, 2020) devoted to the interaction between international relations and the discipline of religious studies. It is not as arcane as it sounds, with editor Katherine Brown writing in the introduction to the issue that “we cannot understand international affairs without understanding religion and also that we cannot understand religion without understanding international affairs.”

Conspiracies seem to be a byproduct of a global crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic, and recent reports suggest they are not limited to any one religion or spirituality. What is known as the QAnon movement, which holds to conspiratorial ideas about the existence of a “deep state” seeking to bring down the presidency of Donald Trump, has found a home in a segment of the Christian right, writes Marc Andre Argentino in the online magazine <i>The Conversation</i> (May 18, 2020).

Much of Donald Trump’s evangelical base of support comes not from “value voters” or nostalgic “white Christian nationalists” as much as “prophecy voters,” those charismatics who see the president as an anointed leader who will have a part in bringing God’s kingdom to earth. This group is likely to continue to influence and reshape the Christian right during the 2020 elections and beyond, writes Damon Berry in <i>Nova Religio</i> (May 11), a journal on new religious movements.

According to Italian journalist Iacopo Scaramuzzi (writing on his <i>Facebook</i> page), the coronavirus epidemic has succeeded in pushing reforms into the Catholic Church in a way nothing else has—with laypeople organizing their own domestic liturgical life and a variety of creative responses to an unexpected situation preventing the gathering of faithful in places of worship.

While the Jehovah’s Witnesses have not assigned a unique prophetic significance to the coronavirus outbreak, the pandemic has confirmed their end-times beliefs, created new interest in the religion’s teachings, and strengthened its online presence and innovations, writes George D. Chryssides on the blog <i>CennSam</i> (April 30, 2020) of the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements.

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed that the sources of religious support for many Americans are less focused on clergy and more on chaplains and more unconventional spiritual-care providers, according to sociologist Wendy Cadge writing in the <i>Atlantic</i> magazine (May 17, 2020).

<strong>A community’s greater degree of social capital, as generated by congregations and other voluntary organizations, is likely to lessen the severity of the coronavirus as well as help in recovery from the crisis, according to research by Christos Andreas Makridis.</strong>

The restriction of various Muslim practices dictated by the coronavirus pandemic may have long-term effects in the Islamic community in Belgium, according to several papers written by scholars associated with the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Islam in the Contemporary World (Catholic University of Louvain).

The spread of the coronavirus in Russia has provoked a mood of apocalypticism as well as resistance to shut down orders in the Russian Orthodox Church, according to several reports. <i>The New York Times</i> (May 5, 2020) reports that the “clash between faith and public health has been particularly divisive in Russia, where memories of religious persecution in the Soviet Union have made priests and their flocks highly sensitive to any limits on their rituals.”

The coronavirus pandemic in Japan has highlighted the differences between traditional and new religions and has also shown the strong hold that healing rituals still have in a secular society, according to a special report published in the <i>Asia-Pacific Journal</i> (May 1, 2020). Japan did not take the early precautions against the spread of the virus, but among the groups responding the earliest were new religious movements.

Indian Muslims are facing a new wave of discrimination and stigmatization as the coronavirus has spread throughout India. The German newspaper <i>Deutsche Welle</i> (May 14, 2020) reports that “After the Indian government linked hundreds of coronavirus cases to a Muslim gathering in March, social media users began spreading angry messages and sharing fake news articles purporting that Muslims were conspiring to spread the virus.”

Despite common perceptions that China remains communist only in name, the recent book Rouge <i>Vif: L’Idéal Communiste Chinois</i> (Paris: Editions de l’Observatoire), by Alice Ekman (European Union Institute for Security Studies), contends that—despite reforms and opening taking place after 1978—communist ideology continues to be a key component of the Chinese approach, and even more so after Xi Jinping took control.

<b>The Bosnian Pyramids</b> in the village of Voskia in Bosnia have become a prominent New Age pilgrimage site. The formation is part of a series of pyramid-shaped mountains and tunnels in central Bosnia and Herzegovina that have long been a center of nationalist pride.

The unpredictable course of the coronavirus pandemic at this stage makes it difficult to know its long-term effects on religious institutions and communities. In the short-term, it’s obvious that the virus and the various social and political responses to it have rapidly reshuffled the communal practices of religious groups, most notably seen in the rapid adaptation and expansion of online services.

Due to the (mostly unintentional) role of some religious groups as super-propagators of the virus (along with secular types of gathering), religious meetings—especially large ones—are being seen as potential sources of trouble. When it comes to individual attitudes and practices toward social distancing, there is not a great difference between those from various religious and non-religious groups.

Seemingly practical and public health issues such as lockdowns and decisions to ease restrictions on religious institutions during the coronavirus crisis have been enlisted into the protracted culture wars between religious conservatives and progressive and secular critics. The protests to open society back up during state-directed lockups does not have a large religious component.

American Jews are modifying long-standing rituals in the age of coronavirus and quarantines, when the community elements on which those traditions rely are out of reach, reports the online magazine <i>Ozy</i> (April 8, 2020). From home-based bar mitzvahs to online funerals, “We’ve broken every norm there is,” said Jonathan Jaffe, a Reform rabbi in suburban New York. The Rabbinical Assembly and the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has given their support to remote “minyans” — traditionally a quorum of at least 10 Jewish people who need to gather in order to pray.

Yoga has long adapted to different cultural contexts and situations, and the current pandemic is likely to accent those forms of yoga that relate to mental health and spiritual solace, writes Shreena Niketa Gandhi in the online religion magazine <i>The Revealer</i> (April 7, 2020). The speed at which yoga studios moved to offer virtual yoga sessions to fit this moment of social isolation is “reflective of the ever-changing nature of yoga,” she writes.

Claims of the resurgence of the religious left during the Trump presidency have circulated far and wide, but recent research suggests that any such religious-political revival is limited and that it is more the secular left that is showing the most vitality. In the journal <i>Sociology of Religion</i> (81:2), sociologists Joseph O. Baker and Gerardo Marti analyze data from the General Social Survey, the Public Religion Research Institute, and the National Congregations Study and find that not only is the constituency of the religious left shrinking but there also has been a disengagement in such political activity in the last decade.

<strong>A new study of young adults finds that while they feel a strong sense of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic, many report an increase of faith, with a fairly large number saying they are actually developing new religious practices.</strong> Scholarly studies of religion and the coronavirus pandemic will likely weigh down journals for years to come, but the few appearing so far have mainly been issued by research institutes and polling companies.

For the Islamic State (IS), the coronavirus pandemic is a “godsend,” and an act of divine intervention at a time when the terrorist movement had reached its lowest ebb, reports Michael Knights in <i>Poltico</i> (April 4, 2020). He cites the IS’ newsletter, Al-Naba, which called coronavirus “God’s torment” upon the “Crusader nations,” and urged fighters to take advantage of the disruption caused by the virus.

In recent decades, the role of Islam has become increasingly strong in Indonesia, and it has adopted more assertive views, in large part thanks to the flow of Saudi money and charities promoting Salafi interpretations of Islam in the country, writes Krithika Varagur in <i>The Guardian</i> (April 16, 2020). Initial efforts go back to the 1960s. The combination of aid and proselytization for a Saudi type of Islam has proved effective.

The April issue of the <i>Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute</i> features an interesting interchange between psychology, anthropology, and religion relating to how people experience the relationship between their minds and gods and spirits, using charismatic and Pentecostal congregations as its case studies.

The fast-moving nature of the coronavirus pandemic defies easy forecasts about how religious institutions and even patterns of religious beliefs and practices may change from this crisis. But the disruptive nature of the virus on congregational life as well as the more long- term implications for religious freedom stand out as recurring themes.

The prophetic subculture within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is experiencing new strains and divisions over the alleged crimes scandal involving teachers Chad and Lori Daybell, according to the e-newsletter <i>Sightings</i> (February 27, 2020).

Along with women gaining more leadership positions in synagogues and Jewish education, they are also assuming new ritual roles, most recently that of the “mohel,” those who perform circumcisions, according to the <i>New York Times</i> (March 1, 2020).

<strong>Contrary to their reputation as proselytizers, evangelicals tend to de-emphasize their religious beliefs, new research indicates that evangelicals actually downplay religious expression when working with religiously diverse and secular groups.</strong> In a study of multifaith initiatives in Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon published...

Greater numbers of young people are being drawn to Anglo-Catholic and other liturgical churches, according to the <i>Catholic Herald</i> (February 7, 2020). British media have reported that young people are “flocking” to these liturgical parishes of the Church of England, such as St. Bartholomew the Great, in the City of London.

While the Russian Federation continues to define itself as a secular state, it has come a long way from the earlier atheist Soviet system, with forthcoming amendments to the Constitution expected to include a reference to God. While there are indeed a number of Western states who keep the reference to God in their respective constitutions, it is less frequent to see a contemporary state adding it when it was not already present.

Russian Protestants are increasingly experiencing “atomization and decentralization,” closing the curtain on an early Soviet era, where the million member Union of Evangelical Christians and Baptists (UECB) was unifying force of Protestantism, writes William Yoder in the online journal <i>Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe</i> (March). The change can be seen in the state of the Russian Baptist Union, once the mother church of the UECB, now reduced to no more than 70,000 members, with many members and congregations on its fringes holding conflicting teachings and practices.

In the <i>Journal of Democracy</i> (Spring, 2020), Ladan Boroumand chronicles the significant religious and social transformations taking place in Iran, something that the coronavirus pandemic may intensify. Last year the Islamic Republic celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution but by last December, there were demonstrations filling the streets of the Tehran against the clerical government and Islamist ideology ruling the country.

As the journal <i>Religion</i> (January 2020) turns fifty, it has seized the opportunity to welcome several articles dealing with “futures.” The issue mixes prospective observations about the future of the study of religion and its various subfields along with more general views on the future shape of religion in the contemporary world.

In recent years, it has not been unusual for secular and cultural movements and trends to be portrayed as religious, spiritual, or at least quasi-religious. Most often, the activity in question may be interpreted as religious in nature even if they are accompanied by beliefs that are considered religious. Such a case can be seen in an article in the conservative magazine <i>First Things</i> (March 2020) on the emergence of “secular monks” – a segment of middle-aged, highly successful American men who lead a secular lifestyle in a religious way.

“Where it once it was embarrassing to mention art and spirit in the same sentence, today it could not be more au courant,” says art gallery curator Maurice Tuchman in the magazine <i>Art World</i> (January 6, 2020). Tuchman had attempted to curate an exhibit on spiritual themes in modern art in the 1986, featuring more than 100 artists exploring spiritual themes, but it “landed like a thud,” writes Eleanor Hartley.

Religious and political factors make Russian Orthodoxy attractive for some people in the Appalachian region of the U.S., according to a recent study. Former evangelical Christians who convert to Russian Orthodoxy may not only find an answer to their religious longing, but also “a politically conservative ideological haven,” writes anthropologist Sarah Riccardi-Swartz (New York University), whose PhD field research focuses on communities of converts to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) in the Appalachian Mountains.

<b>Religious affiliation, or the lack of it, is one factor driving the Democratic primary vote, according to recent surveys.</b> A study from the Pew Research Center finds that Joe Biden remains the first choice for Protestants and Catholics while Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are drawing the unaffiliated. No candidate was found to have majority support from any of the large religious groups, and many voters still say they are undecided.

Even as other Eastern and Central European countries are making less room for religious minorities, Romania has encouraged its ethnic and religious minorities and their communities, “opening up new forms of cultural expression,” writes Ovidiu Oltean in the online journal <i>Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe</i> (39:7). Citing the major example of ethnic German Lutherans, Oltean writes that they have diminished in numbers yet their religious institutions, language, and German schools are reviving.

The restrictions and penalties against homosexuality in Nigerian culture is often reflected in the preaching and teaching of the burgeoning Pentecostal churches in that country, but a new breed of congregations are providing a refuge from these strict attitudes, even if they don’t directly challenge the anti-gay laws or embrace LGBTQ identities, writes Nelson C.J., in <i>The New York Times</i> (January 26, 2020).

The looting of antiquities has proven to be an attractive source of income for radical Islamic groups in a country with a long and rich cultural legacy such as Syria, as it had been for some civilian, military and government actors earlier. These groups’ religious views also influence how they deal with objects belonging to Pagan and Christian cultures, writes historian Olivier Moos (Religioscope Institute) in a newly released report on Salafists and antiquities trafficking
in Syria by Religioscope (February 2020). The report focuses on Idleb Governorate (North-West Syria), where the Salafist armed group Hayat Tahrir as-Sham (HTS) has been heavily involved in the looting of cultural assets.

There are “growing ties between the far right in India and Europe, a connection that is rooted primarily in a shared hostility toward immigrants and Muslims, and couched in similar overarching nationalistic visions,” writes Eviane Ledig in <i>Foreign Policy.com</i> (January 21, 2020). The article notes that these links have predated the rise of Europe’s nationalist wave when Hindu nationalists collaborated with fascists in Italy and Nazi Germany, with Hindu right pioneer V.D. Savarkar seeing the Nazi’s solution in dealing with the “Jewish problem” as a model for India’s approach with its “Muslim problem.”

<i>It may not come as a surprise that the religious trends emerging in 2019 reflected many of the divides that mark society—from denominational schisms to new political-religious fractures. Yet some developments stemmed from actors and actions existing apart from political dynamics, even if they will carry considerable social impact. In this year’s review and preview of trends in religion, we will put the accent on the latter, particularly because our new publishing schedule brings our issue to readers already into the new year of 2020. As usual, we cite the issues of RW and other sources where these trends were reported.</i>

Despite the eradication of ISIS’s caliphate across Syria and Iraq in 2017, the group remains active, while 96 other Islamist extremist groups were tracked in 2018 by the annual Global Extremism Monitor (GEM). The authors of this detailed report released by the <i>Tony Blair Institute for Global Change</i> (January 15) also includes developments monitored during the following year, such as the April 2019 attacks in Sri Lanka.

Study of the Talmud, long confined to men, especially in orthodox circles, is finding new interest and participation among orthodox Jewish women, reports the <i>New York Times</i> (January 5). The conclusion of an intensive international marathon of daily Talmud study in Jerusalem but streamed to an international audience showed a growing number of women who have joined the effort.

There has been a growth of Catholic traditionalism in Latin America as seen by the spread of the celebration of Latin Masses, reports Julie Gomes in the conservative web site, <i>The Church Militant</i> (December 25). Latin Masses are mushrooming in the main South American dioceses of Rio, São Paolo, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Lima and Santiago, often attended by youth and young families. The website cites a frontpage article in the Italian newspaper <i>Il Giornale</i>, which reported on the spurt in the Catholic traditionalist movement in Latin America: “Right-leaning blogs are multiplying, animated by young and very young people, with millions of followers.

Faced with a loss of innocence in the West after the controversies regarding the abuses by some spiritual masters, Buddhism must also deal with key questions about finding a balance between preserving ancient teachings and finding its European way, writes the former head of the unit for interreligious dialogue of the Archdiocese of Vienna (Austria), Werner Höbsch, in a contribution written for an issue on Buddhism in the West in the series <i>Weltanschauungen - Texte zur religiösen Vielfalt</i> (No. 113).

Meditation practices inspired from Sufism are gaining popularity in the Egyptian capital Cairo as people are looking for alternatives to rigid religious practices, writes Egyptian journalist Dalia Chams on the French website <i>Orient XXI</i> (January 9). This is a recent phenomenon, acknowledges 46-year-old Sonia Hassan, an American Egyptian-born meditation teacher who was trained at the US-based University of Spiritual Healing & Sufism and claims to have been the first to have associated Sufism with Zen meditation in Egypt in the years after the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

<i>American JewBu</i> (Princeton University Press, $29.95) by Emily Sigalow, is both a history and sociological study of the phenomenon of Jews converting to or simultaneously practicing Buddhism. The book is also one of a growing number of works that explores the growth of religious syncretism or at least “dual religion” in the West, where once this pattern was most evident in Eastern societies.

The newly launched <b>Hurma Project</b> is a Muslim expression of the broader #MeToo movement and is direct response to cases of sexual abuse by leaders in the Islamic community. The project, started by Canadian Islamic scholar Ingrid Mattson, recently had its first conference looking at abuse in Muslim spaces.

Just as there is a growing number of nones…there is also a growing interest in spiritual direction both within and outside of the Catholic Church…Interestingly, as more Americans move away from participation in institutional religion, many seekers and nones are also seeking out places where they can have in-depth conversations about their spiritual lives,” writes Kaya Oakes in <i>America</i> magazine (November 25).

Celebrity among evangelical women, especially the wives of prominent pastors, has helped them to circumvent the obstacles to female leadership in evangelicalism, giving them disproportionate influence in the movement, according to historian Kate Bowler, the author of a recent book on pastors’ wives and other prominent Christian women. In an interview in <i>Christian Century</i> magazine (December 4), Bowler, author of <i>The Preacher’s Wife</i>, said she was surprised to find that, without any theological education or supportive structures, the wives of well-known evangelical leaders and pastors exercised important leadership roles in churches and organizations usually barring women from playing such roles.

President Donald Trump’s appointment of Paula White as head of the White House’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative, a unit in the Office of Public Liaison tasked with outreach to religious groups, suggests that the mainstreaming of Pentecostal Christians within the Christian right is about complete, writes Daniel Hummel in the e-newsletter <i>Sightings</i> (November 7). There

Over the course of a decade the percentage of priests turning down offers to become bishops has tripled, according to Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, as reported in <i>La Croix International</i> (December 13). Xavier Le Normand writes that three out of 10 priests asked to become bishops have recently declined the

In a field that is relatively unpoliced and protected by claims to spiritual authority, yoga teachers are facing accusations and pressure about inappropriate touching and other forms of abuse against followers, according to Katherine Rosman in the <i>New York Times</i> (November 10). In recent years, former and current students have gone public about their treatment

<b>Undergoing religious initiation ceremonies, such as baptism, confirmation, and bar mitzvah, predicts a lower likelihood of disaffiliating from religion, although not later religious commitment, according to a new study published in the</b> <i>Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion</i> <b>(online in December).</b> Samuel Perry of the University of Oklahoma and Kyle Longest of Furman

While evangelical churches are often viewed as safe havens from gang life in El Salvador and much of Central America, there is actually significant interaction between these churches and gangs, writes Stephen Offutt in the journal <i>Social Forces</i> (online in December). Offut notes that the idea of evangelical churches serving as havens where gang members

Not a few Muslims in France see Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as the model of a modern Islamic leader, and such feelings accord with Turkish efforts for influence across the Muslim world, writes Ariane Bonzon in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> (November). Particularly among young, non-Turkish Muslims in France, Erdoğan is frequently considered a

Mindfulness meditation is returning to its origins in Japan, though the more secular style it has assumed in the West is proving difficult to integrate with Buddhism in that country, reports Karen Jensen in <i>Tricycle</i> magazine (Winter). In 2017 at least three major Japanese news magazines ran cover stories praising the benefits of mindfulness meditation

<b>The Aumists at the Holy City of Mandarom Shambhasalem</b>, a French syncretistic Hindu-Buddhist movement, is facing new legal problems and restrictions. Founded in 1969 by Guru Hamsah Manarah, who is venerated as a salvation figure, the group had received a favorable decision in the European Court of Human Rights in 2013 recognizing its status as