General Articles
While the practice of deprogramming or “faith breaking,” where members of minority religions are confined and submitted to heavy psychological indoctrination and various forms of violence, has been reported to be a common practice in China, these techniques are now being conducted in cooperation
More non-affiliated Americans have been seeking spiritual directors even as they lose faith in other aspects of institutional religion, reports Deirdre Pelphrey in World Religion News (August 12).
Vacation Bible schools, which function as day camps that churches provide for members and the community, are adapting to changing dynamics of family life and religious participation, particularly a decline in volunteering for vacation Bible school ministries, according to a report from Nation
Ukraine’s new law prohibiting the Russian Orthodox Church’s (ROC) activity in the country, as well as that of other religious organizations linked with Russia, is a sign of the increasing securitization of relations between state and religion in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, writes Dmytro Vovk
The Neo-Zoroastrian religiosity of converts has often been described as different from traditional Zoroastrian practices, but changes are also being observed among those who are Zoroastrian by birth.
Controversy and hostility toward new religious movements (NRMs), particularly the Unification Church, are being fanned by the media in Japan, which has focused attention on second-generation members who have left and protested against these groups, according to Adam Lyons of the University of Mon
While religious communities are often thought to be resources for the integration of migrants, the opposite can also be true, as Helmar Kurz (University of Muenster, Germany) writes in an article in the International Journal of Latin American Religions (June) based on his research on the
Following an administrative decision in June by the Minister of Justice of the Democratic Republic of the Congo intended to regulate the proliferation of evangelical churches in large Congolese cities, many of those churches suddenly find themselves in an irregular situation, reports William Minh
Japanese youth culture is shifting from embracing spiritual and self-empowerment to stressing a “weak self,” which includes invoking and having relationships with self-created sentient beings, Satoko Fujiwara and Hiroki Miura report in the journal Social Compass (71:2).
Although a group of Tibetan Buddhist nuns received full ordination in 2022, breaking with centuries of monastic tradition, the practice continues to be resisted by Tibetan clergy, writes Vicki Mackenzie in the Buddhist magazine Tricycle (Summer).