General Articles

Women Islamic scholars in Java, Indonesia’s most populated island, are challenging male authority through fatwa-making, thus enriching Islamic jurisprudence, promoting inclusivity within Indonesian society, and marking a significant shift towards gender justice, writes Nor Ismah of Sunan Kalijaga

Although issues of sexuality and gender continue to roil most Christian churches, evangelical organizations are experiencing divisions less over LGBTQ behavior and more over identity and even terminology.

Evangelical culture has appeared to become more accepting of vulgarity and even profanity, though the sources of such a change are contested.

Israel’s failure to understand the threat posed by Hamas, leading up to the October 7 attack, has been attributed to many factors, but the role of artificial intelligence and the technology’s blind spot toward Palestinian Islamic jihadism should not be discounted, writes Ofira Seliktar in the for

While the Catholic Church’s traditional prescriptions concerning bodily asceticism are largely ignored by the faithful, even in monasteries marked by “the progressive imposition of the prerogative of health over asceticism,” forms of voluntary reduction of consumption are appearing in secular soc

There are growing tensions between Catholics and evangelicals in Europe, inflamed by remaining church-state disputes in areas where Catholicism is still dominant, reports Christianity Today (March).

Younger generations are increasingly turning to the supernatural to weather bad economic times in post-zero Covid China—from engaging in birth-chart readings, horoscopes and hexagrams to personalized advice from a psychic master—“all mediated, in true 21st-century fashion, by an app,” writes Aaro

    Source: Ron Lach | Pexels    (https://www.pexels.com/photo/womanwearing-head-

Women are increasingly taking up leadership roles in organized Sikhism in the U.S. and are challenging the norms and gender roles in male-dominated institutions, writes Komal Kaur in the journal Sikh Formations (online in February).

Although the 3HO movement, a “neo-Sikh” group promoting Kundalini Yoga and drawing a largely white following, continues to suffer repercussions from sexual abuse scandals involving its founder Yogi Bhajan [see RW, Vol. 34, No.