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Religion Round-Up: What’s Going on in Religion Around the World

By Diane Winston

…are, according to Pew, surprisingly high. Moreover, they represent a large number of people, “nearly equal the estimated number of religiously affiliated adults in the United States” Accordingly, the 1-plus % of the Chinese population that identifies itself as Muslim equals some 20.3 million people—a population almost as large as Saudi Arabia’s. (More to the point, as one of China’s ethnic minorities, Muslims are not bound to the one-child per fam…

Cafeteria Cockroaches and Synagogue-State Relations in Israel

By Shalom Goldman

…funerals, or certify a restaurant as kosher. At present there are a small number of Conservative and Reform Rabbis in Israel, but they receive no funds or recognition from the state. What they do receive is a heavy dose of contempt from the official Rabbinate. When non-Orthodox Rabbis are referred to in Orthodox publications their title is given in transliterated form, the English word “Rabbi,” not the Hebrew word “Rav.” Women Rabbis come in for…

Pussy Riot Members Sentenced to 2 Years for Offending Russian Orthodox Church

By The Editors

…rs at Petrushevsky’s, he became acquainted with Charles Fourier and George Sand. At one of the last meetings, he read out Gogol’s letter to Belinsky, which was packed, according to the court, and I note, with childish expressions against the Orthodox Church and the supreme authorities. After all his preparations for the death penalty and ten dreadful, impossibly frightening minutes waiting to die, as Dostoyevsky himself put it, the announcement ca…

Will Pope’s African Tour Change Attitudes on Divorce and LGBTQ Among African Catholics?

By Kaya Oakes

…a has gone through a startling increase in recent decades. Since 1980, the number of African Catholics has grown by 238%, in contrast to Europe, where it has grown by only 6%. Some of this may be attributable to higher fertility rates in African countries, but it also reflects the church’s success in missionary efforts. And where there are a decreasing number of vocations to the priesthood in Europe, where vocations have declined by 23%, African v…

New Poll Reveals Jews May Be Open to Change in Israel Policy

By Benjamin Weiner

…d up if Israel’s “most favored nation” status is truly challenged by an American administration? Despite some American Jewish alienation from Israeli policy, backing for a bold new direction in the peace process is not entirely solid, a fact reflected in the same survey. 40% of respondents continue to support West Bank settlements, which, no matter how J Street chooses to spin it, is not an insignificant number. 75% supported the IDF operation in…

A Reforming Tradition Struggles With Change

By Brent Hege

…discuss the possibility of forming a new Lutheran church body in North America. Those discussions resulted in the announcement of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC), which will include disaffected “confessional” Lutherans from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Lutheran CORE will remain as a network for dissenting Lutherans not wishing to leave their current denominations. Lutheranism is at Heart a Reforming Tradition What are the issu…

Bill Gates’ Comments on Covid-19 Vaccine Enflame ‘Mark of the Beast’ Worries in Some Christian Circles

By Christopher James Blythe

…t buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name… his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” (Revelation 13:16-18) In the early twentieth century, this prophecy became linked to American fears of a powerful federal government. A 1943 letter to the editor of the Pampa Daily News was representative of this growing resentment coupling conspiracy with apocalypticism: We should count it dishonorable for…

Pious White Reformers and Race, Then and Now

By Peter Laarman

…regarded as the grave challenge posed by “degraded” Native Americans and African Americans living in close proximity to whites. Guyatt’s book is divided into three sections, each treating a major theme or phase in the white reformers’ efforts. He devotes four of his chapters to “degradation,” three to “amalgamation,” and four to “colonization.” To be clear, most of the white civic leaders who fretted about “degradation” did not believe that people…

Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, and Pro-Home Birth

By Katherine Don

…cacy is “probably the only grassroots movement that includes roughly equal numbers of pro-life and pro-choice individuals. We often hear shock from legislatures, saying they have never before seen these two groups come together on the same piece of legislation.” Shaye Miller, previously the member chairwoman at Nebraska Friends of Midwives, says that the issue usually gets quickly “dropped” when abortion is brought up amongst midwifery advocates….

Wesolowski Sexual Abuse Case a New Approach or Same Old Same Old?

By Mary E. Hunt

…local church. How odd that a Polish priest would be assigned to a Latin American country, though he had the same job in Bolivia before repairing to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and environs for another posting. All this leads me to wonder what could be done so readily in such disparate places. Conclusion: probably not much, and/or maybe more of the same. But let’s not go there. It’s reported that in Santo Domingo Wesolowski was “a ceremonial dean of th…