There are few spots around the world where parents don’t have to drag their younger adult children to worship: Ghana, a predominantly Christian county is one; Chad, a predominantly Muslim country, is another. In both African nations, younger adults are 3 percentage points more likely to identify with their faith than their elders, according to Read more
Mexico’s Presidential candidate has spoken about religion in his campaign. “The time has come to present a proposal based on the aim that when we obtain the presidency, we must not only seek to achieve material well-being, we must also seek well-being for the soul,” Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says. The favourite to win July’s Read more
Western Europe, cradle of Protestantism and historical seat of Catholicism, has become one of the most secular regions in the world. This was confirmed by a survey study promoted by the US Pew Research Center on religious faith and practice in Western European countries. The percentage of lapsed Christians is increasing and a look at Read more
Christians, and other religious communities, have long adapted to changes in media technologies. The emergence of writing, the move from scroll to codex, the printing press, the spread of literacy, the development of electronic media (radio, telephone, film, and television), and the subsequent rise of digital communication (social media, websites, digital publishing) provide obvious examples. Read more
Compared with most countries we do rather well in New Zealand with our varied and differentiated public media. National Radio, certainly, is outstanding and on the whole newspapers present a fair range of views on contested matters. The exception seems to be anything to do with religion. The churches appear to be regarded as a Read more
One day, while our Māori Anglican dad was at work, our Pākehā Catholic mum rushed her brood off to the local priest and had us baptised. Dad clammed up for a bit, but came around. He reckoned it was good we were “something.” Next minute, we were off to weekly Catechism classes in preparation for Read more
It has become one of the most commonplace and influential ideas about religion: that it is the cause of much, if not most, of the conflict and violence in the world. While this is not a new idea — religious passions have long been deemed suspect for their potential to causes divisions — the notion Read more
Japan’s bishops have written to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. They want strict observance of the constitutional separation of state-sponsored ceremonies. They say these ceremonies should be clearly separated from the imperial family’s private religious ones when the change of emperors takes place in 2019. The bishops note this principle was “learned from reflection on history Read more
Religion is slipping off the agenda in Irish schools. In a meeting with the Education and Training Ireland, concerned Church representatives said some community colleges were not spending enough time teaching religion. This was despite agreements and deeds of trust which stipulate that these schools should spend up to two hours teaching pupils religion each Read more
Hundreds of Catholics and politicians gathered to discuss the problems and the future of Europe at the end of last month. They called the event “(Re)Thinking Europe.” Pope Francis was one of the many speakers. A theme emerged from what they had to say: Religion is still essential to Europe. Read more