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The number of countries with “high levels” of restrictions on religion due to government policies or actions by other groups increased in 2015, reversing a downward trend.

A total of 40 percent of surveyed countries registered “high” or “very high” levels of overall restrictions, according to Pew Research Center’s annual study on global restrictions on religion. That’s up from 34 percent in 2014.

The percentage had declined during the previous two years, tumbling from 43 percent in 2012 to 39 percent in 2013, said Katayoun Kishi, the primary researcher on the study.

(The Christian Science Monitor) Shortly before noon, the Muslim call to prayer rang out from the imposing Al-Omari Mosque across the mixed Jewish-Arab town of Ramla, wafting over a crowded market. No one seemed to pay heed, aside from a small group of men who assembled for the noon prayer.

It all began with a 19th-century Dutch theologian. Each year the Abraham Kuyper Center for Public Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary—named for the neo-Calvinist thinker and church leader who also served as prime minister of the Netherlands—awards a Prize for Excel­lence in Reformed Theology and Public Life. This year, the center planned to honor Timothy Kel­ler, the founding pastor of Redeemer Pres­byterian Church in Manhattan, New York, who leads a global urban church planting network.