It’s almost certain that historic Christian devotion to the Virgin Mary began in Egypt. The nation’s Muslims often plead for her help, too.
Notes from the Global Church
Philip Jenkins charts developments in the Two-Thirds World
Image: Accra, Ghana. Some rights reserved by Jonatan Freund.
Why, asks Dalil Boubakeur, should hundreds of empty churches not be converted to mosques? It's an intriguing question.
Search online for Madagascar and you get mostly references to animated films about animals. Dig deeper and you'll find a still more amazing true story.
In the 1950s, the Adventists celebrated the milestone of a million adherents, mostly in the U.S. Now they have 18 million, mostly elsewhere.
Over the last generation, the institution of pilgrimage has experienced a startling revival across what we often dismiss as secular Europe.
Western media treat Asian faiths quite generously in matters of religious conflict. Yet Christians on the ground in Asia face serious issues.
Christianity is thriving in Singapore. And in this case, most of the usual explanations for Christian expansion in Asia fall flat.
European churches are currently engaged in an architectural culture war. This is startling given how weak the churches themselves have become.
We rarely think of Japan as a promising land for Christianity. But the murder of Kenji Goto reminds us that believers do exist there.
Assyrian Christians call 1915 Sayfo, the Year of the Sword. One hundred years later, they're still being killed.
Indigenous Australians have long practiced a profound, land-centered spirituality. Only recently have Western Christians begun to acknowledge this.
A century ago, a period of stunning Christian growth began. Africa's independent churches claim John Chilembwe as a symbol of a new native Christianity, free from its paternalistic and missionary roots.
Many scholars have traced the intra-Christian conflicts over slavery. Less noticed are the situations in which Christians were themselves enslaved.
Historically, the region from the Danube to the Euphrates and from Belgrade to Baghdad is religiously complex. Our modern map is a product of decades of violence and ethnic cleansing.
Like it or not, the world’s religious landscape owes much to the long history of European imperialism. But the story of empire and missions is more complex than we might assume.
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