Alternative Faiths
After 20 years, Terry Mattingly bids farewell to GetReligion
By Bob Smietana — January 17, 2024
(RNS) — Religion reporting still matters, Mattingly says, but the internet’s ‘preaching to the choir’ algorithms have won out.
First meeting of After School Satan Club at Tennessee elementary school draws protesters
By Associated Press — January 12, 2024
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The launch of the club Wednesday drew dozens to protest outside the school, WMC-TV reported.
The key to keeping those New Year’s resolutions? Make it about somebody else.
By Yonat Shimron — January 4, 2024
(RNS) — Experts say a core spiritual practice — even if it's only a few minutes a day — and a commitment to working with others are key to keeping resolutions.
Rabbi David Wolpe’s pagans aren’t the ones I know
By Nathan M. Hall — January 2, 2024
(RNS) — The distinguished rabbi characterizes a broad collection of small faiths as idolators of nature or money.
Faith leaders, influencers who died in 2023: Preachers, protesters, writers, singers
By Adelle M. Banks — December 26, 2023
(RNS) — We also bid farewell to some celebrities and influencers whose time on stages sometimes represented public faith or whose lives were strengthened by their personal faith.
Church for ‘nones’: Meet the anti-dogma spiritual collectives emerging across the US
By Kathryn Post — December 20, 2023
ATLANTA (RNS) — These spiritual communities discard doctrine, prefer questions over answers and have no intention of converting anybody to anything.
A volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island is sacred to spiritual practitioners and treasured by astronomers
By Audrey Mcavoy and Deepa Bharath — December 13, 2023
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (AP) — Mauna Kea is a dormant 14,000-foot shield volcano. In Native Hawaiian lore, it is the first-born son of the sky father and earth mother.
Yule – a celebration of the return of light and warmth
By Helen A. Berger — December 8, 2023
(The Conversation) — Yule, celebrated by Wiccans and many other Pagans in the Northern Hemisphere on Dec. 21, the day of the winter solstice, is a time for reflection.
Study: Most Americans are spiritual but a growing number say they are not religious
By Yonat Shimron — December 7, 2023
(RNS) — Among the spiritual but not religious, 38% say religion does more harm than good, while just 7% of religious Americans share this view.
In Mexico, a Japanese traditional dancer shows how body movement speaks beyond culture and religion
By MarÍa Teresa HernÁndez Reyes — December 4, 2023
MEXICO CITY (AP) — For Latin American audiences, Kihara said, Japanese traditional dance might be hard to embrace.
Pilgrims yearn to visit isolated peninsula where Catholic saints cared for Hawaii’s leprosy patients
By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher — December 4, 2023
KALAUPAPA, Hawaii (AP) — The pilgrimage to Kalaupapa is logistically challenging to make under normal circumstances. It is even more so today because of lingering COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
In the US, Hmong ‘new year’ recalls ancestral spirits while teaching traditions to new generations
By Giovanna Dell'orto — November 27, 2023
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The majority of the approximately 300,000 Hmong in the United States are animists and believe that spirits live throughout the physical world.
Bestselling spiritual author Marianne Williamson presses on with against-the-odds presidential run
By Luis Andres Henao — November 13, 2023
Born in Houston to a Jewish family, Judaism remains her core belief, and she also embraces universal spiritual themes, like loving one another.
This All Souls’ Day, experience moments of connection with those who have gone before us
By Christine Paintner — November 1, 2023
(RNS) — This is an intentional act of cultivating relationship with our ancestors.
How ‘nones’ − the religiously unaffiliated − are finding meaning, purpose and spirituality in psychedelic churches
By Morgan Shipley — October 31, 2023
(The Conversation) — A scholar who studies alternative expressions of spirituality visited secular, atheist and psychedelic churches and interacted with attendees. Here is what he found.
