
From The New York Times to The Economist, pundits and news “prophets” have been predicting that 2022 will be the year of “adjusting to new realities.” This not only means adjustments in daily life, but broader shifts in politics and technology, economics and, of course, religion.
This edition of ReligionLink explores seven issues that may deserve attention this year, including resources and potential sources to help you cover them:
- Democracy, autocracy and … aliens
- Major SCOTUS decisions
- Endemic religion
- Religious communities and climate change
- The continuing rise of “spirit tech”
- Religious economies
- International sporting events and human rights
For more on major religion stories in 2021 and what’s to come in 2022, check out the Top Religion News Story and Newsmaker poll from the Religion News Association and an overview of 2021’s top stories from Religion News Service.
1. Democracy, autocracy and … aliens
While 2021 saw the inauguration of President Joe Biden, continuing reckoning with Christian nationalism and the transition into a post-Merkel German political future, 2022 will bring a slew of significant elections and potent political moments across the globe. Besides the U.S. midterms — and the potential that extraterrestrial conspiracies might play a part in political campaigns — there will be major elections in South Korea (March), France (April), Hungary (April), the Philippines (May), Australia (May), Colombia (May/June), Kenya (August) and Brazil (October). Religion promises to play a role in each.
Background reading
- Read “Elections to Watch in 2022,” from Foreign Policy on Dec. 30, 2021.
- Read “How 2021 collapsed the divide between religion and politics,” from Religion News Service on Dec. 29, 2021.
- Read “Ten Elections to Watch in 2022,” from the Council on Foreign Relations on Dec. 9, 2021.
- Read “Possible clues for reporters seeking religion angles in 2022 and 2024 elections,” from GetReligion on Sept. 8, 2021.
Three potential experts
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Jennifer Glass
Jennifer Glass is professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of numerous articles, including “Why Aren’t We Paying Attention? Religion and Politics in Everyday Life” in Sociology of Religion in 2019.
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R. Marie Griffith
R. Marie Griffith is director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. She has written on women in charismatic and Pentecostal movements.
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Brannon Ingram
Brannon Ingram is professor of religious studies at Northwestern University and co-director of the Global Religion and Politics Research Groups. Ingram is a specialist in Islamic studies, with a particular interest in how Muslims have debated Sufism, Islamic law and politics in the modern era.
2. Major SCOTUS decisions
The news cycle on the U.S. Supreme Court’s current term started back in October as oral arguments began on several cases. The churn of news will pick back up again in 2022 as decisions are handed down. There are three religion-related cases we think reporters need to keep an eye on (we will have an in-depth guide coming later in the year to help you cover them):
Background reading
- Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization: The scope of the constitutional right to abortion — and the fate of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision — is at stake in this case, which involves an appeal by Mississippi to revive the state’s Republican-backed law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
- Carson v. Makin: The possibility of expanding — or restraining — religious rights is at issue in this case, which involves a challenge to a Maine tuition assistance program that bars taxpayer money from being used to pay for religious instruction in schools.
- Shurtleff v. Boston: The dividing lines between religious and free speech rights are being probed thanks to a group’s challenge to Boston’s rejection of its request to fly a flag bearing the image of a Christian cross at city hall.
Three potential experts
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Steven K. Green
Steven K. Green is the Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and affiliated professor of history at Willamette University, where he teaches courses in constitutional law, First Amendment, legal history, jurisprudence and criminal law in the College of Law, and legal history and American religious history in the College of Liberal Arts. In addition, Green directs the interdisciplinary Center for Religion, Law and Democracy.
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Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd is a professor of political science at Northwestern University, with an emphasis on international relations, religion and politics, politics of secularism, law and religion, U.S. foreign relations; politics of the Middle East, methods in the study of religion and politics, contemporary religion, and the politics of religious freedom. She is also co-organizer of the Luce Politics of Religion at Home and Abroad initiative.
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Nomi M. Stolzenberg
Nomi M. Stolzenberg holds the Nathan and Lilly Shapell Chair in Law at the USC Gould School of Law. Her research spans a range of interdisciplinary interests, including law and religion, cultural pluralism, law and liberalism, and law and literature. She helped establish the USC Center for Law, History and Culture.
3. Endemic religion
In 2020 and 2021 religion newswriters covered “pandemic religion.” In 2022, we could be covering what might be called “endemic religion” — how religious actors and communities adjust to the permanent changes brought on by the pandemic and the pernicious presence of COVID-19 for years to come. Questions abound. Will mass pilgrimages return and if so, what will they look like? Will vaccination passes be required for entry to holy sites? How might religious communities continue to play a role in prevention, control and treatment of the disease?
Background reading
- Read “The world’s religions face a post-pandemic reckoning,” from The Economist on Jan. 8, 2022.
- Read “Religious burial rituals slowly resuming after shift forced by pandemic,” from North Carolina Health News on Nov. 29, 2021.
- Read “COVID-19 has changed the way we worship, faith leaders say,” from the Star Tribune on Oct. 9, 2021.
- Read “Pilgrims return to Spain’s ‘El Camino’ paths after pandemic,” from The Associated Press on June 5, 2021.
- Read “Turning point for religious life in India: What we hope continues forever as COVID-19 abates,” from Global Sisters Report on March 11, 2021. (Commentary)
Three potential experts
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The Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN)
The Information Network for Epidemics’ Health Emergencies Programme at the World Health Organization emphasizes the importance of working with religious communities during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and has trained religious communities and leaders on best practices to confront the all-embracing global health emergency.
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Pandemic Religion
John G. Turner (department of religious studies) and Lincoln Mullen (department of history and art history) at George Mason University run the site “Pandemic Religion.”
4. Religious communities and climate change
As hurricanes, heat waves and other natural disasters — and the debate around climate change surrounding them — intensify in frequency and severity, the environment promises to become an increasingly visible aspect of religion reporting in 2022.
Background reading
- Read “An Evangelical Climate Scientist Wonders What Went Wrong,” from The New York Times on Jan. 3, 2022.
- Read “We could use a little more Hinduism in our approach to climate change,” from Religion News Service on Dec. 22, 2021. (Commentary)
- Read “Religious leaders plead for rapid climate action at COP26,” from Al Jazeera on Oct. 4, 2021.
- Read “Religious Americans Demand Climate Action,” from the Center for American Progress on July 21, 2021. (Analysis)
Three potential experts
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Iyad Abumoghli
Iyad Abumoghli is director of the United Nations Environment Programme Faith for Earth Initiative and worked as a senior policy adviser on environment. His expertise focuses on strategic planning, sustainable development, natural resources management, knowledge and innovation, and interfaith collaboration.
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Evan Berry
Evan Berry is an assistant professor of environmental humanities in the School of History, Philosophy and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. His research examines the way religious ideas and organizations are mobilized in response to climate change and other global environmental challenges.
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Melanie Gish
Melanie Gish obtained her Ph.D. in American studies from Heidelberg University and is the author of God’s Wounded World: American Evangelicals and the Challenge of Environmentalism.
5. The continuing rise of 'spirit tech'
While regulators in Europe, China and the U.S. try to rein in tech giants, some innovators are actively probing the ways technology can be used to augment and modify spiritual experiences (and vice versa). Meanwhile, as the space race heats back up in the private sphere and 2022 looks set to be the first year in which more people go to space as paying passengers than government employees, one wonders what religion might look like … in spaaaaace!
Background reading
- Read “Heavens above: Nasa enlists priest to prepare for an alien discovery,” from The Times UK on Dec. 22, 2021.
- Read “How to practice religion could be a big question for some space tourists,” from CNN on Dec. 7, 2021.
- Read “Space Pagans and Smartphone Witches: Where Tech Meets Mysticism,” from The New York Times on Nov. 25, 2021.
- Read “God in the Brain: PW Talks with Kate J. Stockly,” from Publishers Weekly on March 19, 2021.
Three potential experts
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Andrew Davison
Andrew Davison is Starbridge Associate Professor in Theology and Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. His work spans Christian doctrine, natural science and philosophy. Recently, that has taken in life elsewhere in the universe, but also an application of medieval accounts of analogy to help think about what we mean when we attribute humanlike capacities to machine learning or artificial intelligence.
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Catherine L. Newell
Catherine L. Newell is associate professor of religion and science at the University of Miami. Newell is a scholar of the conjoined histories of religion and science (specifically technology, ecology and medicine). She is particularly interested in how scientific paradigms frequently owe their genesis to a religious idea or spiritual belief.
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Kate Stockly
Kate Stockly researches affective neuroscience, cognitive science and evolutionary biology to construct biocultural theories of embodied religious ritual at Boston University.
6. Religious economies
Cryptocurrencies, like other disruptive tech, are changing finance as we know it. The economy continues to be in flux as COVID-19 disrupts domestic and global supply chains. Houses of worship face a “reckoning” in the post-pandemic future. Inflation and uncertainty may threaten gains made in 2021. From churches accepting cryptocurrency donations to Brazil’s growing share of the halal economy, religion promises to remain part and parcel to the ebb and flow of market dynamics and the economy to the contemporary practice of religion.
Background reading
- Read “Venture Capitalists See Profit in Prayer,” from Christianity Today on Jan. 7, 2022.
- Read “Brazil eyes $1.17 trillion halal food market, keen to boost its share in trade,” from Reuters on Dec. 6, 2021.
- Read “With fewer young parishioners carrying cash, more churches accept bitcoin in their offerings plates,” from USA Today on Nov. 12, 2021.
- Read “The unseen economic and social impacts of American faith,” from Deseret News on May 12, 2021. (Analysis)
Three potential experts
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Brian Grim
Brian J. Grim is president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, which makes the case that religious freedom is good for business. Formerly at Pew Research Center, Grim is a leading expert on the socioeconomic impact of restrictions on religious freedom and international religious demography.
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Sriya Iyer
Sriya Iyer is a university reader in the faculty of economics and a fellow of St. Catharine’s College. Her research is in the fields of development economics, economics of religion, health and education. For the past decade, she has been contributing to developing a new field of research called the economics of religion, in which she uses economic methods to study religion.
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Timur Kuran
Timur Kuran is professor of economics and political science, and Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. His research focuses on economic, political and social change and the economic and political history of the Middle East, with a focus on the role of Islam.
7. International sporting events and human rights
Last but not least on our list are major sporting events on the international calendar, including the XXIV Winter Olympic Games in China (February) and the soccer World Cup in Qatar (November). Not only will there be religion angles to explore among the athletes, but from calls to boycott the Olympics because of “genocide and crimes against humanity” committed against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang to the role of Islam in sports and entertainment, there will be plenty of questions about human rights and religious freedom for religion journalists to pick up on as part of the coverage of these events.
Background reading
- Listen to “Uyghur organizations applaud the U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics,” from NPR on Dec. 6, 2021.
- Read “World Cup 2022: Qatar tourism chief says fans can drink alcohol in special zones and camp in the desert,” from i News on Nov. 20, 2021.
- Read “Gay footballer Josh Cavallo says he would be ‘scared’ to play at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar,” from CNN on Nov. 8, 2021.
- Read “These religious freedom advocates want the 2022 Olympics to be moved,” from Deseret News on Aug. 10, 2021.
Three potential experts
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James Dorsey
James Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, co-director of the Institute for Fan Culture at Universität Würzburg and author of the blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
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Dru C. Gladney
Dru C. Gladney is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Asia Program and professor of anthropology at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He is the author of Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People’s Republic.
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David B. Roberts
David B. Roberts is an assistant professor in the School of Security Studies at King’s College London and a visiting assistant professor at Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs. His primary research interests are on Gulf security and international relations.
These past editions of ReligionLink may be especially relevant this year:
- Experts on religious responses to climate change
- What’s next? Experts on LGBTQ rights vs. religious protections after Supreme Court foster-care ruling
- Holes in the safety net? Experts on the pandemic’s impact on social services
- 20 experts to help you cover the impact religious voters may have on the presidential election
- Covering the plight of Uighur Muslims in China
- 30 experts on international religious freedom
- God and the game: Religion and sports
- The economics of religion