The concept of confession and changes in the religious landscape

A confession is a community of belief and its followers formed within a particular religious teaching and with its own features. The term is used widely: large religions such as Christianity and Buddhism, and branches such as Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism, may all be called confessions. The textbook stresses that in Islam, schools of law (for example the Hanafi school) are not registered as separate confessions in Uzbekistan, and Shi’a communities are likewise counted within Islam rather than as a separate confession; so in Uzbekistan Islam is counted as one confession linked with the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan. The religious landscape of the world is not fixed: as a result of globalisation, migration, technology, changes in education and socio-economic conditions the areas where religions are spread change. For example the number of Muslims in Europe has risen noticeably compared with the middle of the last century (according to Pew Research estimates, over 25 million in 2016, about 5 per cent of the population). New trends and movements keep appearing within existing religions; in religious studies they are called “new religious movements”, while the word “sect” is often used in a negative sense. Some movements have caused serious harm to their followers: at the Peoples Temple settlement in Jonestown (Guyana, 1978) over 900 people died, at Kanungu in Uganda (2000) hundreds of members of a group died, and at Waco (USA, 1993), after federal agents besieged the Branch Davidians’ compound, over 70 people died in a fire; in such cases closed activity, complete obedience to a leader and dangerous instructions are named as common features. On the other hand, religious teachings also modernise: in March 2000 Pope John Paul II publicly asked forgiveness for mistakes in religious history.