In South Africa, a child or woman faces rape or murder every 23 seconds, with perpetrators including pastors and trusted figures. Survivors like Fikile Sondela-Farrow recount lifelong trauma from clerical abuse. Amid several acquittals, thousands have marched, prompting lawmakers to declare gender-based violence a national disaster. Churches are enhancing safeguards.
Read MoreFederal authorities announced arrests after activists disrupted a Minneapolis Southern Baptist church service to protest ICE activities. Civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong and two others were charged under an 1871 conspiracy statute. Church leaders have condemned the protest, while activists called it a peaceful demonstration.
Read More“It is painful to see how, especially in the West, the space for genuine freedom of expression is rapidly shrinking," said Leo.
Read MoreFor someone who once appeared on a U.S. black list, Philippa Winkler seems calm, almost proud. Despite the exalted company she keeps, in the eyes of some, this makes her dangerous. The list she ended up on was the notorious S.H.I.T. List (Self-Hating and/or Israel Threatening), maintained by a pro-Israel group.
Read MoreIndia recorded 1,318 in-person hate speech incidents in 2025, averaging more than three each day and overwhelmingly led by Hindu nationalist groups affiliated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The report supports the inference that a political choice is behind the sustained scale of public incitement, which undermines both the rule of law and the idea of equal citizenship.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Pope Leo XIV used an annual address to Vatican diplomats to warn that global politics had shifted toward militarism and force. Without naming any political leaders, he criticized war, erosion of international law and weakened human rights, positioning the Holy See as a moral counterweight to rising geopolitical tensions in many places around the world.
Read MoreIt is a fraught time to lead a Christian congregation. Church leaders are navigating concerns about President Donald Trump’s second term, ongoing ICE raids, difficult conversations following Charlie Kirk’s murder — and also trying to dodge spiritual and occupational burnout along the way.
Read MoreJudge Alvin Kenneth Hellerstein, an Orthodox Jew who displays the Torah verse “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof” — “Justice, justice you shall pursue” — on the walls of his chambers, is presiding over the case of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Hellerstein oversaw Monday’s arraignment of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who entered a plea of not guilty to drug trafficking charges.
Read More(ANALYSIS) With 2025 now behind us, it was a year filled with significant developments in religion, faith and spirituality — and 2026 is likely to be just as eventful. Here are five key religion-related issues and trends to watch for over the next 12 months in the U.S. and throughout the world.
Read MoreAl Mohler believed a former seminary student when she told him in 2018 that a professor forced her to perform sexual acts. The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, then sought to deal with the professor discreetly, sidestepping the school’s formal process to avoid an investigation.
Read More(REVIEW) What does it mean when we finds moral clarity from not just punishing criminals, but making it a spectacle? When the most reviled offenders are exposed and humiliated in public view, few feel compelled to object. After all, who would defend a child sex predator? All this is examined in a new must-see Paramount+ documentary.
Read MoreThe insurance company for Gateway Church has filed an action in federal court seeking a declaration that it is not required to defend nor indemnify the church in the civil lawsuit brought by Cindy Clemishire related to sexual abuse committed against her by Robert Morris.
Read MoreOn the same day the breakfast concluded, a local news outlet reported that two Armenian opposition podcasters had been placed in pre-trial detention. Vazgen Saghatelyan and Narek Samsonyan, co-hosts of the “Imnemnimi” podcast, had been arrested over comments made in a Nov. 10 episode about National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan.
Read MoreOver the course of about 20 years, Clint Massie had, according to court documents and by his own admission, sexually abused children within the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church in Duluth, Minn. His abuse was such an open secret among the tight-knit congregation that mothers warned their daughters to stay away from him.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Mamdani is America’s first high-profile Muslim office-holder. The campaign’s competing accusations of “antisemitism” versus “Islamophobia” raise obvious concerns for Muslims, and for Jews, for whom New York has long been the most important town west of Tel Aviv. Signals are mixed on whether the Mamdani era will improve, or worsen, relations between these communities.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Street protests spill into riots. Universities host intimidation campaigns. Digital mobs savage anyone who dares step outside the script. Across America, political anger is spilling into the open, and on the left it increasingly takes a violent shape. What begins as dissent can tip quickly into destruction.
Read More(REVIEW) John Chau was an American man who died trying to preach the Gospel to North Sentinel Island, home to a tribe cut off from the outside world. The story captured the world’s attention — but a new film, "Last Days", recalls what happened, but was also a missed opportunity for secular-religious empathy.
Read MoreThe Nashville Church of Christ in Tennessee — formerly known as the Central Church of Christ — must restore a trust fund set up by a former Central member, according to a settlement approved by a Tennessee circuit court.
Read MoreThe Constitutional Court in South Africa decided last month that husbands can adopt their wives’ surnames upon getting married, ruling that until now the law discriminated against men. While it is being celebrated as a progressive decision by some, the ruling has outraged many — with some religious and traditional leaders saying this is an assault on marriage.
Read MoreRobert Morris, the founder of Gateway Church in Dallas, on Thursday pleaded guilty to sexually abusing Cindy Clemishire in the 1980s, beginning when she was just 12.
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