Texas lawmakers banned nondisclosure clauses in sexual abuse settlement agreements May 26, following Missouri’s passage of similar legislation weeks earlier. The Texas legislature approved the final version of its bill on Memorial Day, first approving it in the House in April, before the Senate’s nod to a similar version of the bill May 15, with the House’s final approval.
Read MoreThe U.S. Supreme Court could not find five votes for either side in an appeal that would have established the first state-supported religious charter school in the nation. The 4-4 split — made possible by Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s recusal — allowed to stand the lower court’s decision that it would be unconstitutional for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in Oklahoma City to be established with public funds.
Read MorePublishing or distributing sexually explicit material of a person without their consent is now a federal crime, and social media platforms and other websites must remove such images within 48 hours of notification.
Read MoreNigeria’s size, population and underdeveloped infrastructure make full and accurate data on such attacks difficult to obtain, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said at a Capitol Hill hearing on religious freedom in Nigeria, but the country is the deadliest in the world for Christians.
Read MoreMany of the nearly 31 percent of Americans whose mothers have died, as the U.S. Census Bureau counted, experienced the loss when they were not ready to process the pain. For them and others, such milestones as Mother’s Day come with complicated floods of emotions. That’s a reality GriefShare, a ministry popular among Southern Baptist churches, seeks to address in “Remembering Mom.”
Read MoreChristian faith threatens Russian President Vladimir Putin because it is out of his control. As such, his war on Ukraine has centered on the systematic persecution of Christians, their families and their churches. That is the central message of “A Faith Under Siege: Russia’s Hidden War on Ukraine’s Christians,” a documentary premiering May 10 on CBN, and following on TBN, Newsmax and several screening platforms.
Read MoreThe Chinese Communist Party enacted new restrictions on foreign missionaries there May 1, preventing them from preaching, evangelizing and establishing various religious organizations among other activities without official government approval.
Read MoreWhether taxpayers should be forced to fund religious charter schools came before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday in the first case of its kind. The court is considering whether to overturn a June 2024 Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that a St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School of Oklahoma City would be unconstitutional.
Read MoreWhy was Segev Schwartz the only casualty in his battalion of 30 Israeli soldiers when a terrorist tossed a hand grenade in a cafeteria on Oct. 7, 2023? That was his mother Sara’s question. The answer she found completed a picture of Segev she and her husband shared on the eve of Israel Memorial Day, the commemoration of the fallen in Israeli wars and acts of terrorism since 1948.
Read MoreMore than 240 Christians were massacred in attacks on villages in Plateau and Benue states during Lent and Easter, some as they worshiped, news agencies and religious liberty advocates reported.
Read MoreThe Texas House passed a bipartisan bill banning nondisclosure clauses in sexual abuse settlement agreements April 8, championed on the House floor by Rep. Jeff Leach, a Southern Baptist who is among the bill’s five authors. Known as Trey’s Law, the bill outlaws the use of NDAs in settlement agreements regarding sexual abuse, regardless of the age of the abused.
Read MoreMost immigrants at risk of deportation are Christian, researchers deduced, with 61 percent of them Catholics. But 13 percent are evangelicals, seven percent are from other Christian groups, seven percent are from other religious groups and 12 percent have no religious affiliation.
Read MoreMany stopped attending churches in January when the sensitive locations limitations were lifted on ICE arrests — impacting churches and schools. But the end of the humanitarian parole program, and the Temporary Protected Status program in August, will together inflict a multilayered wound upon churches, families and Gospel witness.
Read MoreConditions in Afghanistan and India continued to deteriorate and remained poor in Nigeria and Vietnam, USCIRF commissioners said March 25 in its 2025 Report on International Religious Freedom, calling out countries where Christian minorities face murder, torture and other ills either sanctioned by the government or with little governmental intervention.
Read MoreFindings for each study were drawn from surveys of more than 2,000 Christians respectively in the U.K. and the U.S., using statistical modeling to analyze data across all ages, ethnicities, genders, income levels and educational backgrounds, and including marital status.
Read MoreMarch 8 holds painful memories for Ezekiel Batsi Batende, pastor of Swahili Baptist Church at Woodmont. On that day in 2008, he and his family fled their home in the Democratic Republic of Congo as rebels burned Machumbi village.
Read MoreAt least 973 civilians were killed in the initial attack by Alawite gunmen and killings that followed as the military and security forces intervened, the independent monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, in addition to 250 Alawite gunmen and 231 members of the Ministry of Defense and security forces.
Read MoreIn the extreme sport of ice swimming, the appropriately named Winters holds the world record for the oldest person to swim an ice mile, officially noted by the International Ice Swimming Association. “I first got into ice swimming just because I’d read that it was the most extreme swimming challenge in the world,” he said, “and basically just to see if I could do it and challenge myself.”
Read MoreThe beheaded bodies of 70 Christians were found in a Protestant church in North Kivu Province in the Congo around Feb. 15, several religious freedom advocates said, blaming the extremist Allied Democratic Forces. The ADF is accused of approaching homes in Mayba, in the Lumbero territory, beginning Feb. 12 and capturing as many as 100 Christians through Feb. 15.
Read MoreAbout 50 Christians were killed, dozens kidnapped and homes destroyed since late January in several attacks spanning southern to northern Nigeria, Christian persecution watchdog groups said. At least three pastors were killed in attacks in Kaduna in north-central Nigeria and Gombe in northeastern Nigeria.
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