Posts in Conflict
Christian Support For Prison, Police & Policy Reform Under Pressure Amid Crime Surge

Some critics suggest that soft-on-crime policies have gone too far in recent years and perhaps even damaged efforts to help the homeless, drug addicts and prostitutes. The tensions around rising murder rates in major cities around the United States in recent years are also creating hurdles for the loose coalition of conservative, Christian and libertarian nonprofits and billionaires who have collaborated with progressive left activists in the cause of prison reform and deincarceration.

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Black Churches Have Mixed Reactions As The US Supreme Court Overturns Roe V. Wade

Many Black American pastors aren't jumping on the spiritual caravan with White evangelical churches that largely vote Republican. Black churches have a complex relation with religion and politics on the topic of abortion and other issues. So while some Black churches and pastors support the ruling, plenty of others do not.

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Football Coach Joseph Kennedy Talks About Life After The Supreme Court Ruling

Joseph Kennedy, a high school football coach in Bremerton, Washington, is waiting for a ruling to emerge from the Supreme Court any day in his case about prayer. And he insists he is a centrist that most Americans would agree with on religious freedom issues and the Constitution.

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Choosing Joy Over Happiness: Why An American Catholic Doctor Stayed Put In Sudan’s Civil War 

(ANALYSIS) Tom Catena, an American Catholic, has worked as a doctor for 14 years in the the Nuba Mountains in Sudan — a desolate, rebel-held area that was bombed repeatedly from 2011 until 2018 by the Khartoum government when Omar al-Bashir was president.

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Pro-Abortion Rights Protesters Hit Catholic Churches: Why You Didn't Read About It

(ANALYSIS) If there was ever a doubt that Americans are living in two, separate news universes, then the past two weeks certainly crystallized that reality even more than the polarizing presidential elections of 2016 and 2020. As a result, a major news story on pro-abortion rights protesters at churches was totally ignored by many mainstream news sites.

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The Supreme Court Opinion Leak That Could Give Way To A River Of Fear — Or Compassion In Difference

(ANALYSIS) On Tuesday, a preliminary draft Supreme Court opinion was leaked to Politico, revealing that the court — as of February — intended to overturn Roe v. Wade. What does the leak mean for the court and America, and how have faith voices responded?

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Catholic Bishops Meet In Secret To Discuss ‘Culture War’ Issues: What Does It Mean For The Church?

(ANALYSIS) While Pope Francis was presiding over a ceremony at the Vatican to consecrate Ukraine and Russia, a group of high-ranking American bishops met in Chicago. The gathering, entitled “Pope Francis, Vatican II and the Way Forward,” aimed to create a dialogue between theologians and bishops.

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Pope Urges Patriarch Kirill To Use ‘Language Of Jesus’ After Russia invades Ukraine

Pope Francis — in a private video call on March 16 with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church — said religious leaders “must not use the language of politics, but the language of Jesus.” Francis’ remarks to Patriarch Kirill, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, were the latest in a series of moves to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

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Russian Invasion Reveals Fissures Among Orthodox Christians

Orthodox churches around the world are all preparing for Easter, a celebration of Christ defeating death, by reflecting on Judgment Day. Despite this relative unity in worship, the Orthodox schism between Moscow and Constantinople that broke open in 2019 is cracking further. What is good and what is evil in the war in Ukraine is far from agreed upon.

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Support For Ukraine Rises Worldwide As A Shadow Of War Falls Over Eastern Europe

From Oklahoma to New Jersey to Nairobi, faith communities are taking up collections, helping refugees and voicing opposition to the military invasion of Ukraine. Many recognize that part of the motivation is for the Russian Orthodox Church to gain power in the Orthodox world. And Putin, at age 70, is making a desperate move to regain territory Russia once held during the Soviet Union. Both motivations create waves of anger, fear and the will to resist such totalitarian behavior.

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Pope Francis Asks World Christians To Set Aside A Day Of Prayer For Peace In Ukraine

Following days of rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine, Pope Francis called on Christians around the world to fast and pray for peace this coming Ash Wednesday. Before ending his general audience at the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, the pontiff said believers should fight “the diabolical senselessness of violence” that has engulfed the Russian-Ukraine border.

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Tennis Star And Orthodox Believer Novak Djokovic Refuses To Get Vaccinated

Serbian tennis superstar Novak Djokovic says he’s willing to miss more major tournaments after he was forced to sit out the Australian Open because he is not vaccinated against COVID-19. An eccentric Orthodox Christian, Djokovic’s faith plays a role in his decision to skip vaccines even if it costs him titles and jeopardizes his ranking as the world’s top men’s tennis player.

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Let’s Not Forget These 6 Big International Religion Stories In 2022 

Of the 7.6 billion people on Earth, 2.4 billion identify as Christian, 1.9 billion as Muslim, 1.2 billion as Hindu and more than 500 million as Buddhist. Those are just the four largest religions. In other words, 310 million in the U.S. do not necessarily constitute the epicenter for all religion in the world. If anything, religion in America is a unique outlier.

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5 Christmas Messages That Inspire Hope During The Pandemic

It was another tough year for many people around the planet. The pandemic, just as it seemed to be subsiding this fall, rages on thanks to the omicron variant. Aside from COVID-19, issues such as climate change and the plight of migrants continues to plague nations, and international conflicts continue to rattle millions around the globe.

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Marketing Dilemma: Why Some Churches Aren’t Cool With The Brand 'Big Ass Fans'

A spokesman for the company, Alex Risen, noted that other churches, high school gyms, grade school gyms and companies owned by people who don’t like profanity also find the brand and logo off-putting at times. A Polynesian cultural center in Hawaii, for example, covered the word “ass” on the fans.

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A Cloud Of Mystery Remains Over Whistleblower Complaint Against LDS Church

In response to reporting by ReligionUnplugged.com and The Washington Post in 2019, a prominent former LDS Church member filed a federal lawsuit last week against the LDS Church seeking to regain more than $5 million in tithing he gave the church. The 2019 reports exposed that the LDS Church had amassed a $100 billion secret investment firm and used member tithes without their knowledge. The IRS has not confirmed whether it is investigating the church.

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Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Inside the religious fight for Nagorno-Karabakh

(ANALYSIS) What was a nominally a little-known conflict regarding the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region — also known as Artsakh — claimed by both Armenia and Azerbaijan has erupted into a full-scale war with an estimated thousands of soldiers on both sides killed in intense fighting.

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Evangelical Magazines Prioritize Truth During Ravi Zacharias Scandal

(OPINION) Richard Ostling commends journalists at Christianity Today and World for prioritizing truth over tribalism in the case of sexual assault claims against Ravi Zacharias. Both publications seek to prioritize the community over the reputation of the religion.

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Rittenhouse’s Legal Fund Features Donors Invoking Biblical Self-Defense

Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen gunman who shot and killed Black Lives Matter protesters in Wisconsin, awaits a hearing set for Friday, Sept. 25. Some donors to his legal fund, hosted by the Christian platform GiveSendGo, invoke biblical arguments for self-defense to defend Rittenhouse, though there is scant evidence Rittenhouse is himself religious.

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