(REVIEW) Justin Bieber dropped a surprise EP “Freedom” on Easter Sunday. With gospel influence, it aligns with artists like Kanye West who are making a switch from the secular to the spiritual. It also follows Bieber’s public journey into evangelical Christianity.
Read MoreHe’s an evangelist, a DJ, a radio host, a newspaper publisher, a gun violence mediator, an immigration law facilitator and much more. An immigrant from Jamaica, Rev. Terry Lee is a hustling, innovative, inner city preacher, the kind of unsung ministerial hero who works tirelessly and like a renaissance man to advance the common good inside and outside his community. And this weekend, he’s going to the White House.
Read MoreAfter an embarrassing number of wrong prophecies and bungled predictions about the 2020 election, a group of charismatic Christian leaders have released a four-page statement of “prophetic standards” to help correct abuses in the movement.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The FBI wants to work with Hasidic Jews to lower antisemitic hate crimes. But the FBI has a complicated history with Judaism.
Read MoreInside the latest changes rocking Liberty University: the unconventional replacement of longtime board chairman Allen McFarland came on the same day that Liberty filed a lawsuit against its former president and founder’s son, Jerry Falwell Jr. As the school works to remove Falwell Jr.’s influence, it shows signs of returning to its foundational roots.
Read MoreSikh houses of worship, called gurdwaras, are discussing how to ramp up security measures around the country to protect the community after the mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis that killed eight people, including four Sikhs. Perhaps the most prominent tool is The Sikh Coalition’s recently revamped gurdwara security kit, launched in January, to help the Sikh houses of worship and community members prevent and prepare for such unexpected tragic events.
Read More(OPINION) April 24 has long been observed worldwide as Armenian Genocide Memorial Day. In 2021, President Joe Biden chose to formally acknowledge that the systematic murder of more than a million Armenian Christians by the Ottoman Empire was, in fact, a genocide.
Read More(OPINION) When in the foreseeable future will there be a better chance for church goers to demonstrate that they’re more than the anachronisms that the skeptics and demographic trends portray them as—that their faith can bring hope to where darkness and pain persist after the pandemic is “over”?
Read MoreReligion Unplugged interviewed Dr. John Jackson, President of William Jessup University, a California-based private Christian university in the Sacramento area. In our conversation, Dr. Jackson explored the spiritual and practical impacts of COVID-19 on the Jessup community, reflected on challenges to religious freedom during the pandemic and offered a vision of religious freedom lived responsibly and stewarded for the benefit of others during the pandemic.
Read MoreMeasured over the past five years or even this year alone, new Anti-Defamation League Study shows significant percentages of Jews suffered online harassment, in-person verbal attacks, or physical violence.
Read More(ANALYSIS) White Christians were significantly more likely to get the vaccine than the general public between January and April. In the latest survey results, nearly 60% of White Catholics had been vaccinated and just about half of White evangelicals said the same. It was the religious “nones” that were lagging far behind, with only 31% indicating that they had received one dose.
Read MoreOn Friday, April 23, Christie’s in New York will auction the late Elaine and Alexandre Rosenberg’s unparalleled collection of 17 illuminated medieval Bible manuscripts and more than 200 books from before 1501. Alexandre played a leading role in recapturing his family’s looted artwork from the Nazis and later retired in Manhattan where he built his Bible collection with Elaine.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Four members of Indianapolis’ Sikh community were killed at the FedEx facility shooting. The community mourns, and some are calling for an investigation of bias as the shooter’s motive.
Read MoreMinisters in Minneapolis and across the country have been praying and calling for peace regardless of what verdict is handed down in the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin over the death of George Floyd. Nightly protests have rocked Minneapolis again after the police shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, on April 11 in a suburb of the city.
Read MoreChristian school College of the Ozarks has filed a federal suit against the Biden Administration for a directive made in the Department of Housing and Urban Development on gender identity. The school claims the change forces religious schools to violate their beliefs.
Read MoreA humble Congregationalist minister, with a Bible in one hand and a geologist’s pick in another, was at the center of discovering one of the richest troves of fossils in the world. He is Thomas Condon, the only clergyman with a national park visitor center named after him and a man who understood early on how religion and science could fit together.
Read More(EXCERPT) “Faith-Based Fraud,” by Warren Cole Smith, is a new book on financial and other scandals in the church. Almost a chapter centers around Bernard Madoff, who confessed to one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Across the country, houses of worship are shuttering by the thousands. Municipalities have a role in finding new uses for abandoned buildings that have long anchored communities and neighborhoods.
Read MoreRamadan, which spans the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, is a full month of religious fasting. The associate professor of religious studies and director of the Muslim Studies Program at Michigan State University answers six questions about its importance.
Read MoreHeraldic achievements — a personal ecclesiastical coat of arms — have historically been one of the most important possessions of high-ranking Catholic clergymen and contain layers of meaning. But today they are an increasingly ignored art form inside and outside the Church. Will the Church abandon heraldry traditions going back centuries or will more bishops resurrect the practice?
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