(REVIEW) Deepfakes, the satanic panic and the influential power of media are all explored in the Museum of the Moving Image’s newest exhibition and film series.
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Bill Hwang was hailed as part of a new evangelical donor-class for donating nearly $80 million to dozens of evangelical ministries. But his fortune — which, it turned out, was based on lies, heavy borrowing and risky stock bets — blew up in March 2021, when he was unable to pay creditors. Hwang was arrested April 27, 2022.
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The Satanic Temple has filed a civil lawsuit against a Pennsylvania elementary school after the school turned down a request to form an after-school Satan Club. The proposed club for Northern Elementary School in York, Pennsylvania, was voted down 8-1 at an April 19 school board meeting.
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Lori Windham teaches children’s Bible classes the Fairfax Church of Christ in Virginia and argues cases in the nation’s highest courts for Becket, a law firm specializing in religious liberty cases for people of all faiths.
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On tropical Ambergis Caye in Belize, Islam is a family affair. The island's largest town, San Pedro, has a population of just over 13,000, of whom some 200 are Muslims. This small yet vibrant Muslim community was launched by a single adventurous Lebanese family — the Harmouches.
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Megachurch head pastor Stovall Weems has resigned from Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida, as he continues to pursue a lawsuit alleging he was illegally suspended from his position by the church’s governing board earlier this year.
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(OPINION) The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom launched its annual report describing events in 2021 — a detailed document focusing on more than two dozen countries that are engaging in or tolerating religious freedom violations. Their report also offers suggestions and recommendations, while providing information regarding 15 specific prisoners of conscience for whom USCIRF commissioners have personally advocated.
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A Virginia church collaborated with a grassroots volunteer organization known as NoVa RAFT, which stands for Northern Virginia Resettling Afghan Families Together. That group has helped set up nearly 200 Afghan refugee homes with furniture, beds, kitchenware, linens and other household items.
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The investigation of alleged mishandling of sexual abuse has cost the Southern Baptist Convention more than $1.7 million so far, a number that exceeds the original estimate made last fall. A 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle reported hundreds of abuse cases in Southern Baptist churches spanning decades.
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TV preacher Andrew Wommack’s ministry racked up $25.9 million in debt building the $99 million campus of Charis Bible College in Woodland Park, up in the mountains west of Colorado Springs. Wommack now wants to tear up an agreement he made with the city a decade ago to build campus student housing as a taxable private enterprise.
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Missionaries throughout Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas look forward to the weekly arrivals of planes flown by Agape Flights, a Florida ministry that shuttles mail, medicines, cargo, relief supplies and other resources. But one of its planes was burned in Haiti by demonstrators protesting the country’s increasing violence and kidnappings.
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(REVIEW) Images from 31 unique ancient objects, including Christian manuscripts in Latin, the Getty’s treasured Rothschild Pentateuch in Hebrew and two printed Hebrew books — from between 1040 to 1592 — are on display until May 29 at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. But the Getty’s text descriptions seem intended to push a misinterpretation of the Christian images as works of antisemitism and misogyny, based on little or no evidence.
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(OPINION) Will more Americans — from the right and the left — untangle their bizarre fantasy with a misappropriating, rather cowardly, cult-like entertainment industrial complex? Has Disney going woke finally caused Americans to wake up from their slumber like Rip van Winkle? Mickey Mouse can’t have his cake and eat it too anymore.
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(ANALYSIS) If you’re a golf fan, you should know the name Scottie Scheffler by now. The 25-year-old has been the talk of the PGA for the past few months for his remarkable run this season. His win at the widely-televised Masters Tournament also built a wider audience for Scheffler’s calm, zen-like Christian faith.
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Bahá’í leaders will resume construction soon on the shrine of ʻAbdu’l Bahá, the Iran-born head of the faith who popularized the religion outside the Middle East. A fire on April 8 caused significant damage to the main building under construction at the holy site on Israel's coast just north of Haifa.
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An Anchorage congregation with members from Ukraine, Russia and other Slavic nations is working to feed and support families forced to flee their homes. “We can’t just sit here,” church member Zori Opanasevych says. “We have to do something.”
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Almost 11 weeks into tax season, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service continues to experience delays in processing last year’s tax returns. Millions of tax returns and filings are still backlogged, including those in the Form 990 series, an annual reporting obligation by tax-exempt entities like ministries and churches.
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Churches across the U.S. are gathering buckets of supplies to help refugees in war-torn Eastern Europe, including one ministry that got a $10,000 donation from TV host Kelly Clarkson and another that’s getting help wrapping presents from St. Nicholas.
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AARP Foundation attorneys will act as co-counsel in a class-action lawsuit alleging the African Methodist Episcopal Church mishandled nearly $90 million in retirement funds, the organization said. The AME stopped making payments to retired ministers covered by its pension plan earlier this year after a 2021 audit found that two-thirds of the denomination’s retirement funds had been lost in risky investments.
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Two sociologists of religion, Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, wrote an upcoming book titled “The Flag and The Cross,” which explores White Christian nationalism through the lens of history and recent survey data. Gorski and Perry attempt to explain its past while explaining its importance for understanding the future of American religion and politics.
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