Five cases addressing religious liberty ranging from parental rights to age verification on pornographic sites will be decided when the Supreme Court announces its decisions in the coming months.
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(ANALYSIS) Why empower a small group of unelected, perhaps unrepresentative, people from some religious communities with official privileged access to the governor? Why treat seven people as if they could speak for the millions of religious believers in Texas? Can a Baptist properly reflect Catholic concerns, or an Orthodox Jew reflect Muslim concerns?
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Every church aims to welcome guests in some way. Those efforts may just look different in different churches and may have changed over the last decade. According to a Lifeway Research study of U.S. Protestant pastors, more than 99% of churches welcome visitors in at least one of 11 ways. Fewer than 1% say they don’t do any of the almost one dozen efforts.
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Although a recent study reveals that Lent is largely ignored by many Christians in the United States, there is a trend among members of some conservative Protestant denominations to incorporate it in their Easter observances. Some who are members of conservative Presbyterian denominations have even taken up Lent in a break from tradition.
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A Texas man has pleaded guilty to scamming a Georgia church out of millions of dollars, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia. Authorities say the man posed as an insurance adjuster to defraud a church that was seeking to fix damage caused by Hurricane Michael in 2018.
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(ANALYSIS) The Presbyterian Church (USA) is nearing the latest turning point in its half-century struggle over same-sex clergy and marriage that could give liberals powerful new leverage against traditionalists — if they choose to exercise it. The coming clash would pit the liberals’ anti-discrimination principles against the evangelical minority's freedom of conscience claims.
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Cliff Graham, author of the “Lion of War” series of books based on the wars of the Old Testament, is looking for redemption as he resumes publication of his series through a partnership with Kavod Family Ministries in North Carolina. Graham, now 43, is the subject of criticism for the panoply of failed ventures he has engaged in.
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Theodore McCarrick — once one of the Catholic Church's most influential figures in the United States who was later defrocked following a Vatican investigation that found he had abused both adults and minors — has died at age 94. McCarrick, who served as the archbishop of Washington from 2000 to 2006, remains one of the highest-ranking U.S. prelates accused in a sexual abuse scandal.
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A bill to stop the use of nondisclosure agreements to prevent sexual abuse victims from telling their stories has advanced in the Texas legislature. On March 19, the Texas House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence voted unanimously to report House Bill 748 favorably to the full House of Representatives and recommend passage.
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As executive orders from President Trump, budget slashing by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and cuts enacted by Cabinet secretaries or the Office of Personnel Management reduce the federal workforce, area Christians and congregations feel the impact.
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The world became familiar with Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams’ unplanned nine-month stay at the International Space Station. Only recently, though, are we learning the tenuous story of how they got there. In an interview, Wilmore shared never-before-heard details on the Boeing Starliner craft’s approach with the ISS last June and the “very precarious situation” he and Williams encountered.
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Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has joined Gloo, the technology platform that serves churches and ministries, as its executive chair and head of technology. Gelsinger has been an investor and board member for Gloo for 10 years but now will take on the expanded role of leading the Gloo product and engineering efforts, including Gloo AI.
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Most 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.
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Many 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.
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Hoping to persuade Missouri lawmakers to end nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) and the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims, multiple survivors of abuse at two evangelical ministries testified powerfully in a hearing last week.
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(ANALYSIS) When the National Urban Ministry Conference began in the 1990s, the focus was on starting churches and ministries that would reach the urban poor in the downtown areas of large cities. Yet, the city — speaking in a general sense — is constantly changing.
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Grief can take many forms — the echo of a loved one’s laugh, a favorite saying or even a silly joke. It’s a belonging on a living room table, clothes you can’t quite bring yourself to donate or a domestic animal who wanders the house aimlessly after a loved one’s death.
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Ministry leaders point to several challenges that have limited the success of these efforts. Around two in five (42%) say parents don’t have time to prepare. Three in 10 (31%) believe the activities have been things parents did not want to do, while 27% say the students haven’t wanted to participate.
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Two gospel singing groups, the Hardeman Boys and Cornerstone Quartet, crossed paths at a youth rally in Bremen, Georgia, in 1989. Three decades later, they shared a stage again. This time they performed — to a more gray-haired audience — a medley of gospel, country and oldies music to raise money for Project Rescue, an addiction recovery ministry in Priceville, Alabama, associated with Churches of Christ.
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(ANALYSIS) I wanted to try and do some more data work on what drives religious attendance. So, that’s the point of this post — it’s just a journey through me trying to figure out what demographic factors make someone more or less likely to show up for church this Sunday.
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