Posts in Primary Feature
Why God Continues To Have A Place At The Thanksgiving Day Table

(ANALYSIS) Thanksgiving has endured over the centuries through waves of immigration and wokeness, even though the way the holiday is taught in American classrooms has changed in recent years. The reason may be that this uniquely American tradition has a universal meaning to everyone, regardless of one’s faith or lack of it.

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The Spiritual Journey of a Modern Witch

Since the 1990’s, interest in witchcraft has grown exponentially but not necessarily in Wicca or organized occult practice. Modern witches like this Brooklynite are more individualistic.

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Kavanaugh a year later: How much of a conservative Catholic is he?

A year after the faithful Catholic Supreme Court justice was confirmed, he remains a polarizing figure politically during the Trump era.

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A look back at the Catholic ghost of Wizard Clip

In 1794, a traveler stopped at a farm and asked for shelter. When he fell sick, he begged for a priest to visit, but the Lutheran household refused. The man died. Things were never the same for Middleway, West Virginia.

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In Photos: India Celebrates Diwali, The Festival of Light

One of the largest Hindu festivals is also celebrated by Sikhs, Jains and other faiths. In India’s capital, Diwali featured a laser show to discourage firecracker smoke, which in past years has polluted the city with days or weeks of smog.

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A year after the Pittsburgh attack, an interfaith gathering calls for 'knowing each other'

Faith leaders in New York gathered to remember the victims of the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue last year. The shooting was part of a larger trend that continues to threaten Jews and others in American society and around the world.

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Graham Kerr to have a movie made about his life as a Christian and climate change activist

The 85-year-old celebrity chef is releasing a documentary about his life in the spring that includes his conversion to Christianity after a car accident and his changed lifestyle of simple food, living on less and leaving a smaller carbon footprint.

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In Yemen, mosques provide no sanctuary from Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes

More than 1,000 mosques in Yemen have been damaged or destroyed by airstrikes since the conflict began in 2015. The latest hit in September killed a family of seven, including four young children and their pregnant mother, who tried to take shelter in their village mosque.

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Judge rules doctors can decline to perform transgender surgery on religious grounds

A U.S. federal court ruled on Tuesday that doctors will not be required to perform gender transition surgeries if it runs contrary to their religious beliefs. The decision reversed a requirement put forth by the Obama administration three years ago.

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Hope in the face of despair: Ethiopian PM Abiy’s rise to the Nobel Peace Prize

Abiy Ahmed is an inspirational leader and an evangelical Christian hailed as a Moses figure for Ethiopia. He ended nearly two decades of a stalemate from a war with Eritrea that had killed 70,000 people. But the country is far from peaceful yet, and his leadership challenges are just beginning.

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Why the Vatican is debating priestly celibacy in the Amazon

A discussion in Rome this week will include whether the church should allow flexibility in its traditional vow of celibacy for priests to ordain married men in the remote Amazon. The decision could very well impact Catholicism around the world.

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Everything you need to know about Yom Kippur

Considered the most important holiday on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur is also known as the day of atonement. It begins at sundown on October 8 and ends at nightfall the following day. The holy day also marks the end of the “10 Days of Repentance.”

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Meet the Greek Orthodox wood carver chiseling sacred artifacts for a living

For a man who has encountered hardship from his youth in Greece to dealing with the loss of his wife in 2012, Papadakis says the craft of carving is more than just a job or hobby. It relates to his own Orthodox Christian faith. “I love my God,” he says in between taps on a gouge. “I have to do something best. If I give something, it needs to be as godly as God is. It has to be worthy.”

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Jewish pilgrimage to a Ukrainian rabbi’s grave is growing

Pilgrimages to Rabbi Nachman’s grave site resumed at a trickle under communism. Now, more than 70 years after the devastation of World War II and communism, Jews of all kinds are visiting Uman and moving back.

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How the oldest surviving Latin Bible was scribed in England

(TRAVEL) A recent trip to Northumbria, England and Florence, Italy had an unexpected connection — a text of the Bible that’s arguably shaped Christianity more than any other, revitalizing Roman Christianity for Anglo-Saxons.

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'Notre Dame is our church’: Why famed cathedral must be rebuilt to its past glory

Despite Europe’s increased secularization, traditionalists argue Notre Dame’s renovation should include no contemporary flair as part of a larger effort by Christians to protect their religious heritage wherever it may be located around the world,

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Yazidi journalists, still In peril, seek international spotlight

A group of Yazidi journalists visited the Religion Unplugged offices in New York, hosted by the U.S. State Department, to talk about the current state of affairs in Iraq for the persecuted people group.

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This Eritrean Orthodox community is filling an empty church in Germany

Germany’s influx of refugees since 2015 tends to spark discussions about how the country will change. Overlooked is the number of Christian immigrants, like many Eritreans. A group of Eritrean Orthodox Christians are borrowing an empty church for their services and helping orient the latest arrivals to their new lives in Germany.

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Faith and Religion Search For Post-Communist Footing in Bulgaria

Paying for prayers, bishops with ties to the Kremlin and communist structures built around ancient churches — the society ruled by the Byzantines, then the Ottomans and then the Soviets is now reckoning with finding faith on its own.

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