The United Methodist Church’s vote to uphold traditional views on marriage and clergy is playing out with particular intensity at an unconventional Methodist church in San Francisco. The denomination has filed a lawsuit that could result in drastic changes for the congregation and its community.
Read MoreAfter Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election in 2014 and reelection this May, brutal mob attacks by Hindu nationalist groups against India’s Muslim and Christian minorities have continued to steadily rise.
Read MoreThe Grammy-winning Cuban-born American artist says that a persistent voice always guided him to music. His memoir hit shelves this week.
Read MoreThe Indian government is reportedly forming a new plan to resettle thousands of Kashmiri Hindus back to the Kashmir Valley, an army-occupied territory disputed with Pakistan. The plan would likely further inflame Hindu-Muslim tensions.
Read MoreThe second-annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom has successfully encouraged a growing number of governments to pay attention to the issue and created an alliance on international religious freedom policy. But critics worry how successful those plans and statements can be, and what is motivating the Trump administration.
Read More(COMMENTARY) The U.S. State Department’s second annual Ministerial on religious freedom drew over 1,000 official invitees and many more for side events.
Read More(COMMENTARY) Last week’s State Department summit brought together representatives from nearly 100 countries and dozens of faith groups to discuss threats and successes of religious freedom globally.
Read MoreThe book Evangelicals and Power in Latin America attempts to explain how the rise in evangelical voters will affect power and politics, human rights and the future of democracy in Latin America.
Read MoreA recent piece posted to Real Clear Investigations takes a deep dive into the trend of church vandalism in France, quantifying it with anecdotes, lots of data and interviews with people in the know. The reporting sheds a spotlight on the attacks and may be one of the best reported pieces on what’s been going on there by any news organization to date.
Read MoreThe practice, enforced by some conservative Sunni clerics and condemned by others, requires a divorced Muslim woman to consummate a marriage with another man before she can remarry her first husband.
Read MoreWhat if you met a man who told you he was an angel? Would you believe him? That was the premise of the groundbreaking NBC show, which ended its five-season run 30 years ago this summer.
Read MoreKashmiri classical music, which blends Sufi traditions from Persia with Indian classical music, is facing threat of extinction as fewer students have leisure or funds to study the art form and fewer maestros exist to teach them. Its musicians believe the genre could bring peace to the army-occupied region, following the ways of Sufi mystics who preached peace, tolerance, pluralism and universalism.
Read MoreSamaritan’s Purse, the poverty and crisis relief organization known for sending millions of shoeboxes to orphans every Christmas, has said it is mobilizing resources to alleviate the U.S.-Mexico border crisis. The announcement came 10 days after Christian singer Nichole Nordeman wrote an open letter to Graham in the Washington Post.
Read MoreThis month, thousands of Indian Hindu pilgrims are visiting the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir — a region of armed conflict between Kashmiri Muslim militants and Indian security officials — to pray at the Amarnath cave and shrine. Thousands of Kashmiri Muslims are setting up shops and travel businesses to accommodate them.
Read More(COMMENTARY) Religious freedom, an old-school liberal issue now largely taken up by conservatives, is often lost in mainstream news coverage. Lost in this coverage is an issue of such importance to Roman Catholics, that it may very well be the biggest fallout to come from years of clerical sex abuse when it comes to how it affects the law.
Read More(COMMENTARY) We often hear discussion about whether religion causes violence or makes the world more violent. But maybe we should discuss if, in the absence of true religion, violence can become a religion?
Read More(NEWS ANALYSIS) Rodrigo Duterte has wasted no time going after clergy, particularly when the church began opposing his human rights record. His bloody war against drugs has shocked the church, but has been met largely with approval from his supporters.
Read MoreA bill to ban triple talaq, or Islamic instant divorce, is creating controversy in India. The bill could be unconstitutional in two ways: it would criminalize only Muslim men for deserting their wives and it trumps so-called personal laws meant to provide religious freedom in civil matters like marriage.
Read More(COMMENTARY) Survey results have shown that many American Catholics are ready for married priests.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Walking around Washington, D.C., is a reminder of how much religious faith and this nation’s founding are connected, in terms of personalities and big themes. God is everywhere in this country’s past and the monuments that populate this wonderful city are a reminder of it.
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