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 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 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 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 MoreChristian comic book fans see biblical influences on the origin stories of popular superheroes like Superman, Spider-Man and the Silver Surfer. Meanwhile, Christian publishers are getting into the graphic novel genre.
Read MoreThe Episcopal Church in the U.S., part of the Anglican communion and the Church of England, is too liberal on issues like same-sex marriage for many expats from Africa and the Global South. The split in views and immigration to the U.S. and Canada is prompting growth in the conservative split-off, the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), while the Episcopal Church is gradually declining.
Read MoreThe same-sex relationship affirming ministry of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Paul the Apostle represents a divide between some liberal Catholic parishes and the Vatican’s conservative teachings.
Read MoreWe spoke with award-winning photographer Kieran Dodds about his project capturing the gardens of Eden cultivated by Ethiopian churches. The conservation is an act of worship to save their forests and provide an oasis for their congregations. Listen to the full podcast or read the edited transcript here.
Read MoreSaudi Arabia, China, Russia and Myanmar are the world’s worst offenders of religious freedom in 2018, according to the U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report.
Read MoreA fragile Christian alliance that supported Pres. Bolsonaro’s election to office in October is weakening amid rising unemployment, budget cuts to education, and their leader’s negative comments about women, black people and the LGBT community.
Read MoreThe Rohingya, an ethnic minority persecuted by some Buddhist groups in Myanmar, are facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises of this century. We spoke to Yangon-based activist Sam Naeem about the evolution of their struggle so far.
Read MoreA recent report estimates 60,000 organ transplant surgeries happen in China every year, an industry adding $1 billion a year to the economy and cracking down on religious groups seen as a threat to the Communist Party.
Read MoreRebuilding Notre Dame will be a painstaking task. Estimated to cost in the billions, the cathedral has also become a political pawn in a broader fight between traditionalists and secularists. In a country divided politically — the recent European election was another reminder of this — the fate of Notre Dame very much rests in the hands of the country’s warring lawmakers.
Read MoreA recent poll found that only 80% of Americans believe that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust.
Read MoreWe talked with Steven Waldman, founder of BeliefNet and author of the new book Sacred Liberty, about America’s battles for religious freedom— how the notion that the US was founded with religious liberty in mind is wrong— our current challenges for preserving it, and much more.
Read MoreFrom the White House to London and Brooklyn, interfaith iftars — the fast-breaking meals of Ramadan — are trending this year.
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