A Wisconsin atheist group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation has sued the government to have a World War II memorial affectionately known as “Big Mountain Jesus” removed from a Montana ski slope, insisting that the monument signifies an unconstitutional endorsement of religion by the Forest Service.
A new survey published in Chinese state-run newspaper, the Global Times, finds young Chinese nationals increasingly attracted to religion, with Islam the most popular religion among people under 30 and Protestantism the religion with the largest number of places of worship in the country.
For the LGBT tour company appropriately called “Quiiky,” beauty isn’t the only thing in the eye of the beholder. Their homoerotic look at the Vatican Museums purports to discover gay art behind every fig leaf, which seems to reveal more
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) is reporting that Pastor Michael and Pastor Pete, two Sudanese Christian pastors, face the death penalty after a judge charged them with numerous offenses. Now it is up to the defense to prove their innocence.
Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian upheld a preliminary finding that sentenced Aaron and Melissa Klein, the Christian bakers who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, to a fine of $135,000 in emotional damages to the homosexual couple they denied service, but also added a new provision forbidding them to speak about their unwillingness to serve a gay marriage.
The most troubling statistic found in a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, published on the Islamic State’s (ISIS/ISIL) first anniversary, involves the treatment of children. The group believes ISIS murdered at least 74 children in the past year.
In all the Sturm und Drang following last Friday’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that discovered a right to same-sex marriage in the American Constitution, a fascinating and disturbing observation by Justice Antonin Scalia was largely overlooked: U.S. Protestants had no say whatsoever in the new social order enacted by the Court.
In a meeting of the International Council of Christians and Jews Tuesday, Pope Francis expressed gratitude for the “friendship and mutual understanding” that characterize relations between Christians and Jews throughout the world.
“I marched with many people back in those days and I have reached out to some of my friends who marched with me, and all of them are shocked,” Rev. William Owens of the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) told Breitbart News. “They never thought they would see this day that gay rights would be equated with civil rights. Not one agreed with this comparison,” he said.
In a provocative piece in Time magazine, columnist Mark Oppenheimer has proposed following up Friday’s landmark Supreme Court decision imposing same-sex marriage on the nation with the abolition of tax exempt status for religious institutions.
Celebrating the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul on Monday, Pope Francis drew a parallel between the intense Christian persecution of the early centuries and the persecution faced by Christians throughout the world today.
A new article by veteran reporter John L. Allen blasts John Kerry and the State Department for radically discounting Christian persecution its recent Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2014.
A Pakistani Christian man named Nadeem took secret video footage detailing his life in a refugee camp where he faces harassment and threats on a regular basis. In the video which was posted to YouTube, Nadeem explains that it is Muslims — the majority of which are Syrians that fled their war-torn country — who treat him and his fellow Christians this way.
In a story worthy of a Dostoevsky novel, the remains of a man who was tortured to death in Prague have proven to belong to Czech Catholic priest Josef Toufar, the “Miracle Priest” who died from torture at the hands of the Communist secret service (StB) in 1950.
Authentic Christians can be recognized by their ability to listen, above all to God, said Pope Francis Thursday, while warning that false prophets speak their own words rather than God’s.
For those without faith, Michael Wear acknowledges, this may make little sense, especially for those who have never personally experienced the forgiveness of God. “But that does not grant us the right to whitewash the motivation for the forgiveness we witnessed in Charleston,” he said. We need to “take the family members seriously when they say it is a sincere, thought-out expression of their faith,” he wrote.
On Wednesday, Pope Francis continued his reflections on the family, addressing the delicate question of divorce and separation, as well as its effects on family members. He invited his hearers to think more about the effects that adults’ actions have on the most vulnerable, especially little ones.
In an off-the-cuff encounter with young people in Turin over the weekend, Pope Francis took weapons manufacturers to task, suggesting that Christians should have no involvement with the weapons industry.
Bishop Cabrero explained the hush-hush nature of the ceremony, saying that otherwise “it arouses morbid curiosity and misinterpretations” when what we are after is simply “doing good for everyone.”
ISIS slaughters Christians and destroys churches while they establish their caliphate in Syria and Iraq. But one militant reportedly converted to Christianity after “a man in white” appeared in his dreams.
In 1955, songwriter Pete Seeger wrote “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” It begins with young girls picking flowers and ends with those flowers growing atop the graves of young men killed in war. The song’s anti-war message is clear in refrains repeated throughout, “Oh, when will they ever learn?”
Professing basic Christian doctrine could be effectively “criminalised” in some circumstances under the UK government’s proposed Extremism Disruption Orders, a prominent Anglican theologian and former lawyer has warned. In the run up to the last general election, the Conservatives included
To achieve peace of soul, Christians need to learn to keep their hearts free from “passions” and “worldly noise,” which is the “devil’s noise,” Pope Francis counseled Monday in his homily at morning Mass in the Vatican.
Salon took the article from Alternet, calling it “The Perverse Obsessions of Right-Wing Patriarchal Christians.” The 2000-word rant by Valerie Tarico accuses conservatives of being obsessed with sex and procreation, along with—unbelievably—“anti-kid.”
The Jesuit flagship publication La Civiltà Cattolica has released a prefatory essay on the theology of the environment to prepare Catholics—and the world—for the Pope’s upcoming encyclical on human ecology. Rather than seriously entertain the objections of climate change skeptics and others who have expressed concerns about the Pope’s letter, however, the article cavalierly dismisses them as unworthy of consideration.
