For more than 80 years, RNS has been an authoritative source of news about religion, spirituality and ideas. With a team of correspondents around the world, RNS provides news on religion and its intersections with political and cultural issues. Our stories are distributed to the nation’s leading newspapers, news magazines, online media outlets, broadcasting firms and religious publications.

The Religious News Service, its original name, was founded by journalist Louis Minsky (1909-1957) as an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. From the start, it was dedicated to providing fair, balanced, nonsectarian news about religion to the secular and religious press.

In 1983, RNS was acquired by the Dallas-based United Methodist Reporter and continued to operate as an independent news agency. In 1994, Newhouse News Service, a major publisher of daily newspapers and magazines, purchased it and changed its name to Religion News Service.

In June 2011, RNS returned to its nonprofit roots when it was acquired by the Religion Newswriters Foundation, which became Religion News Foundation in 2016. Today, RNS operates under Religion News Foundation (RNF), a registered 501c3 non-profit organization, under the leadership of RNF CEO and RNS Publisher Deborah Caldwell.