(RNS) When Nate Phelps’ son was about five years old and had been caught misbehaving, he taught his dad a lesson about ending the cycle of family abuse. “I’d clung to the idea that corporal punishment was a requirement by God, because that’s what we were taught,” said Phelps, who says he was raised amid […]

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, left, says the pastor who turned away a boy from a Catholic school because he has two mothers “has my full confidence and support.” A nun who allowed an abortion at a Catholic hospital in Arizona — supposedly to save the life of the mother — suffered automatic excommunication and may […]

(RNS) When man-made disasters pollute our land environmentally and politically, inquiring minds want to know: Are humans basically good, evil or just plain stupid? Our collective heads are spinning with scenes of collapsed coal mines, massive globs of oil, and slimy politicians. It has gotten so crazy that Ted Turner is offering theological insights. This […]

Seeking to calm the waters roiled by the decision of the pastor of St. Paul’s in Hingham to bar the son of a lesbian couple from the parish school, Cardinal Sean O’Malley has spread his unction in all directions: on Fr. James Rafferty (“one of our finest pastors”); on archdiocesan education secreatry Mary Grassa O’Neill, […]

…was the muon.

(RNS) The Southern Baptist Convention reported a slight increase in baptisms in 2009, after four consecutive years of decline, but leaders say the denomination still needs to regain its focus on evangelism. Baptisms in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination totaled 349,737 last year, a 2 percent increase from 2008, according to LifeWay Christian Resources, a […]

(RNS) The U.S. military should protect minority faiths within its ranks, said a California congresswoman on Tuesday (May 18) at a Capitol Hill symposium on religion in the military. “Government has a duty to protect religious freedoms … and not to allow them to be trampled on, anywhere,” said Lois Capps, D-Calif. “Diversity is a […]

(RNS) Evangelicals are calling on the Obama administration to enact long-promised prison reforms, saying the incarcerated deserve protection from violence and rape. In 2003, former president George W. Bush signed the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which aimed to lower the estimated 13 percent of inmates sexually assaulted each year. The bill called for the Department […]

(RNS) Europe’s burqa debate and a steady stream of media images showing veiled women have led to a widespread impression that all Muslims are obsessed with covering the female body. It might be a surprise, then, that many Muslim Americans are toasting Rima Fakih, who made history on Sunday (May 16) by becoming the first […]

(RNS) Religion scholar Stephen Prothero has traced the path of Jesus from son of God to American icon, chastised the religiously illiterate, and tweeted the essence of the world’s great faiths in 140 characters or less. Now, the Boston University professor has a new book “God Is Not One,” and a new task: outlining the […]

Happy Shavuot, Jewish friends. May the Torah continue to guide and inspire you. Speaking of inspiration, the man accused of planning the Time Square bomb scare told authorities he was urged to act by two imams, including the Yemeni-American cleric with ties to the accused Undewear Bomber and Fort Hood shooter, according to NPR. Jewish […]

(RNS) In the creation story in the Book of Genesis, after God created animals and pronounced them “good,” God created human beings and declared they were “very good.” If it is true that God thinks human beings are very good, indeed, what might it mean to our understanding of sin, evil, our relationship with one […]

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} “The Church is like a snapping turtle. It’s long-lived, slow to change, […]

Not only is Rand Paul’s victory a wake-up call for the national GOP establishment but it should also be one for those who imagine that the Tea Party movement is somehow unfriendly territory for the religious right. Other than Paul himself, the big winner was Dr. James Dobson, who weighed in with a video endorsement […]

Diane Ravitch on why she flipped and started loving public schools again: Was there a moment where you first thought: “Uh-oh”? There were a number of moments, really, scenes of doubt. But one of them came about because of research I’d been asked to do about higher-education standards in Pakistan. What I discovered was that […]