Christianity
‘The Hopeful,’ film about Adventist origins, debuts in theaters
By Kathryn Post — April 17, 2024
(RNS) — ‘I think a lot of those misconceptions that Adventists maybe aren’t mainstream Christians, I think they’re going to be challenged,’ said director and co-producer Kyle Portbury.
How can a denomination based on reconciling differences split over its disagreements?
By David Eagle — April 16, 2024
(RNS) — The United Methodist Church has to stop fracturing over sexuality and learn to live with our differences.
After traditionalist churches left, UMC may be more — not less — diverse
By Yonat Shimron — April 16, 2024
(RNS) — Even after the departures, 24% of North Carolina clergy remaining in the denomination disagree with allowing LGBTQ people to get married and ordained within the denomination.
How not to comfort the mourning: Hospital chaplain J.S. Park talks grief in new book
By Kathryn Post — April 16, 2024
(RNS) — ‘The biggest myth I see is that grief is a poison to get past,’ said Park.
Prominent New York church, sued for gender bias, moves forward with male pastor candidate
By Darren Sands — April 16, 2024
(AP) – Candidate Kevin R. Johnson, founding pastor of Dare to Imagine Church in Philadelphia, will be recommended for the congregation’s approval to lead the more than 200-year-old Abyssinian Baptist Church,
Tensions rise in Australia after a bishop and priest are wounded in a knife attack in a church
By Rod Mcguirk and Mark Baker — April 16, 2024
SYDNEY (AP) —Video of the attack spread quickly on social media and an angry mob converged on the church demanding vengeance.
Feud with ex-president leads to lawsuit, alleged threats of violence at Calvin University
By Bob Smietana — April 15, 2024
(RNS) — The prominent evangelical school hired a former business executive as president in hopes of turning around years of decline. But his tenure ended abruptly after the board alleged he'd sent inappropriate messages to a woman he was not married to.
Solar New Year celebrations unite religious groups across the South Asian diaspora
By Richa Karmarkar — April 15, 2024
(RNS) — This week, people of all South Asian backgrounds celebrated the Hindu Solar New Year in their unique, regional ways. But common threads between the holidays, many say, have the power to unite those living in the diaspora.
The perils and necessities of saying ‘I don’t know’
By Thomas Reese — April 15, 2024
(RNS) — In political, academic and ecclesial life, expressing uncertainty is the equivalent of committing professional suicide.
Pope Francis sides with Peruvian villagers who accused Catholic group of trying to steal their land
By Gabriela Molina — April 15, 2024
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — On Saturday, Francis urged the Catacaos villagers to persist in their efforts to defend the land, where they raise cattle and produce honey.
Unfazed by danger and power, Guatemalan cardinal keeps up fight for migrants and the poor
By Giovanna Dell'orto — April 15, 2024
HUEHUETENANGO, Guatemala (AP) — Elevated by Pope Francis to the top hierarchy of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini has continued his unflinching focus on the poor, the Indigenous and the migrant.
As a landmark United Methodist gathering approaches, African churches weigh their future.
By Peter Smith — April 15, 2024
(AP) — Today, members from four continents vote at legislative gatherings, serve on boards together, go on mission trips to each others’ countries and are largely governed by the same rules.
Vatican complains after French court rules in favor of nun dismissed from religious order
By Nicole Winfield — April 15, 2024
ROME (AP) — The case is highly unusual, because it represented a secular civilian court essentially determining that the Vatican’s in-house canonical procedures grossly violated the nun’s fundamental rights.
Guilty plea by leader of polygamous sect near the Arizona-Utah border is at risk of being thrown out
By Associated Press — April 15, 2024
PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities say Bateman created a sprawling network spanning at least four states as he tried to start an offshoot of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
A memoir explores a shattering childhood and narrow escape
By Yonat Shimron — April 15, 2024
(RNS) — 'Between Two Trailers' is part of a growing genre describing in harrowing detail the abuse and neglect of parents caught in a maze of mental illness and religion.
