Faith
An anti-Hindutva teach-in spurs debate about Hindu representation on college campuses
By Richa Karmarkar — April 25, 2024
(RNS) — Hindu student organizations, say advocates, do not always represent the full breadth of thought within the community of young American Hindus.
Resisting our ‘new dark age’
By Karen Swallow Prior — April 25, 2024
(RNS) — In a time of information excess, the need of the moment is more love and more rest.
Church leaders in Kenya give qualified support for plan to close orphanages
By Fredrick Nzwili — April 25, 2024
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Amid a growing push to reunite orphans with extended family rather than keep children in residential homes, Kenyan authorities are set to adopt a new program that will phase out traditional orphanages over the next decade.
With graduation near, colleges seek to balance safety and students’ right to protest Gaza war
By Steve Leblanc and Jocelyn Gecker — April 25, 2024
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — This is commencement season 2024, punctuated by the tension and volatility that has roiled college campuses since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
United Methodists open first top-level conference since breakup over LGBTQ inclusion
By Peter Smith — April 25, 2024
(AP) – Thousands of United Methodists are gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina, for their big denominational meeting, known as General Conference.
At ‘Seder in the Streets,’ protesters in Brooklyn denounce US support to Israel
By Fiona André — April 24, 2024
NEW YORK (RNS) — As the Senate voted on an aid package for Israel, participants of a ‘Seder in the Streets’ denounced the death and devastation in Gaza and urged Congress to end military support for the war.
In ‘Rift,’ author Cait West talks breaking free from Christian patriarchy
By Kathryn Post — April 24, 2024
(RNS) — As a stay-at-home daughter, West was told what to wear, whom to court and how to serve her future husband.
What’s happening at Columbia is monumental
By Omar Suleiman — April 24, 2024
(RNS) — Columbia’s students have a long history of protesting injustice — which the school has regretted squashing in the past. Will it make the same mistake?
Columbia University is another Charlottesville
By Jeffrey Salkin — April 24, 2024
(RNS) — Columbia University protests are like Charlottesville’s ‘Unite the Right’ rally: Discuss. Welcome to an academic disgrace.
Israeli settlers ‘expelled’ from Gaza in 2005 say it’s time to return
By Eetta Prince-Gibson — April 24, 2024
JERUSALEM (RNS) — The Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent retaliation have provided an ‘imperative,’ say activists, to reestablish settlements that were abandoned in Gaza in 2005.
A Russian Orthodox priest who took part in services for Navalny is suspended by the patriarch
By The Associated Press — April 24, 2024
(AP) – Dmitry Safronov held a memorial service by Navalny’s grave in Moscow on March 26 to mark 40 days since the politician’s death, an important ritual within Russian Orthodox tradition.
Australian police arrest 7 alleged teen extremists linked to stabbing of a bishop in a Sydney church
By Mark Baker and Rod Mcguirk — April 24, 2024
SYDNEY (AP) —The seven, aged 15 to 17, were part of a network that included a 16-year-old boy accused of stabbing a bishop in a Sydney church on April 15, police said.
Passover: The festival of freedom and the ambivalence of exile
By Nancy E. Berg — April 24, 2024
(The Conversation) — The Passover Seder commemorates the escape from slavery in Egypt. But then came the 40-year wandering in the desert – a story that resonates with much of Jewish history.
The Rev. Cecil Williams, who turned San Francisco’s Glide Church into a refuge for many, has died
By Olga R. Rodriguez — April 24, 2024
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Williams and his wife, Janice Marikitami, who passed away in 2021, appeared in Will Smith’s film “The Pursuit of Happyness,” which was based on the life of a homeless father and son who once found help at Glide Memorial Church.
Spain approves plan to compensate victims of Catholic Church sex abuse. Church will be asked to pay
By Associated Press — April 24, 2024
MADRID (AP) — The project will include free legal assistance for all victims of sexual abuse and it will reinforce the prevention supervision in schools.
