Africa
Africa, home to growing number of Christians and Muslims, contends with atheists, too
By Yonat Shimron — August 27, 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Across Africa, groups have emerged stressing science and critical thinking as a better way of understanding the natural world.
Eritrean Christians released from shipping container prisons
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald — July 24, 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) – For the last two decades, Eritrean authorities have persecuted religious groups, frequently arresting church leaders and detaining them in small shipping container prisons where advocates say they're routinely deprived of water, food, proper sanitation and medicines.
What do evangelicals want from Trump on foreign policy?
By Jacob Lupfer — June 13, 2018
(RNS) — As President Trump's attention turns to international affairs, members of his loyal evangelical Protestant base need to ask themselves: What do we want out of U.S. foreign policy?
Cardinal to African faith leaders: Negotiate peace with terrorists
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald — June 8, 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — As violence-torn Africa grows weary of solutions that haven’t worked, Nigerian Cardinal John Onaiyekan is proposing a controversial alternative.
Francis cardinals make up almost half of electors of next pope
By Thomas Reese — May 22, 2018
(RNS) — Pope Francis continues to remake the College of Cardinals so that almost half of the men who will choose his successor have been chosen by him.
Kenyan Islamic leaders speak out against female genital mutilation
By Fredrick Nzwili — May 8, 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Muslim scholars emphasized that FGM is a cultural — not a religious — practice, and one that goes against Islamic teaching.
Conservative faith leaders worry Kenya will repeal ban on gay sex
By Fredrick Nzwili — April 6, 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — While few are actually imprisoned under the law, it has been used as a justification for harassment, violence and discrimination against gay people — at the hands of police, but also relatives who believe a gay person shames a family.
‘Black Panther’ inspires Kenyan church leaders’ march for Pan-African unity
By Jerome Socolovsky — March 27, 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — A network of progressive churches in the United States, inspired by the success of the movie 'Black Panther,' has joined with over 100 Kenyan church leaders in a march to promote a global movement on Pan-African peace, power and prosperity.
The last male rhino of its kind dies. African religious leaders call it a spiritual loss.
By Lauren Markoe — March 21, 2018
(RNS) — 'We believe God cannot commission the death of species that he had brought to life,' said the Rev. Charles Odira, a Kenyan Roman Catholic priest and conservationist.
Lightning kills 15 worshippers in Rwanda, as government cracks down on unsafe churches
By Lauren Markoe — March 13, 2018
(RNS) — The strike occurred as the Rwandan government continues to shut down houses of worship it deems unsafe and dissenters accuse it of trampling on religious rights.
Rwanda closes hundreds of churches and arrests pastors
By Lauren Markoe — March 7, 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — The move, allegedly for building safety, hygiene and noise violations, is prompting allegations that the government of President Paul Kagame is trampling on religious freedom in the tiny East African nation.
Kenyan nuns take over hospitals after protracted battle with American priest
By Fredrick Nzwili — January 24, 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) – A dispute between an order of nuns and an American priest over control of two major hospitals for the poor has ended with the nuns — backed by a court order and the police — storming one of the hospitals.
El Al is a Jewish airline
By Jeffrey Salkin — January 22, 2018
Looking for moral heroism in our time? Look no further than a bunch of El Al pilots. You read that right.
10 Roman Catholic priests arrested in protests in Congo
By Lauren Markoe — January 22, 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — The church brokered the agreement by which the country's authoritarian leader, President Joseph Kabila, was supposed to have stepped down more than a year ago.
In Israel, a rabbinical plan to hide Africans facing deportation
By Lauren Markoe — January 18, 2018
JERUSALEM (RNS) — 'If someone had told me 10 years ago this would happen, I’d have said a Jewish state would never send desperate refugees away to their deaths,' said Rabbi Susan Silverman, sister of comedian Sarah Silverman.
