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Faith-based disaster-relief teams on standby as Florence nears
By Yonat Shimron — September 12, 2018
DURHAM, N.C. (RNS) — The biggest of the volunteer groups ready to clean up from Hurricane Florence have the words ‘Baptist’ and ‘Methodist’ in their titles.
People of faith urge Trump to admit more refugees
By Emily McFarlan Miller — September 12, 2018
(RNS) — A number of faith leaders signed onto a pair of letters asking the president and members of Congress to resettle at least 75,000 refugees to the U.S. in the coming fiscal year.
Defending Islam, gays and Blackpool, Brits oppose Franklin Graham’s UK visit
By Rosie Dawson — September 12, 2018
(RNS) — Blackpool’s two ministers to Parliament have also expressed their concern, with one suggesting that Graham’s comments amounted to 'hate speech.'
Pope summons bishops for February abuse prevention summit
By Nicole Winfield — September 12, 2018
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The February meeting at the Vatican is believed to be the first of its kind, and signals a realization at the highest levels of the church that clergy sex abuse is a global problem.
Cardinal Wuerl says he will meet with pope to discuss possible resignation
By Jack Jenkins — September 11, 2018
(RNS) — Wuerl has come under mounting pressure since the release of a bombshell grand jury report by the attorney general of Pennsylvania detailing decades of allegations of child sex abuse by priests in the state.
‘Fat and Faithful’: A new book probes the spirituality of body image
By Jacob Lupfer — September 11, 2018
(RNS) — As a teenager, J. Nicole Morgan believed that inner beauty matters most for Christians. Reality — not to mention diet devotionals — didn't conform to those expectations.
Indian court raises LGBT hopes of finding home in traditional faiths
By Priyadarshini Sen — September 11, 2018
NEW DELHI (RNS) — Fearing censure, gay and transgender Indians have long kept away from mainstream religious spaces. But a Supreme Court ruling striking down a ban on homosexuality has galvanized many to practice their faith more openly.
Weighing the spiritual cost when saints turn out to be scoundrels
By Cathleen Falsani — September 11, 2018
(RNS) — What do we do when we learn our beloved shepherd is actually a predator, or the faith leader we’ve admired all our lives turns out to be unworthy of our trust?
Kenyan religious leaders fight to rescue young girls from child marriage
By Tonny Onyulo — September 11, 2018
SAMBURU, Kenya (RNS) — Beading is a form of sexual enslavement that lets older men engage in intercourse with young girls, even when they do not intend to marry them.
Global Hindu gathering draws crowd, protest in Chicago
By Emily McFarlan Miller — September 10, 2018
LOMBARD, Ill. (RNS) — The congress came 125 years, nearly to the day, that Swami Vivekananda addressed the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, emphasizing "tolerance and universal acceptance.” Not everyone saw the event as an echo of those ideals.
Shuttered houses of worship get a reboot, find new life
By Mark A. Kellner — September 10, 2018
(RNS) — At a time when decommissioned houses of worship are converted into nightclubs, restaurants, or condominiums, a different kind of transformation is preserving churches and synagogues as sacred spaces.
Group: Officials destroying crosses, burning Bibles in China
By Paul O'Donnell — September 10, 2018
(RNS) — The campaign corresponds with a drive to 'Sinicize' religion by demanding loyalty to the officially atheist Communist Party and eliminating any challenge to its power over people's lives.
Why evangelical Christians — and all of us — should stand up for the Uighurs
By Bob Roberts — September 10, 2018
(RNS) — Religious freedom isn’t just for your own faith. It’s for people of all faiths or it isn’t religious freedom at all.
Seventeen years after 9/11, Muslims are still ‘presumed guilty’
By Aysha Khan — September 10, 2018
(RNS) — Todd Green, the author of a new book on Islamophobia, says that if we’re still asking Muslims to condemn terrorism despite repeated disavowals, the trouble lies not with Muslims, but with the American majority.
For black women at church, it’s more than the Aretha eulogy
By Corey Williams — September 9, 2018
(AP) — For many black women, the Rev. Jasper Williams Jr.’s eulogy reopened wounds and sternly reminded them that black churches remain male-dominated institutions, where old-school resistance to women holding leadership roles is still alive.