One of the most powerful religious institutions in America is also one of the most chaotic. The Southern Baptist Convention, with its billion-dollar budget and massive political influence, operates without centralized authority or even an effective system...
(RNS) — Seeing an actor perform salah — Muslim ritual prayer — on television is nothing new these days. But seeing someone who actually is Muslim uttering Muslim phrases or performing salah with a natural ease, not some cringey Hollywood...
(RNS) — Despite Wheaton College’s attempts to quiet a backlash from alumni over its pro forma congratulatory message recognizing alumnus and newly confirmed White House official Russell Vought, the actions of the “deliberately non-partisan” evangelical Christian school have only brought...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — A proposed online database that would list the names of abusive Southern Baptist pastors is now on hold, with no names likely to be added to the website by the denomination’s annual meeting this summer. Instead,...
VATICAN CITY (RNS) – On Pope Francis’ fifth day in a Rome hospital, doctors repeated their assessment that his condition was “complex” after a CT scan of his chest revealed the onset of pneumonia in both lungs. “The laboratory tests,...
(RNS) — Lawmakers in Estonia’s Parliament are debating a draft bill that would effectively require the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Orthodox Church’s presence in the country, to cut ties with Moscow and its Patriarch Kirill...
(RNS) — Dallas megachurch pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes continued to deny claims by two other ministers who have accused him of sexual misconduct, describing the accusers in a newly filed affidavit as “bullies” and himself as the victim of a...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee struck a hopeful and defiant tone on Monday night (Feb. 17), acknowledging the fiscal woes facing the convention yet insisting the nation’s largest Protestant denomination remains a force...
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (RNS) — The journalist in me habitually writes of the death on Saturday (Feb. 15) of Imam Muhsin Hendricks, “A motive has not been determined.” But Muhsin, a friend and colleague, had told me about the...
(RNS) — The “SNL at 50″ special began with a Paul and ended with another. You might rightly say these were bookends. The cold open was Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter performing a duet of “Homeward Bound” — a song...
