Tag Archives: religion

The Huffington Post reports: The Supreme Court ruled in favor of faith-based foster agency Catholic Social Services in a case that has significant implications for LGBTQ foster parents as well as taxpayer-funded groups’ ability to discriminate against queer people or other faiths based on “religious freedom.” The case centers around two local foster agencies that the city of Philadelphia found …

The Christian Post reports: Days before he was found dead in Alabama of an apparent suicide, Steve Austin, a former youth pastor, suicide survivor and mental health advocate, sought financial help from subscribers to his newsletter as his wife, Lindsey, battled a mental health crisis a week after he publicly came out as queer. Days later, the author, podcaster and …

The New York Times reports: Next week more than 16,000 Southern Baptist pastors and leaders will descend on Nashville for their first annual meeting of the post-Trump era. It is their most high-profile gathering in years, with attendance more than double the most recent meeting in 2019, after a pandemic cancellation last year. It caps months of vicious infighting over …

The Christian Post reports: Pastor Lewis Clemons of Kingdom Awareness Ministries International in Columbus, Georgia, could have settled a civil case against him for zero dollars if he agreed to acknowledge and record a public apology for allegedly sexually abusing and raping his former congregant, Lequita Jackson. He refused and went to trial. On Wednesday, a jury in the Superior …

Religion News Service reports: Adam Evers created the app he’d been longing for. As a gay Christian, he felt caught between two worlds. In LGBTQ spaces, his faith was often an obstacle, because so many in the community have been hurt by churches that believe same-sex relationships contradict Scripture. So on Thursday (June 3), Evers launched believr, an app that …

Reuters reports: One of Roman Catholicism’s most influential liberal figures, Germany’s Cardinal Reinhard Marx, has offered to resign as archbishop of Munich, saying he had to share responsibility for the “catastrophe” of sexual abuse by clerics over past decades. His offer, which Pope Francis has yet to accept, follows an uproar among the German faithful over abuse. Last week, the …

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis has changed church law to explicitly criminalize the sexual abuse of adults by priests who abuse their authority and to say that laypeople who hold church office can be sanctioned for similar sex crimes. The new provisions, released Tuesday after 14 years of study, were contained in the revised criminal law section of the …

Morgantown, West Virginia’s ABC News affiliate reports: On Apr. 28, members of the Church of God on River Road in Morgantown reported to deputies with the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department that “a smart phone had been placed upon a ledge above a urinal,” according to a criminal complaint. The phone, which was recovered from the men’s restroom at the church, …

The Associated Press reports: An archbishop of Newark groomed a 5-year-old girl by delivering food to her struggling family and regularly babysitting her, then sexually abusing her on multiple occasions in the 1970s, a lawsuit alleges. The suit filed in March is believed to be the first to level sexual abuse charges against the late Peter Gerety, who died in …

“You aren’t really allowed to say this in the very liberal community because they think what you’re saying is stigmatizing mental illness. “Well, this is what I’m here to say — I don’t think you’re mentally ill if you’re depressed. You know people say to me, ‘Well, you’re a Scientologist.’ “I feel lucky that I’m a Scientologist. Because in Scientology …

The Christian Post reports: Just 26% of Gen X and 16% of millennials believe that when they die, they will go to Heaven only because they confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their savior, compared to nearly half of the generation before them, a new study has found. The American Worldview Inventory 2021, a survey of the philosophy of …

The Associated Press reports: The head of the Vatican’s doctrine office is warning U.S. bishops to deliberate carefully and minimize divisions before proceeding with a possible plan to rebuke Roman Catholic politicians such as President Joe Biden for receiving Communion even though they support abortion rights. The strong words of caution came in a letter from Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect …

The Insider reports: An Oregon church that previously sued the state’s governor over COVID restrictions has been linked to dozens of new cases of the virus in recent weeks. According to data published on May 5 by the Oregon Health Authority, 74 people associated with the People’s Church in the city of Salem contracted COVID-19 between April 6 and April …

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: The Rev. Ernest W. Angley, a faith-healing Pentecostal televangelist who claimed a lifetime of personal visits from God, has died at age 99, according to an announcement Friday on the website of his Cuyahoga Falls-based ministry. The preacher rose over the decades from tent revivalist to running a world-wide ministry with his namesake from what …

The Christian Post reports: President Joe Biden announced Monday that he is raising the United States refugee resettlement ceiling in a move that contrasts with the Trump administration’s immigration policies, drawing praise from faith-based refugee advocacy organizations. World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals and one of nine agencies authorized by the State Department to resettle …

The National Catholic Reporter reports: Amid the growing calls among conservative Catholics to deny President Joe Biden Communion, San Francisco’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has released a new letter calling for public figures who support abortion to be barred from the sacrament. “Because we are dealing with public figures and public examples of cooperation in moral evil, this correction can also …

Michael Brown writes for Charisma News: The apostle Paul summed up the possibilities and the problems associated with prophecy in a few short verses, writing, “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Examine all things. Firmly hold onto what is good” (1 Thess. 5:19-21). So, on the one hand, prophetic ministry should be encouraged, not suppressed. On the …

The BBC reports: At least 44 people have been killed in a crush at a crowded religious festival in the north-east of Israel. Dozens more were injured at the Lag B’Omer celebration, which takes place annually at the foot of Mount Meron. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to the scene and said Sunday would be a day of national mourning. …

Religion News Service reports: When the unfamiliar pop-up touting a new feature appeared on Robert P. Jones’ Facebook, the CEO and founder of PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute) posted a screen grab to Twitter. “Wondering what fb algorithm thinks it knows about me?” Jones mused. The new Facebook feature? Prayer posts. The function will allow members of Facebook groups to …

The Colorado Times Recorder reports: Medical professionals and Catholic leaders gathered in Denver last week for a conference on health care ethics that promoted anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion extremism and echoed the Republican Party’s attacks against transgender youth. Among the speakers at the April 10 conference was Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila, a highly active anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ advocate. Aquila was particularly …