Sarah Pulliam Bailey ("RNS," May 23, 2014) Will the United Methodist Church soon have to drop the “United” part of its name? A group of 80 pastors is suggesting that the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination is facing an imminent split because of an inability to resolve long-standing theological disputes about sexuality and church doctrine....
William Booth ("The Washington Post," May 23, 2014) BETHLEHEM, West Bank — When Pope Francis arrives here Sunday on his first trip to the Holy Land as pontiff, he will enter the Church of the Nativity for private contemplation at the grotto believed to mark the birthplace of Jesus Christ. He may also notice that the church is falling apart....
Darren Taylor ("Voice of America," May 21, 2014) JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — The lounge in a suburb that epitomizes middle-class Johannesburg suburbia is gloomy, lit by a single candle. Its flame flickers in the slight, cool breeze that wafts through an open door. A loaded silence pervades the atmosphere, broken only by the whisper of soft rain soaking the ground outside....
Dave Breitenstein ("USA Today," May 25, 2014) Fort Myers, Fla. -- Nationally, one in five Catholic parishes does not have a resident priest. America's Catholic population is rising by 1 percent annually, but seminary enrollment is flat. An inadequate supply of priests already has forced hundreds of parishes to close or consolidate. Priests aren't getting any younger, either. Their average...
Jodi Rudoren, Jim Yardley and Isabel Kershner ("The New York Times," May 25, 2014) Jerusalem — Pope Francis inserted himself directly into the collapsed Middle East peace process on Sunday, issuing an invitation to host the Israeli and Palestinian presidents for a prayer summit meeting at his apartment in the Vatican, in an overture that has again underscored the broad ambitions of his papacy....
Lauren Blanchard ("Fox News," May 25, 2014) DES MOINES, Iowa – A park planned in Sioux City is getting national attention. The Shepherd’s Garden, a Christian-themed park, was recently was awarded $140,000 from the state through a Vision Iowa grant. It’s meant to “assist projects that will provide recreational, cultural, entertainment and educational attractions....
(Reuters, May 25, 2014) Doha - The influential Qatar-based Muslim cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi on Sunday called on Egyptians to boycott presidential elections and shun front-runner Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, saying the former army chief had "disobeyed God"....
Daniel Burke ("CNN," May 24, 2014) Raleigh, North Carolina – Back home, they erase their Internet histories, look over their shoulders before cracking jokes and nod politely when co-workers talk about church. But in a hotel ballroom here on a recent weekend, more than 220 atheists, agnostics, skeptics and freethinkers let it all hang out....
Lahav Harkov ("Jerusalem Post," May 26, 2014) Israel’s chief rabbis called for the country to maintain control of the Temple Mount after the IDF liberated it in 1967, according to research presented in the Knesset Sunday. MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud Beytenu) co-hosted a conference in the Knesset on sovereignty over the Temple Mount with Professors for a Strong Israel....
Nicholas Casey ("The Wall Street Journal," May 22, 2014) Bethlehem, West Bank—At the Church of the Nativity, triumphal banners with biblical stories hang in Manger Square, where Pope Francis will celebrate Mass this weekend. But the festive mood belies an uncomfortable reality for Christians: Their numbers are dwindling here, as they are across the Middle East....
Craig Brown ("The Scotsman," May 23, 2014) Evangelical Christians have failed in an attempt to derail Church of Scotland plans to allow the ordination of gay clergy. The Kirk has moved a step closer to ordaining gay ministers following a vote at the General Assembly in Edinburgh. It will now pass to presbyteries across Scotland to vote for or against it. If approved would become church law...
Faith Karimi and Mohammed Tawfeeq ("CNN," May 22, 2014) A Sudanese lawyer filed an appeal Thursday for a pregnant woman sentenced to death this month for refusing to renounce her Christianity. The filing asks the appeals court to reverse the verdict by the lower court and free Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, 27. Ibrahim, who is eight months pregnant, was convicted of apostasy, or the renunciation of...
Greg Horton ("The Huffington Post," May 22, 2014) In the first instance of its kind, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention, acknowledged it has admitted a Muslim to one of its doctoral programs. Ghassan Nagagreh, a Palestinian Muslim, recently completed his first year of doctoral studies at the seminary in Fort Worth, Texas....
Dylan Lovan (AP, May 22, 2014) Petersburg, Ky. — A new exhibit of a 30-foot-long fossil skeleton of an Allosaurus, which resembles a Tyrannosaurus rex, is set to open at a Kentucky museum that asserts dinosaurs lived alongside humans a few thousand years ago....
Sharif Abdel Kouddous ("The Washington Post," May 22, 2014) Tripoli, Libya — Powerful militias aligned with the Islamist-dominated parliament deployed in the Libyan capital Thursday, raising the specter of an all-out war with forces loyal to a renegade former general who wants the legislative body disbanded....
Peter Beinart ("The Atlantic," May 22, 2014) Last week, the Public Religion Research Institute published a study showing that Americans want their fellow citizens to think they are more religiously observant than they really are. When asked by a live human being on the telephone how often they attend religious services, respondents were more likely to say they attend frequently....
David Wainer ("Bloomberg," May 22, 2014) Mohammed Mohsein rolled out of bed at midnight, and braced by strong black coffee and cigarettes, joined three neighbors standing guard at the mosque in their northern Israeli village....
Amena Bakr and William Maclean (Reuters, May 23, 2014) Doha/Dubai - Exiled leaders of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood are struggling to regroup, targeted by hostile Arab powers, cut off from senior colleagues imprisoned back home and challenged by angry young followers tempted to seek change by violence....
Madison Park ("CNN," May 22, 2014) Hong Kong (CNN) -- China has once again been rocked by a violent attack targeting civilians after two SUVs plowed into people gathered at an open market in Urumqi, the capital of the western Chinese region of Xinjiang. Explosives were tossed from the vehicles, before one of the SUVs exploded, leaving many shoppers dead or wounded on the streets as flames...
Robert Mackey ("The New York Times," May 20, 2014) Just days after Iran’s president denounced Internet censorship as “cowardly,” six young Iranians were arrested and forced to repent on state television Tuesday for the grievous offense of proclaiming themselves to be “Happy in Tehran,” in a homemade music video they posted on YouTube last month....