The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has called for new laws to protect religious sensibilities that would punish “thoughtless and cruel” styles of speaking.Dr Williams, wh  read more »

Two deputies with Italy's small but vocal Radical Party caused an uproar among legislators in this predominantly Catholic country on Wednesday when they placed dolls representing two gay couples in Parliament's nativity scene.

A federal appeals court in Washington cleared the way for the U.S. Navy to dismiss Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, who earned the ire of his commanders with his prayers "in Jesus' name".  read more »

U.S. President George W. Bush is coming to the Vatican for his first formal audience with Pope Benedict XVI, a meeting seen on both sides as immensely important.

The atmosphere was tense, laced with nearly a century of mistrust and bitter feelings, when President Vladimir V. Putin met in New York in 2003 with leaders of an émigré church that had broken with the Russian Orthodox Church after the Bolshevik Revolution.  read more »

An Egyptian court accepted an appeal yesterday from 45 Copts who were denied the right to reclaim their religious identities after they decided to convert back to Christianity from Islam, a lawyer and court officials said.

Catholic bishops say the new course usurps the family's freedom to shape a child's morality and will impart values that in some instances diverge radically from their own.  read more »

The Democratic Party has undertaken an ostentatious outreach to religious voters, creating a Faith Advisory Council and cultivating clergy around the country.  read more »

Jesus has no place in Slidell City Court, or so says the Louisiana ACLU, which has requested that court officials remove his portrait from the lobby within a week or face the possibility that the organization will file a lawsuit to force the issue.

The American Civil Liberties Union and its Louisiana affiliate have filed suit in federal court against the governor and state treasurer, challenging taxpayer-financed government grants to  read more »

As you enter the small town of Alorton, Ill., you'll see two green-and-white billboards that read: "Welcome to The Village of Alorton. Where Jesus is Lord. Randy McCallum Mayor."  read more »

Thailand: Buddhist activists have decided to discontinue their campaign for Buddhism to be acknowledged as the state religion in the new constitution.  read more »

An appeals court panel apparently has given the OK for prayers mentioning Jesus' name in the Indiana state legislature to return, tossing out a lawsuit Oct.  read more »

According to media reports coming out of Latin America, President Chavez is considering a proposal that would establish him as the high priest of his own form of evangelical Christianity, convert his cabinet members into bishops of a lower rank, and submit church activities to the civil and military power of his government.

A Christian law group is accusing Mount Rushmore officials of trampling the free speech and religious rights of a Coon Rapids, Minn., man who alleges he cannot get a permit to distribute r  read more »

ISTANBUL, Turkey - For Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal, two best friends, enjoying a casual walk along the streets of Istanbul has taken on new meaning. In the next couple of months, the two converts from Islam to Christianity could face the prospect of spending up three years behind bars.

The five-day visit by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom ended Friday.  read more »

Next week, the group started by Gaylor and her mother in the 1970s to take on the religious right will fight its most high-profile battle when the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on its  read more »

TEACHERS have demanded that the [UK] Government drops plans for a new generation of State-funded faith schools.

The Christian Freedom Fund has returned most of the $150,000 it collected to fight the lawsuit over a painting of Jesus that hung at Bridgeport High School.

A politically powerful San Antonio megachurch is pushing Texas lawmakers to let its small Christian school join the state public schools' athletic league.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain stoked a simmering debate over religious tolerance and cultural assimilation on Friday, saying it was the duty of all immigrants to integrate into British society.

The government has "every sympathy" for the case for abolishing blasphemy laws, Justice Minister Maria Eagle has said.

Samantha Devine, 13, was told to remove her cross chain necklace. Why? "It breached health safety rules," according to her father. School rules.

The high school basically set up a hostage drill scenario where a student was suspended for praying in school and her angry father and another man came into the school strapped with guns.  read more »

His name was never mentioned, but Jesus was talked about and sung about at last night's lighting of the National Christmas Tree in Washington.

Bush is not talking about his faith anymore.  read more »

Trustees of the largest high school district in the country voted 4-1 Monday night to mandate displays bearing the nation's motto — "In God We Trust" — and other historical documents i  read more »

A chaplain at a Florida hospice says she has resigned due to a ban on use of the words "God" or "Lord" in certain public settings.  read more »

Invoking Christ and Castro as his socialist models, President Hugo Chavez began his third term Wednesday by declaring that socialism, not capitalism, is the only way forward for Venezuela and the world.

President Hugo Chavez criticized Venezuela's Roman Catholic leaders on Monday for condemning his plans to rewrite the constitution, saying the church is losing support in this politica  read more »

A North London mother and toddlers' group is breathing easier– but still upset – after the local government council rebuked a bureaucrat who threatened to withhold funding unless songs about loving Jesus were dropped from daily activities and the organization changed its constitution to reflect greater inclusiveness towards gay families.  read more »

China has closed two businesses whose owners allegedly sought Christian converts in a traditionally Muslim region and also revoked the visa of an American citizen for illegal proselytizing  read more »

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has accused the United States of trying to meddle in developing countries under the pretext of religion.

China assailed the United States on Monday for listing it as a country that violates religious freedoms. The State Department list released last week included China among Myanmar, North Ko  read more »

China defended its record on religious freedom Thursday, saying all Chinese can worship as they choose with no restrictions, and it blasted a U.S.  read more »

The leader of a Chinese Christian sect and at least 11 of his subordinates have been executed for ordering the murder of members of a rival religious group, as authorities sought to suppress big underground churches that they deemed cults.

China has released a leader of the nation's underground Protestant church after being detained for three years for illegal possession of thousands of Bibles, a Christian activist group  read more »

Christian and Muslim Britons joined forces yesterday to tell city officials to stop taking the Christianity out of Christmas, warning them that this simply fuels a backlash against Muslims.  read more »

A Christian author has revealed that Christianity in Iran is growing as the country becomes increasingly disillusioned by the "authoritarian and economically incompetent" Islamic governmen  read more »

Polls show that about a third of South Carolina Republicans consider themselves part of the Christian right.  read more »

The president-elect of the Christian Coalition of America has declined the job, saying the organization wouldn't let him expand its agenda beyond opposing abortion and gay marriage.

Lina Joy has been disowned by her family, shunned by friends and forced into hiding - all because she renounced Islam and embraced Christianity in Muslim-majority Malaysia. Now, after a seven-year legal struggle, Malaysia's highest court will decide on Wednesday whether her constitutional right to choose her religion overrides an Islamic law that prohibits Malay Muslims from leaving Islam.

Triggering outrage in the state's social and political circles, a senior church functionary in Kerala has asked Christians to send their children to schools run by Christians only.  read more »

Under the regulations, it will be illegal for a Christian printer to refuse to print material promoting homosexual sex, or a Jewish conference centre to refuse to accept a booking from a g  read more »

The South Australian Attorney-General has admitted dropping a planned ban on religious-based discrimination from a new law because of fears from Christians they would be prevented from converting non-Christians.

The Christian Union has operated at Exeter University for 50 years now, but has allegedly been temporarily suspended from the official list of student societies on campus, and had its student bank accounts frozen, as well as being banned from free use of Student Guild premises, or advertising events within Guild facilities.

Nearly 3,000 Christians united around the cross to protest U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq at an event that included worship, a four-mile candlelit procession to the White House and th  read more »

Methodists, Baptists and United Reformists have protested the Government’s plans to replace Trident as they joined thousands of other demonstrators in a peace rally in central London Saturday.The Methodist Church’s Coordinating Secretary for Public Life and Social Justice, Anthea Cox, and Head of Faith and Unity in the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Graham Sparkes, led an ecumenical service prior to the rally organised by the three Churches.

A leading Evangelical US pastor has announced plans to hold a "night to honor Israel " in every major American city as part of an Evangelical political campaign.

The Destiny Church-backed Destiny NZ party yesterday confirmed its intention to de-register and throw its weight behind a new political party, co-led by Destiny NZ leader Richard Lewis.Fut  read more »

Well-known groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals, National Council of Churches, the U.S.  read more »

THE TEMPLE Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, Antoni Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece that has become a symbol of Barcelona, may be under threat from a proposed high-speed train link passing beneath the church's undulating façade.Those striving to complete the architect's extravagant fantasy complain the proposed cross-town link connecting Barcelona to the French border will cause irreparable damage to the city's best-known monument.  read more »

An Ocean Grove church group is suing New Jersey, saying that the state is pressuring it to allow a civil union ceremony for a lesbian couple at its oceanfront pavilion, thereby violating t  read more »

Attorneys for parishioners of the closed St. Jeremiah Parish in Framingham today urged a Middlesex Superior Court judge to rule that the parishioners -- not the Archdiocese of Boston -- are rightful owners of St. Jeremiah's land and buildings.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will be in Bellevue tomorrow for a fundraiser. The event is closed to the press so I'm not sure how much coverage Romney will get. But the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints figures if Romney is in town it's more than likely there'll be some inaccurate reporting on the church to follow.

Under pressure from the European commission and Romano Prodi's centre-left government, the Roman Catholic church has signalled its willingness to give up some of the tax breaks it gets  read more »

A temporary church will be set up in the Olympic Village during the 2008 Games for Catholic athletes, and all churches in Beijing will be open to Catholic tourists, a senior official has s  read more »

Sweden, already a pioneer in giving same-sex couples the right to adopt children, looks set to allow gays to marry in the Lutheran Church, with plans to introduce a new marriage law in Jan  read more »

Churches in a handful of U.S. cities are preparing to launch a “sanctuary” movement to help illegal immigrants avoid deportation and unite faith-based groups in a push for immigration  read more »

about 1000 Christians rallied against Green MP Sue Bradford's anti-smacking bill.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was touted by her husband, former President Clinton, at a "Harlem homecoming" rally as the Democrat best able to retake the White House in 2008.  read more »

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. -- Prayer and politics are not mixing well in Osceola County. Commissioners are under fire for the way they pray before meetings.  read more »

The U.S. government cannot trade a parcel of land to private hands to allow a Christian cross to remain in the middle of a vast federal preserve, a U.S.  read more »

The High Court ruled on Wednesday that a Christian activist may not prosecute a BBC executive under blasphemy laws over the corporation's screening of "Jerry Springer - The Opera".  read more »

A federal judge says Syracuse-area school officials violated a grade school student's free speech rights by denying her request to distribute religious flyers outside of class time.

School officials did not violate a teacher's First Amendment rights when they removed Christian-themed postings from his classroom, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The Texas Supreme Court reversed lower court decisions today and ruled that state restrictions on what unaccredited religious institutions can call themselves and their education training  read more »

The crematorium burned down on Aug. 22, a day after ultra-Orthodox activists discovered and publicized its location.  read more »

Alarmed by what they see as religious groups' growing influence on government policy, a consortium has launched a public awareness campaign to defend the First Amendment's vow that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.""That cherished freedom isunder severe attack," the Rev.  read more »

The town of Oyster Bay, N.Y., violated a woman's First Amendment rights when it barred her from distributing Jews for Jesus leaflets in a public park and charged her with violating an ordinance when she persisted, a Nassau judge has ruled.

A prominent Dallas minister told his congregation that if they wanted to elect a Christian to the White House, Republican Mitt Romney wasn't qualified.

New Zealand: A Christchurch Archdeacon is sad his parish has been forced to stop ringing its church bell.

CAIRO, Egypt — The death of a 12-year-old Egyptian girl at the hands of a doctor performing female circumcision in the country's south has sparked a public outcry and prompted health and religious authorities this week to ban the practice.

“I used to be a community organizer and I’m in good company,” Roberts said as he introduced Barack Obama at a town hall event here Tuesday night.  read more »

Evangelical churches are accusing the Government of "religious treason" for promoting a statement that Christianity is no longer New Zealand's state religion.

Paintings portraying Jesus Christ as Mickey Mouse and Vladimir Lenin are prompting charges of abuse of religious symbols by Russian Orthodox Church leaders.The paintings, part of the "Forbidden Art" exhibit at the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center, went on ­display March 7.

Government officials in China continue their crackdown on unregistered Christian "house churches." Late last month the gathering place for the Nongda house church was demolished by local Communist Chinese authorities.  read more »

Rev.  read more »

The campaign of Dalit Christians for Scheduled Caste status took an interesting turn on Wednesday with a sceptical Supreme Court responding to their demand by asking whether Christians als  read more »

In an opinion poll published in Britain recently, 82 percent of the people polled said that they thought religion does more harm than good.

A church in Watertown, New York, is fighting for what it says is its constitutional right to use the same meeting facility as other community groups — a facility located in a government  read more »

EDINBURGH, Scotland (UPI) -- Edinburgh University`s decision to forbid members of the Christian Union from teaching a campus course on homosexual abstinence is drawing fire.

Presidential hopeful John Edwards took to the Morningside Heights pulpit where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. famously warned against escalating a war 40 years ago to urge lawmakers to bl  read more »

Religious groups outraged at provocative comments made by two bloggers employed by the John Edwards for President campaign said the resignation of one of the bloggers Monday evening is not enough.

Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, 25, filed the lawsuit against Egypt’s interior ministry last Thursday for rejecting his application to replace Islam with Christianity on his identification papers  read more »

European church leaders have revived efforts to include a 'God clause' in the EU constitution after Germany sought to reignite the current drafting process.

Churches Embracing Offenders puts nonviolent offenders in faith-based programs for recovery through a network of more than 65 Evansville-area churches. The organization’s founder and director, the Rev.  read more »

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which represents about 45,000 churches across America, endorsed a declaration against torture drafted by 17 evangelical scholars. The author  read more »

Prominent evangelical leaders who spent the summer hoping Fred Thompson would emerge as their favored Republican presidential contender are having doubts as he begins his long-teased campa  read more »

A former Baptist minister who had spoken out against homosexuality was acquitted Wednesday of propositioning an undercover male police officer.

City officials were never told they couldn't invoke the name of Jesus in prayers at public meetings, the city attorney said in a recent memo released Monday to WRAL News.Fayetteville C  read more »

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ increasing use of religion in treating ailing veterans does not violate the separation of church and state, a federal judge has ruled.

Keith Ellison, who will become the first Muslim member of Congress next month, has offended some conservatives with his plan to use a Koran during his ceremonial swearing-in.

Florida would issue a license plate with the image of Jesus and another with a cross if lawmakers pass a bill now in the Legislature.

Forsyth County commissioners voted Monday night to approve a formal policy allowing ministers to offer prayers to Jesus, Buddha and Allah and other specific deities. The 4-3 vote, delayed from April, defies a lawsuit requesting sectarian prayer at public meetings, The board has already agreed to fight a lawsuit that challenges sectarian prayer.

A top French judge ruled that an extreme-right group cannot serve pork soup to the needy, saying the charitable handouts aim to discriminate against Muslims and Jews who don't eat pork because of their faith.

John Reaney, a 42-year-old from North Wales, took the Hereford Diocesan Board of Finance to an employment tribunal after his appointment to the role of youth worker was blocked by the Bishop of Hereford, the Rt Rev Anthony Priddis.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern, a former lord chancellor during the Thatcher era, is the patron of the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship (LCF), part of a coalition of religious groups opposed to the new rules which they say will ride roughshod over their beliefs. The new rules, which ban those offering goods and services from discriminating against gays and lesbians, will force them to act against their consciences, they say.  read more »

A court on Monday upheld a ban on Muslim teachers wearing head scarves in the schools of a German state under a law that says teachers' attire must be in line with "western Christ  read more »

Berlin Interior Minister Erhart Koerting, who presided over the two-day conference, told reporters that Scientology is an organization that is not compatible with the German constitution.T  read more »

Germany's supreme court on Thursday ordered a lower court to re-examine an order banning the founder of the Unification Church from entering the country.

--Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group."The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press.  read more »

...former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is basing his political comeback, in part, on an assertion that the real bias in America is against those who believe in religion and that “radical secularism” is oppressing them.

The Russian Orthodox Church's growing influence threatens to erode the separation of church and state and upset other officially-recognized religions, leading academics warned Presiden  read more »

An American religious leader who calls himself the "Anti-christ" canceled a visit to Guatemala after the Central American country barred him as a security risk, saying he provokes conflict with Roman Catholics and evangelicals.

Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims joined Britain's equality watchdog on Monday in urging Britons to enjoy Christmas without worrying about offending non-Christians."It's time to stop  read more »

A civil rights group is criticizing Florida Gov.  read more »

A Montreal woman who sued her ex-husband for refusing to give her a Jewish divorce will ask the Supreme Court of Canada on Tuesday to consider whether religious obligations should be enforceable in the country's courts.

The Supreme Court returned to work Monday by sidestepping two church-state cases that social conservatives had hoped the justices would use to chart a rightward course.The justices decided  read more »

Dozens of Pakistani immigrants who came to the United States posing as religious workers were arrested Wednesday, authorities said, as Homeland Security agents tried to close a commonly exploited avenue for illegal immigration.

For more than seven years, Reverend Danny Harvey was employed as a Chaplain at Leesburg Regional Medical Center.  read more »