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After almost two decades behind bars, a trio accused of the grisly murder of  three Cub Scouts have been released. A district court judge released Damien W. Echols, 36, Jason Baldwin, 34, and Jessie Misskelley Jr., 36, known as the West Memphis Three, in a legal maneuver known as an “Alford plea.” It does not result in a full exoneration…

Yet again the British Broadcasting Corporation’s news division has turned a joyful occasion into an excuse for mean-spirited criticism. That’s the commentary of an obviously irked Milo Yiannopoulos, writing from the midst of 1.5 million teens and young adults who have converged on Madrid, Spain, a six-day celebration of being young and Christian. “It comes to something when…

“America has been blessed by God in unique ways — we are not just another country, but neither are we God’s special people,” writes Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “I do not believe that America is God’s chosen nation. “We do not have ‘God on our side.’ We…

Chinese Christian expatriates have asked the United Nations to investigate the disappearance of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. The U.S.-based China Aid Association, formally requested a special U.N. investigation into Gao’s whereabouts as well as the torture he underwent in previous police detention. The request came on the five-year anniversary of his first arrest by Chinese police. The request…

By Anthony Stevens-Arroyo ~ from The Washington Post‘s On Faith There is a “cultural war” within Catholic America as several factions battle over a single question: What is “Catholic identity” and who has it? Bishops rail at universities for not promoting Catholic identity through their choice of a graduation day speaker, the head of the…

“Pastor Michael Minor stirred a bit of controversy at his northwest Mississippi church when he banned fried chicken from the fellowship hall,” reports Colleen Jenkins for the British news service Reuters. After all, fried chicken is considered by some to be just short of a sacrament, particularly in the South. The traditional meal to serve…

Few people have ever heard of China’s tiny Jewish community, which is not recognized by the Chinese government nor by most Jews. The topic comes up as the Wall Street Journal tackles China’s problems with religious freedom this week, reports Dr. Terry Mattingly’s “GetReligion” media-monitoring website. In a WSJ‘s opinion piece, editors argue that China may have succeeded in using…

By H.A. Hellyer of The Washington Post’s “On Faith” Learning lessons is always hard – especially when you’re in a higher position of power than everyone else. Paradoxically, its usually those in power that are in need of learning from the lessons of the past, more than anyone else – because if they repeat those…

“Having followed the debates on religion and freedom of expression at the United Nations over the last several years, I have become accustomed to passing on bad news, such as a decade of resolutions by the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly ‘combating the defamation of religions,'” writes Austin Dacey in Religion Dispatches. “Now…

For the first time, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has collected national life expectancy data for the Hispanic population, and backed up the surprising findings of past studies: the average life expectancy of a Hispanic baby born in 2006 was 80.6 years. That’s 2.5 years longer than the life expectancy for whites,…
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