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SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (RNS) As a white man surrendered to federal marshals Friday (April 15), workers were rebuilding the pulpit of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ that he was convicted of burning down the night of President Obama’s election. Michael Jacques, 26, surrendered a day after a jury convicted him on civil rights and…

WASHINGTON (RNS) A New York minister will soon fill the Obama administration’s long-vacant position to oversee international religious freedom after the Senate voted to confirm the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook for the post. Thursday’s (April 14) voice vote positions Cook to become the first female and the first African-American in the post after a lengthy…

NEW YORK (RNS) The heady days of American congregational expansion are over. The nation’s largest Jewish group, the 1.5 million-member Union for Reform Judaism, is now confronting the same stagnant or even declining membership trends that have become routine for Catholic, mainline Protestant and even some evangelical churches. So when the URJ recently tapped Rabbi…

MOSCOW (RNS/ENInews) A Jehovah’s Witness on trial in Siberia was found innocent on Thursday (April 14) of charges of “inciting religious hatred and enmity,” in a case that was seen as a litmus test of Russian religious freedom. Aleksandr Kalistratov had been accused of distributing Jehovah’s Witnesses literature, which has been qualified as extremist in…

LONDON (RNS) Researchers at two of Britain’s top universities claim that church attendance in many Western nations is falling because people are living longer and therefore have less fear of death. The result, the studies say, is a “graying church.” In Britain, one in four older adults (65 or older) attends church, while just 11…

WASHINGTON (RNS) The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability has announced members of a commission to advise a Capitol Hill review of financial reform of religious groups. Secularists, however, say the panel’s all-evangelical leadership will be unable to police other evangelicals. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked the council to lead an independent review of “self-reform” of…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican on Thursday (April 14) lamented China’s interference with the Roman Catholic Church, and reaffirmed Pope Benedict XVI’s willingness to negotiate with Beijing on the appointment of bishops. A message to Chinese Catholics, published by the pope’s special commission on China, noted the “sad episode” of a bishop in the northeastern…

WASHINGTON (RNS) The law calling for an annual National Day of Prayer imposes solely on the duties of the U.S. president, leaving private citizens no legal standing to challenge it, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday (April 14). The unanimous decision overturns a 2010 lower court ruling that found the law unconstitutional. The ruling comes…

WASHINGTON (RNS) Bibles cannot be the only reading materials allowed in jail, the U.S. Department of Justice said in joining a lawsuit against a South Carolina detention center on Tuesday (April 12). The original suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Prison Legal News last October, charged that the Berkeley County…

WASHINGTON (RNS) With less than two weeks to go, fifth-grader Simone Marshall ticked off what she was looking forward to most as she awaited the Easter Vigil where she would officially become a Roman Catholic. “I cannot wait to get baptized so I can be born again and I can be closer to Jesus,” she…
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