Beliefnet News

(UNDATED) An Alabama pastor was elected president of the National Baptist Convention, USA on Thursday (Sept. 10), overwhelmingly defeating the Rev. Henry J. Lyons, the denomination’s former leader who was sent to prison for fraud. The Rev. Julius R. Scruggs, pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala., won the presidency during the denomination’s…

The New York City Police Department has issued a “clarification” to a 2007 report about Islamic radicalism that critics said cast broad swaths of the Muslim population as potential terrorists. Muslim-American advocacy groups welcomed the two-page clarification, but worried the new statement would go largely unnoticed, and remain concerned that the original report remains intact.…

MINNEAPOLIS (RNS) Former Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page said he doesn’t expect much to result from the work of advisers to the White House’s office dealing with faith-based and community groups. “I believe that the policy recommendations that will come forth will be relatively innocuous, good, helpful,” said Page, a member of the panel,…

More than 3 percent of adult women who attend religious services at least once a month have been victims of clergy sexual misconduct, according to researchers at Baylor University. Put another way: in a congregation of 400 people, seven adult women have been targets of sexual advances by clergy, the study says. In addition, in…

From the Garden of Eden to modern community-supported organic gardens, Jews are returning to their biblical call “to till and to tend” the earth. Spurred by the popularity of environmental movements across denominations and the demands of the economic recession, Jewish leaders are transforming ancient concepts and observances — including Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New…

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News – September 8, 2009 Sep. 8–MUMBAI — It was about a year ago that Mumbai-based Karan Vir Arora got the idea of opening an Indian comics company on the lines of international pop culture giants like DC comics, Marvel, and Dark Horse comics. Thus came along Vimanika, an Indian comics company…

BOSTON – Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, one of the central figures in the clergy sex abuse scandal, was convicted after a 27-year-old man tearfully described how the popular priest used to pull him out of catechism classes and rape him, beginning when he was just 6 years old. The victim said he did not remember…

WASHINGTON — As the nation marks the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, almost six in 10 Americans believe Muslims are the subject of discrimination — more than other major religious groups — a new survey shows. According to a study released Wednesday (Sept. 9) by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life,…

(RNS) Aspiring teachers at the flagship universities of all three major Jewish movements are getting a boost from the Jim Joseph Foundation, through an $11.5 million grant to help train educators for the next generation of young Jews. The foundation’s gift will be distributed over the next five years, split between the Orthodox movement’s Yeshiva…

NEW ORLEANS — From the little office behind Little Zion Baptist Church, David Eber, 24, works on recovery among residents of the Lower 9th Ward, distributing “green” building materials, writing grant applications and listening to Katrina stories. Rebecca Waxman, 23, from St. Louis, drives around the city for Unity of Greater New Orleans, helping homeless…

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