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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Astronaut Buzz Aldrin was the first human to witness how liquid behaves in the weak gravitational field of the moon — but this was no science experiment. This was a believer giving thanks to God for an extraordinary adventure. Forty years ago, in the first moments of July 20, 1969, after Aldrin…

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — To many Americans, Sharia, or Islamic law, conjures up images of a vengeful legal system that punishes thievery with amputation and promises death by stoning for alleged adultery. But as an attorney for those unfortunate enough to be sentenced to these punishments in the Sharia courts of northern Nigeria, Hauwa Ibrahim sees…

A Michigan appeals court on Tuesday (July 14) overturned a ruling that had sent a minister to jail for threatening a judge with curses from the Bible. The appeals court unanimously decided the Rev. Edward Pinkney’s rights to free speech were violated when he was sentenced to jail for writing a commentary criticizing his trial…

ANAHEIM, Calif. — As the Episcopal Church lifted a de facto ban on gay and lesbian bishops and appears headed toward adapting rites for same-sex unions, one question has repeatedly surfaced in the debates: Does the church takes its cues from the culture, or stand against it? Episcopal bishops gathered for the denomination’s General Convention…

TEXARKANA, Ark. – A woman whose parents and grandparents followed evangelist Tony Alamo testified at his sex-crime trial Wednesday that “Papa Tony” segregated children by gender to prevent “hanky-panky” and controlled everything at his religious compound. The woman, now 30, said children in the compound were not allowed to attend public schools and instead took…

WASHINGTON (RNS) The nation’s largest group of atheists and agnostics filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday (July 14) to stop the engraving of “In God We Trust” and the “one nation under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance in the new Capitol Visitor Center. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based church-state watchdog group, claimed the…

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Russell Randle and J.P. Causey are both lawyers, both Virginians, and both longtime Episcopalians. They have visited each other’s homes, served on church committees together, and when Randle wrote a book on environmental law, he sent a signed copy to Causey, his friend of 15 years. But the two men, gathered here…

(RNS) ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Episcopal Church on Tuesday (July 14) overwhelmingly voted to lift a three-year-old moratorium on consecrating gay and lesbian bishops, despite warnings that the ban was necessary to preserve unity in the wider Anglican Communion. A large majority of Episcopal bishops, priests and lay delegates gathered here for the church’s triennial…

WASHINGTON — As a federal judge, Sonia Sotomayor sided with Santeria prisoners who wanted to wear religious beads and Muslim inmates who wanted to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan. At the same time, she ruled against Muslims who wanted a Muslim crescent and star added to post office holiday displays that…

(RNS) Gary Tobin, a sometimes controversial researcher who studied Jewish demographics and the growth of contemporary Judaism, died of cancer in a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on July 6. He was 59. The self-described “radical thinker” made it his life work countering conventional Judaism in his research studying anti-Semitism, Jewish philanthropy, and the growth…
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