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WASHINGTON (RNS) Israeli officials praised Episcopal bishops on Monday (July 20) for rejecting a resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that they deemed too pro-Palestinian. The rejected resolution called for a Palestinian state and an end to the “ongoing confiscation of Palestinian land, demolition of housing and the displacement of people.” The Episcopal House of Bishops…

(UNDATED) It’s that time of the century again. Time to sell your real estate, rid yourself of cherished possessions and purge the evil tendencies of your wicked soul. The world is scheduled to end in late 2012 — at least according to New Age scholars who look to a 2,000-year-old Mayan calendar for guidance —…

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama met with Mormon leaders Monday (July 20) and received genealogical information about his family. The president met with President Thomas Monson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Elder Dallin Oaks, who oversees the church’s genealogical program, along with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid, a Mormon, set up…

Up until last summer, Jennifer Gray of Columbus, Ohio, considered herself “a weak Christian” whose baptism at age 11 in a Kentucky church came to mean less and less to her as she gradually lost faith in God. Then the 32-year-old medical transcriptionist took a decisive step, one that previously hadn’t been available. She got…

Jul. 20–The successful push to open all doors to ordained ministry for openly gay and lesbian Episcopalians last week started with a nudge from Chicago. Seeking to lift a de facto moratorium on gay bishops and end the deadlock about commitment ceremonies for same-sex relationships, a team of prominent clergy, scholars and laypeople known as…

NEW YORK – A federal court in New York says U.S. officials were obligated to give a Muslim scholar a chance to show he was no supporter of terrorism before barring him from the country. Professor Tariq Ramadan had his U.S. visa revoked in 2004. He was about to take a job at the University…

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – A Roman Catholic diocese in Connecticut sought Friday to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep under wraps sex abuse documents that could shed light on how a prominent retired cardinal handled the allegations. Bridgeport Diocese officials asked the state Supreme Court to continue a stay on releasing the documents…

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…

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