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VANCOUVER, British Columbia (RNS) Roman Catholics in North America and Britain are calling for a series of YouTube videos showing a Canadian teenager destroying Communion hosts to be removed from the Internet. The Quebec teenager named Dominique, who tags himself “fsmdude,” has posted more than 40 videos featuring him desecrating the host, the small circular…

DENVER – Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin describes herself as a “hard-core pro-lifer” and expresses confidence that in spite of disheartening polls, “putting this in God’s hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4.” In an interview with evangelical leader James Dobson that…

(UNDATED) “It took Jesus a thousand years to die. Images of his corpse did not appear in churches until the tenth century.” Those are the provocative opening sentences of the new book, “Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire” (Beacon Press), by Protestant scholars Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca…

Lori Lipman Brown has had her fill of God-talk. “It’s a very frustrating time,” said Brown, director of the Washington-based Secular Coalition for America, the first lobbying organization devoted to secular issues. “All of us have been very hopeful that at the end of the Bush administration, we would stop seeing theology impose itself on…

More than eight in 10 white Americans would vote for a racial minority for president, but fewer whites who take the Bible literally or who worship in an all-white congregation would do the same, according to a recent survey. Research from Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion found that 84 percent of non-Hispanic white…

Pastor Jim Garlow is fasting and praying at his megachurch in La Mesa, Calif., to encourage fellow California evangelicals to vote for Proposition 8, which would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Jan Garbosky, meanwhile, married her lesbian partner of 20 years on Oct. 4 at their Unitarian Universalist church in San Diego…

SALT LAKE CITY – Brigham Young University has yanked the diploma of a man who created a calendar featuring shirtless Mormon missionaries and was later excommunicated from the church. Chad Hardy of Las Vegas attended graduation ceremonies Aug. 15 after finishing up his last four units of study online in June. But on July 13,…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Catholic-Jewish tensions over Pope Pius XII flared again after a church official suggested on Saturday (Oct. 18) that a Jerusalem museum exhibit about the World War II-era pontiff was an impediment to Israeli-Vatican relations. The statement prompted a response from Israeli President Shimon Peres, and was followed by an Israeli Web site…

(RNS) An Episcopal Church committee voted Friday (Oct. 17) to oust more than 50 California clerics who left the denomination last year to join a more conservative province in the Anglican Communion. The 16 deacons and 36 priests have six months to recant and return to the Episcopal Church before they are defrocked by Bishop…

Jesus, many Christians might tell you, saved their lives. Benyamin Cohen, founder and editor of American Jewish Life and Jewsweek, credits the carpenter with helping to save his faith. At first glance, you might think Cohen’s story would be markedly different from most (unless, of course, you too are the son of an Orthodox rabbi…

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