Beliefnet News

Chicago Tribune Chicago – The Rev. Greg Moser keeps a stack of books on jihad in Asia next to a copy of the Bible in his office. He stores a “battle book” in a drawer at United in Faith Lutheran Church in northwest Chicago. And when Moser is not tending to his flock, the fit…

Associated Press – August 12, 2008 CHICAGO – The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago said Tuesday it had agreed to pay more than $12.6 million to settle lawsuits by 16 people who accused priests of sexual abuse. “My hope is that these settlements will help the survivors and their families begin to heal and move forward,”…

By Adelle M. Banks c. 2008 Religion News Service DAMASCUS, Md. — On Sunday mornings at Damascus Road Community Church, when the children are dismissed from the sanctuary for Sunday school, another set of children and adults head to “The Haven.” As many as four dozen people gather in the church gym to play games…

Associated Press – August 13, 2008 NORRISTOWN, Pennsylvania – An American woman was sentenced to eight to 20 years in prison on Wednesday for killing her bigamist husband as he was set to travel to Africa to see his second Muslim wife. Myra Morton, 48, tearfully apologized to the mother of victim Jereleigh Morton during…

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services The owners of a Chicago-based real estate investment firm were arrested Monday on federal fraud charges, and U.S. regulators accused them of conducting a quarter-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme going back as far as 2005. Steven Byers, 46, chief executive of WexTrust Capital LLC and an Oak Brook resident, and Joseph Shereshevsky, 51, a…

United Press International Jerusalem – Israeli archeologists say they have uncovered the ruins of a second century Roman temple in the Zippori National Park in northern Israel. The archeologists, led by Professor Zeev Weiss of the Institute of Archeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, also discovered the foundations of a church from the Byzantine…

Associated Press Houston – A flight attendant suing the wife of megachurch evangelist Joel Osteen told a jury Tuesday she was simply doing her job when she was attacked without provocation. Continental Airlines flight attendant Sharon Brown testified that Victoria Osteen approached her and was upset and angry before the start of a 2005 flight…

By Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service (RNS) A California federal judge has ruled that the University of California had a “rational basis” for rejecting science and history courses taught at Christian high schools. Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, Calif., and the Association of Christian Schools International had charged that the university had an…

Associated Press – August 11, 2008 NEW YORK – Very little goes unexamined in the kosher world. From meat and poultry to the coating on vegetables and the ingredients in mouthwash, rabbis who determine whether a product meets Jewish dietary laws scrutinize the most minute details about all things consumed. For religiously observant Jews, that…

The Salt Lake Tribune – August 10, 2008 Aug. 10–Leaders of Affirmation, a support group for gay Mormons, want LDS general authorities to make a clear, unambiguous statement in the church’s annual General Conference that homosexuality is not a sin or a disease and that mothers don’t cause it. They want the church to teach…

More from Beliefnet and our partners