SILVER SPRING, Md. (RNS) — Saraleah was 19 and a part-time student when she discovered she was pregnant. She didn’t know how it could have happened — until she flashed back to a party nine weeks earlier where she was…

(RNS) — The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is siding with Jews and Muslims in opposition of a proposed ban on infant male circumcision in San Francisco. “Jews, Muslims and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham.  Biblical…

(RNS) — Southern Baptists (SBC) meeting in Phoenix adopted a plan June 14 to try to boost minorities in their top leadership posts as they face continuing reports of stagnant baptism rates and declining membership. Members of the nation’s largest…

(RNS) — Southern Baptists (SBC) on June 15 called hell an “eternal, conscious punishment” for those who do not accept Jesus, rebutting a controversial book from Michigan pastor Rob Bell that questions traditional views of hell. Citing Bell’s book Love…

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour warned several hundred Christian conservatives gathered here June 3-4 not to expect a “perfect candidate” to emerge from the field of Republican (GOP) presidential contenders. “There’s only been one perfect person that ever…

More than medicine. That’s what Sharon Thomas says she shares each time she takes part in an LCMS World Relief and Human Care Mercy Medical Team (MMT). When people in some of the world’s poorest overseas communities ask the registered…

LCMS President Dr. Matthew C. Harrison celebrated Pentecost Sunday, June 12, by preaching in Seoul, South Korea, a joyful kickoff to a busy week that includes meeting with church partners in that country and later in Japan, where recovery continues…

The Open Arms Institute is offering a free “Pastor’s Webinar” June 16 at 12:30 p.m. Central time. The webinar will be presented by staff and board of directors members of the Loveland, Colo.-based institute that works to plant congregations and…

Thrivent Financial for Lutherans is expanding a national disaster-response funding program it announced in May to include “any state in which … four major Lutheran disaster response organizations [including LCMS World Relief and Human Care (WR-HC)] are providing support.” Click…

(RNS) — A new Gallup poll finds 92 percent of Americans say they believe in God, a figure that has dropped by only a few points since Gallup first asked the question in the 1940s. Gallup pollster Frank Newport offered…

MOSS POINT, Miss. (RNS) — For the past 69 years, Ida Mae Cumbest has been the pianist and organist at Caswell Springs United Methodist Church — a tenure that qualifies her as the world’s longest-serving church organist. Cumbest has played…

OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) — After just an hour of deliberation, jurors on June 7 unanimously found two members of a faith-healing church guilty of felony criminal mistreatment for not seeking medical care for their daughter. Timothy and Rebecca Wyland…

PALMER, Mass. (RNS) — A Massachusetts woman charged with larceny and fraud denied June 7 that she stole donated items from a church that were intended for victims of a devastating tornado. Christine Lajewski, 47, of Ware, Mass., was charged…

(RNS) — For the second time this year, a federal regulator has rejected the First Amendment arguments of a Catholic college and cleared the way for the school’s adjunct faculty to unionize. In a May 26 decision, the Chicago office…

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Four months after the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a new Gallup survey says a majority of Egyptians want religious leaders to advise the nation’s officials but they do not want a theocracy. About seven in…

ST. LOUIS (RNS) — Taxi driver Nabeel Langrial was chatting with another cabbie last summer when an enforcement agent for the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission stopped to tell him his hat did not conform to the driver dress code. Langrial, a…