WASHINGTON (RNS) — The Supreme Court on April 4 rejected a challenge to an Arizona school tuition credit program critics contend was principally benefiting religious institutions. The 5-4 decision, combined with a 2007 ruling rejecting a similar challenge to the…

(RNS) — A national alliance of public employees is accusing the National Park Service of “leadership paralysis” for not addressing questions about religious displays at federal parks. The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility had asked the Park Service last…

(RNS) — Neither snow nor rain nor Saturday Sabbaths should keep a Missouri mailman from his appointed rounds, a federal appeals court has ruled. Seventh-day Adventist Hosea Harrell argued he was the victim of religious discrimination when the U.S. Postal…

WASHINGTON (RNS) — In 2008, Safoorah Khan, a math teacher in Illinois, asked for 15 days of unpaid leave (19 days, including weekends) to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, an obligation for all Muslims. The local school board refused, but…

MOBILE, Ala. (RNS) — The Archdiocese of Mobile has told staff and volunteers who work with children that electronic communication with minors must be limited to “providing information related to a ministry or event and not for socialization or other…

WASHINGTON (RNS) — A new multimillion-dollar, high-tech, interactive museum of the Bible was announced March 31 amid 130 artifacts of the Good Book at a private exhibition at the Vatican Embassy. The exhibit was a sample of Jewish, Roman Catholic…

WASHINGTON (RNS) — A slim majority of evangelicals favor government shutdown over a budget compromise, according to new research by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The U.S. government will shutter all non-essential services at midnight…

NEW YORK (RNS) — The Cross at Ground Zero was one of thousands of I-beams used to construct the iron skeletons of the World Trade Center towers. This one fell from the fiery, apocalyptic heavens during the 9/11 terror attacks…

(RNS) — Pharmacists with religious objections to “morning-after” emergency contraceptives cannot be compelled to sell the product, an Illinois Circuit Judge ruled April 5. The Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act was passed in 1998 to shield health care…

(RNS) — In its new Sunday night series, “The Borgias,” Showtime has found the magic combination for ultimate crowd appeal in a scintillating soap opera about a bad-boy pope. “The Borgias” follows the quasi-historic story of the Spanish noble family…

WATERLOO, Ill. (RNS) — Televangelist Joyce Meyer said April 6 she testified “honestly and truthfully” in a closed pretrial deposition in the murder trial of her former bodyguard, Christopher Coleman. But Meyer said she would honor a request not to…

CANTERBURY, England (RNS/ENInews) — A self-effacing multimillionaire has become a local hero after buying a series of 17th-century religious paintings and then donating them back to the Church of England in a bid to help boost art tourism. Jonathan Ruffer,…

LONDON (RNS) — One of the prominent figures in the revived ancient priesthood of Druidism in Britain has been charged with defrauding the government of 40,000 pounds (about $25,000) in welfare payments over the past eight years. Druid Terry Dobney,…

By Kim Plummer Krull At the one-month anniversary of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, strong aftershocks continue to plague Japan.  At least four people were killed by tremors April 7 and 11, according to news reports, and the most recent aftershock left…

On a hot July evening in Houston during last summer’s LCMS national convention, Dr. Walter Obare, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya (ELCK), found himself without dinner plans one evening.  As he was returning to his hotel room…