Author: LOUIS MEDINA

Source: The Californian

http://www.bakersfield.com/138/story/220523.html

Bakersfield has a rare collective living treasure that is both religious and cultural: The Gathering of First Nations Sacred Circle, a monthly intertribal, Christian service that honors the Bible as much as it does age-old American Indian worship traditions.

“There are only a few sacred gatherings like this around the U.S.,” said the Rev....

Author: Jane Lampman

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0823/p14s01-lire.html

Should citizens' tax dollars be spent to renovate houses of worship?

The answer to that question used to be a resounding "No, it's unconstitutional." But Aug. 8, a federal judge broke new ground. He ruled that the city of Detroit could partially reimburse three churches for renovations they made to their buildings to make the...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Middle East Online

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=21839

Some churches and denominations in the United States have direct partner ties with Palestinian churches and to churches in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Israel. All feel a strong attachment to the Holy Land and long for peace and reconciliation with all members of the Abrahamic family of faiths - Jews, Christians and Muslims, says...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BosNewsLife News Center

http://www.worthynews.com/christian/india-hindu-militants-threaten-to-burn-pastor-and-family/

NEW DELHI, INDIA (BosNewsLife) -- Hindu militants have threatened to burn to death an Indian evangelical pastor and his family if they don't close their Pentecostal church and leave a suburb of Bangalore, India's third largest city, Christian supporters said Monday...

Source: The Kansas City Star

Wire Service: AP

http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking_news/story/241060.html

ST. LOUIS | A federal appeals court today upheld a lower court ruling that prohibited the distribution of Bibles to grade school students in a southern Missouri school district.

At issue was a long-held practice at South Iron Elementary School in Annapolis, 120 miles southwest of St. Louis, in which Gideons...

Author: Pat Shellenbarger

Source: The Grand Rapids Press

Author: Staff Writer

Source: The New York Times

Wire Service: AP

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/world/europe/16convert.html

GENEVA, Aug. 15 — Evangelical Protestant churches have joined an effort by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and other Protestant churches to create a common code of conduct for religious conversions to preserve the right of Christians to spread their religion while avoiding conflict...

Author: Ken Gewertz

Source: Harvard University Gazette

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/08.23/99-bells.html

Nearly 80 years after they were rescued by plumbing magnate Charles R. Crane, the Lowell House bells are returning to their original home in the St. Danilov Monastery in Moscow.

Crane bought the bells for the cost of the 26 tons of bronze of which they were made. Ranging in size from the 13-ton Bell of Mother Earth...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: MSNBC

Wire Service: Reuters

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20255042/

MEXICO CITY - Death just isn’t what it used to be.

A small religious group that worships the grim reaper and is fighting for government recognition unveiled a softer image of its so-called Death Saint on Sunday: a woman with a porcelain face, brown, shoulder-length hair and long thin fingers.

Hundreds of [...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: International Herald Tribune/The Associated Press

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/world/africa/12iht-egypt.1.7088653.html?searchResultPosition=1...

Author: BRIAN SKOLOFF

Source: The Guardian

Wire Service: AP

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6836700,00.html

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Polling sites located within houses of worship do not violate the constitutional separation of church and state, a federal judge has ruled.

Jerry Rabinowitz, a nonobservant Jew whose voting precinct is in a Catholic church, sued Palm Beach County...

Source: The Buddhist Channel

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=65,4611,0,0,1,0

Oakland, CA (USA) -- At Oakland’s Emerson Elementary School, students may not be able to say a public “Our Father,” but they can publicly practice “mindfulness” techniques, adapted from Buddhism, in which “the children learn to follow their breath, watch their thoughts and focus their attention by listening to the tone of a Tibetan singing bowl...

Author: Josh White

Source: The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080301907.html

The Defense Department's inspector general has found that four generals and three other military officers improperly participated in a fundraising video for an evangelical Christian group, inappropriately offering support for the religious organization while appearing to operate within the...

Author: Lornet Turnbull and Janet I. Tu

Source: The Seattle Times

https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20070803&slug=muslimconvert03m

Led by a California pastor, a group of Christians will gather...

Author: M.E. Sprengelmeyer

Source: Rocky Mountain News

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5656860,00.html

URBANDALE, Iowa - Everywhere he goes, people keep asking former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney about his Mormon faith.

But applying religious tests to the presidential race would be like "what you see in countries in the Middle East," and shouldn't be a factor in 2008,...