Author: Russell Jenkins

Source: The Times Online

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6606035.ece

A teacher was barred from joining students on a visit to a Roman Catholic sixth-form college because she refused a request to remove her Muslim veil.

She was accompanying two teenage girls on an open day to see if they wanted to study for their A levels at St Mary’s College, in...

Author: Nikolaus von Twickel

Source: The Moscow Times

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1010/42/379152.htm

More than 50 worshippers gathered in a sacred grove on a hot June afternoon outside the village of Marisola. The crowd, mostly women dressed in national costumes and colorful headscarves, stood on a glade opposite a spruce where men were busy conducting prayers.

The congregation kneeled while the men under the spruce, dressed in suits...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Duniyalive.com

http://www.duniyalive.com/?p=40565

Hindus and Jews have urged for separation of church and state in Denmark, where currently The Danish National Church is a state church.

Rajan Zed, acclaimed Hindu statesman; and Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, prominent Jewish leader in Nevada and California in USA; in a statement in Nevada today, said that institution of state church breached the equality of religions and the...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Bahá’í World News Service

http://news.bahai.org/story/721

The European Baha’i House of Worship – the most prominent landmark in a wide area around Langenhain – was the site of events this month celebrating the 700-year anniversary of the village.

The mayor of Hofheim, of which Langenhain is a part, and more than 300 townspeople gathered at the temple where a choir from Langenhain sang Christian psalms,...

Author: Shaikh Azizur Rahman

Source: The National

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090629/FOREIGN/706289896/1103/NEWS

Christians in the state of Orissa are pretending to be Hindus to protect themselves from militants who continue to threaten them nearly 10 months after a wave of sectarian violence.

Orissa’s Christian leaders reported this week that in some remote villages of Kandhamal district Christian families...

Author: Nick Triggle

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8116497.stm

Doctors are demanding that NHS staff be given a right to discuss spiritual issues with patients as well as being allowed to offer to pray for them.

Medics will tell the British Medical Association conference this week that staff should not be disciplined as long as they handle the issue sensitively.

The doctors said recent cases where health workers had...

Author: Damien Okado-Gough

Source: The Buddhist Channel/The Japan Times

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=9,8326,0,0,1,0

When the Zen monk Dogen Zenji returned to Japan from China in 1227 with the ideas that would become the Soto school of Zen, could he have imagined that centuries later, on the other side of the world, those very ideas would be used by people to try to overcome their society's deeply rooted conflict? Most likely not,...

Author: Michelle Chabin

Source: The Kansas City Star/Religion News Service

http://www.kansascity.com/255/story/1288422.html

Devora, an Orthodox Jewish woman, never felt comfortable in the sleek, revealing bathing suits sold at the stores she frequented in her native France or in her adopted Israel.

While she ordinarily wears fashionable skirts that fall below the knee and blouses that extend to her wrists, Devora, 31, was unable to find a...

Author: Eboo Patel

Source: The Washington Post

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/2009/06/besa_world_war_ii_re-told.html

"As Muslims we welcomed them all. We welcomed them with bread, salt, and our hearts."

We hear many accounts of what happened during the Holocaust. The atrocities committed; the times and places in which unspeakable acts against humankind occurred; the millions of...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/gloucestershire/8114911.stm

A hospital worker from Gloucestershire who was ordered to remove a Christian cross necklace for health and safety reasons has left her job.

Helen Slatter, 43, who worked as a blood sampler at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, did not accept the hospital's offer she could carry it in her pocket.

She had...

Author: Elise Franco

Source: Vindy.com

http://www.vindy.com/news/2009/jun/21/group-marks-summer-solstice/?newswatch

Some members of a local church are rediscovering their American Indian heritage, and others are learning about it for the first time.

To kick off the summer solstice, which is the first day of summer and the longest day of the year, members of the Unity Church Centre in Girard organized a two-day...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: NVO News

http://nvonews.com/2009/06/20/american-hindus-laud-obama/

Hindus have applauded US President Barack Obama for including “Hindus” in his remarks to Esperanza National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast and Conference in Washington DC on July 19.

Obama said in this address: “So as we join in prayer, we remember that this is a nation of Christians and Muslims and Jews and Hindus and non-...

Author: Ahmad Noordin

Source: Islam Online

Author: Omar Sacirbey

Source: Religion News Service

http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/everyone_in_the_pool_not_you_guys/

&amWhen Zahra Khan arrived at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from her native Ottawa, Canada, in 2005, she looked for a swimming pool where she wouldn’t have to worry about showing too much skin.

The only options were mixed-gender pools, which Khan felt would...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Telegraph

[telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/5558521/Witches-claim-religious-discrimination-after-church-ban.html]

Sandra Davis - High Priestess at the Crystal Cauldron - had reserved Our Lady's Social Club in Shaw Heath, Stockport for her Pagan group's Annual Witches' Ball.

But when she rang to make payment arrangements she was told the event could not be held there and - despite already having printed tickets - another venue must be found.

The...