Source: The New York Times

On April 18, 2002, The New York Times reported that "Churches and other religious organization are receiving the first grants released through the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. The grants totaling more than $15 million are for employment training and came from the Labor Department. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao said the grants included 25 of up to $25,000 each to help small congregations and community groups provide job training and other employment programs. Another $5 million will help religious groups...

Source: The Hartford Courant

On April 15, 2002, The Hartford Courant featured an article on Reza Mansoor, a Muslim-American doctor from Connecticut, who recently gave a talk at an Evangelical Lutheran church which was co-sponsored by the New Britain Conversations on Race proje ct. Mansoor "has been spreading the word about his faith since September, not to gain new adherents to Islam but to overcome the fear and misunderstanding since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C... Despite the prevalence of misunderstandings about his faith,...

Source: The Houston Chronicle

On April 13, 2002, The Houston Chronicle reported that, according to two recent studies, "the number of people who say they don't belong to a religion has doubled over the last decade... For personal reasons, 29.4 million people said last year that they skip church, mosque and synagogue - up from 14.3 million in 1990, a rise from 8 percent to 14 percent of the U.S. population... That's the word from the American Religious Identification Survey, conducted in 2001... by the Graduate Center of City University of New York......

Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

On April 12, 2002, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that "federal agents... said they believed arson was to blame for a... fire that gutted a Silicon Valley [CA] church with a large Arab American congregation... Search dogs found remnants of a flammable liquid inside the Antiochian Orthodox Church of the Redeemer, which burned to the ground early Sunday morning. Damage was estimated at $1 million. The church, 40 miles south of San Francisco, serves a mix of Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian and Egyptian...

Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

On April 12, 2002, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that "San Diegans are responding with prayers and rallies to the violence in the Holy Land that continues to rip apart a territory held sacred by Christians, Jews and Muslims... [Recently] people gathered in downtown San Diego for interfaith prayers calling for peace... Among the participants were Rabbi Martin Lawson, of Temple Emanu-El, Imam Sharif Battikhi, president of the Islamic Services Foundation, and the Rev. Art Cribbs, president of the Ecumenical...

Source: Star Tribune

http://www.lcppm.org

On April 12, 2002, the Star Tribune reported that "Twin Cities religious activists are seeking ways to teach residents about how faith organizations can best improve the lives of the area's burgeoning immigrant populations... An all-day seminar, Stand With Africa, will be held... at Central Lutheran Church... What this seminar hopes to do is encourage Minnesotans to work on issues involving Africa, as well as helping local immigrant communities. Experts...

Source: The New York Times

On April 12, 2002, The New York Times reported that "President Bush urged the Senate... to pass a bill... that would give federal money to religious charities." The President also spoke to "a gathering of religious and charity leaders in the East Room, which the White House billed as a rallying call to pressure the Democratic-controlled Senate to act... The legislation, a compromise reached between the White House and Democrats that is a watered-down version of what the president originally wanted, is stuck in the Senate...

Source: St. Petersburg Times

On April 12, 2002, The St. Petersburgh Times reported that "Metropolitan Ministries, the [St. Petersburgh, FL] area's best-known charity for the homeless and poor, will drop its requirement that professed Christians make up a majority of its board of directors... It also began recruiting 13 people from a 'rainbow coalition' of religious faiths to join the 22 Christians now on the board."

Source: Omaha World-Herald

On April 12, 2002, the Omaha World-Herald reported that "residents backing their school district in [Woodbine, IO] aren't going to let go of 'The Lord's Prayer' quietly... The Woodbine School Board voted 4-0 Thursday night, with one member abstaining, to defend the song and challenge a lawsuit filed by the Iowa Civil Liberties Union."

Source: The North Jersey News

Source: Newsday

On April 8, 2002, Newsday reported that "from Episcopal and Protestant churches to Jewish synagogues and Hindu temples, religious leaders... are reflecting on the sexual abuse scandal within the Roman Catholic Church and its potential impact on their own houses of worship... In truth, the scourge of clergy sexual abuse has been exposed in virtually every religious faith and denomination... Members of the Jewish Orthodox faith recently... [faced] their own sexual abuse scandal involving... a leader in the Orthodox Union's National...

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

On April 7, 2002, The San Francisco Chronicle featured an article on the new Polish Mission Church in San Jose, CA. "After 1981, a new wave of Poles swept into Silicon Valley. In 1991, a pledge campaign was started to raise the $1.4 million they needed to build their own church. It was opened, after much hard work, three years ago." This Easter "families arrived, bringing baskets of sausage, bread, butter and hard-boiled eggs to be blessed for Easter breakfast... 'They come once a year to bless the food, because this...

Source: Newsday

On April 6, 2002, Newsday featured an article on St. George's Episcopal Church in Flushing, Queens "has adapted as its membership has changed... through the centuries... From its early years, [the Church] served a diverse group of immigrants that included French Huguenots, Irish Catholics, German Protestants and Dutch Reformers - opened its doors to more newcomers, among them emigrants from the Caribbean and the West Indies; African-Americans from Harlem, who began settling in Flushing in the 1950s; Chinese emigrants, who arrived in the...

Source: The Antelope Valley Press

http://www.avpress.com/n/sasty1.hts

On April 6, 2002, The Antelope Valley Press reported on a Pagan ceremony in Southern California that was distrupted by Christian protests. "Celebrants taking part in the ceremony said they were the targets of loud and aggressive prayer, physical bumping, loud Christian music and a caravan of noisy vehicles... A pagan worshiper," who asked one of the protesters to turn...

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

On April 5, 2002, The Columbus Dispatch reported that "many non-Muslims have sought to understand why the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon apparently were committed by zealous adherents of a billion-member world faith. Colleges, churches and community organizations are trying to slake a thirst for knowledge about the 1,400-year-old religion and its principles... America's sudden interest in Islam has meant full calendars for scholars and clerics over the past seven months... Columbus-area...