When journalist Olga M. Segura initially set out to write a book on Black Lives Matter and the Catholic Church, she intended it to be more of an overview that might prompt white Catholics to get more involved in the work of racial justice.

That was back in early 2020, when she first started writing. Then, the pandemic hit, followed soon after by nationwide protests after George Floyd died while in Minneapolis police custody.

Her book, published last April, essentially took on a new life. As she puts it: “I thought, ‘OK, it’s not about gentle accompaniment anymore...

As U.S. refugee resettlement agencies and nonprofits nationwide gear up to help Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion and war that has raged for nearly six weeks, members of faith communities have been leading the charge to welcome the displaced.

In Southern California, pastors and lay individuals are stationing themselves at the Mexico border waving Ukrainian flags and offering food, water and prayer. Around the country, other religious groups are getting ready to provide longer-term support for refugees who will have to find housing, work, health care and schooling....

Even before the family of 10 Afghan evacuees arrived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, earlier this year, volunteers from eight local churches pitched in to prepare a home for them, painting and sanding and ripping out old carpeting. When the family arrived, the volunteers drove them to medical appointments and helped the children sign up for sports and the parents set up utilities.

But as Ramadan, Islam’s holy month of prayer and fasting, approached, the volunteers of Gettysburg’s Refugee Resettlement Partnership weren’t sure what they could do to help their new neighbors, who are...

For more than two years, Jehovah's Witnesses congregations have held their bi-weekly meetings virtually rather than at Kingdom Halls, but that is changing this week as they return to in-person worship for the first time since the start of the pandemic. 

"Over the past couple of years, it's been a challenge to maintain that closeness, so I really look forward to greeting everyone again," Randall Larson, a Jehovah's Witness who lives in Sun Prairie, said. "This has been a very exciting time when we received word that we will be going back in person. [There is] some...

Black Catholics are more likely than their white or Hispanic counterparts to say that opposing racism and sexism is essential to being a faithful Christian, according to a Pew Research Center survey released March 15.

The survey also finds that Black Catholics rely more on daily prayer and Scripture reading, engage in charismatic-style worship at Mass more often, drive longer distances to attend religious services, and are less likely to hear sermons about abortion than their white and Hispanic coreligionists.

The new study, a follow-up to Pew's February 2021 report...

When Cara Quinn became a Christian in her early 20s, she still felt like there was something missing.

Where were all the women, she wondered.

It’s not that they were missing from the pews. Women generally outnumber men when it comes to church attendance. But they never filled the pulpit. And Quinn wasn’t sure where to find them in the Bible, either. They were rarely discussed in the sermons she heard on Sunday mornings at...

Michael Cherenkov, a pastor in Washington state, has relatives on both sides of the fight between Russia and Ukraine. And as wartime propaganda makes its way into immigrant churches around him, he has spiritual family on both sides too.

Evangelical pastors in the US, leading churches where Russian Americans and Ukrainian Americans worship side by side, see the stark but quiet tensions between those who believe Russian president Vladimir Putin’s justifications for the invasion and those who are decrying the injustice of the war. Many have ties to both countries, but the war has...

When he was named a district superintendent for the Church of the Nazarene, the Rev. Albert Hung found himself facing the same problem many denominational leaders face.  

Too many churches. 

Not enough people. 

Source: Thousands of churches close every year. What will happen to their...

A variety of religious traditions assembled Sunday evening to pray for one thing: peace in Ukraine.

The meeting at North Presbyterian Church was assembled by the Williamsville Interfaith Clergy Association and was led by two Ukrainian clerics, one Catholic and one Orthodox. Joining them were Presbyterians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha'i, Sikh and Unitarian Universalists.

North Presbyterian Pastor Bill Hennessy said the array of clergy was deliberate.

Source:...

Members of three major world religions face discrimination in the workplace, but each experience it in different ways, according to new research.  

Researchers from Rice University’s Religion and Public Life Program (RPLP) drew their conclusions from an analysis of 194 in-depth interviews with Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and non-religious employees to determine how members of each group perceived their experiences with workplace discrimination.  

“...

The current and incoming leaders on migration for the U.S. bishops expressed cautious optimism about one March 4 court decision mandating that migrants can’t be expelled to “places where they’ll be persecuted or tortured,” but dismay over another striking down protections for unaccompanied minors from immediate expulsion.

Each decision was related to Title 42, a border policy that allows the immediate expulsion of migrants and limits their right to seek asylum. Regardless of the nature of the court’s recent decisions, both bishops say it ignores what’s really needed.

American religious sisters have been central protagonists in the larger narrative of women's history, but that record has often been eclipsed, according to scholars during a recent panel discussion on American and Italian Catholic identities.

"Sisters' history has not been integrated in a meaningful way into the relevant areas of women's history because doing so requires acknowledging different paths," said Elisabetta Vezzosi, director of the humanities department of the University of Trieste in Italy. 

"Sisters were on the forefront of the American efforts to...

Ask a Christian to describe other Christians and the answers likely will be “giving,” “compassionate,” “loving” and “respectful.”

Ask a non-Christian, on the other hand, and the more likely descriptors you’ll get for Christians are “hypocritical,” “judgmental” and “self-righteous.”

Non-Christians are also far more likely to say Christians do not represent the teachings of Jesus.

Source:...

It was only a few days before the 2020 presidential election when a woman named Martha called into Pastor Netz Gómez’s Spanish-language evangelical Christian radio show to say she was confused about who to vote for.

Gómez, the head pastor at Houses of Light Church in Northridge, immediately perked up. This was a chance for him to gently nudge another member of the faithful toward the biblical and conservative values that he embraces. So he directed Martha and other listeners to a 2020 Spanish-language voter guide that Houses of Light church leaders had created for their...