Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida hasn’t announced he’s running for president yet. But among the right-leaning voting blocs that are pulling for him to enter the 2024 primary field are some of his biggest fans: Hispanic evangelical Christians.

It’s not that they’re opposed to the one Republican who has already declared himself a candidate, former President Donald J. Trump. But a showdown between the two titans of the right wing could turn Latino evangelicals into a decisive swing vote in Florida — supercharging their influence and focusing enormous national attention on their...

The religious makeup of the United States has notably shifted in recent decades, as the share of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated has surged. But this trend has yet to significantly affect the composition of Congress, which continues to be dominated by Christians, according to a new analysis from ...

Sunday morning inside Faith Christian Church in Dorchester, and Pastor Brenda White is preaching to her flock.

To help everyone focus on matters of faith, her church has partnered with the state to boost its security -- one of about 300 non-profit and faith based organizations across that state that have tapped into $13.9 million in state and federal grants over the last five years.

"Are you worried about violence coming into this church?" 5 Investigates' Mike Beaudet asked.

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The Vatican has defrocked an anti-abortion U.S. priest, Frank Pavone, for what it said were “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop who repeatedly told him to stop his partisan activism for Donald Trump.

A letter to U.S. bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre, obtained Sunday, said that the decision against Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, had been taken Nov. 9, and that there was no chance for an appeal.

Pavone has been in conflict with the...

For the Hazrati family, Christmas Day typically includes a lit-up tree, gifts and a dal lunch. 

But after the wrapping paper remnants were cleared from around the tree, the Punjabi Sikh family living in Jersey City, New Jersey, didn’t always know what the rest of the day should entail for a family like theirs — so a few years ago, they started spending Christmas Day at the local gurdwara, a place of assembly and worship for Sikhs. 

With no extended family nearby nor religious service to attend, and lacking the colorful parades that would flood India’s...

 Moana Meadow was 22 when her grandmother died in a hospital room, sitting up, eyes open, gripping the hands of her family members.

“Her spirit left her body like that. In an instant,” she said. “I wasn’t religious, but her spirit felt like it was hovering in the room for 15 minutes. There was this energy, pulsating. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

The event, though painful, left an imprint on Meadow and convinced her to pursue the life of an interfaith chaplain so she could accompany others who were dying.

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 A Catholic parish in the Diocese of Lansing has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to protect its right to hire parish employees and staff for its grade school who uphold the tenets of the Catholic faith.

The filing follows a July 28 ruling by the Michigan Supreme Court that reinterpreted a state civil rights statute’s definition of sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation without any exemption for religious organizations.

Filed Dec. 5 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan-Southern Division, the suit names state Attorney...

This December, Christian congregations will belt “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and priests will wax poetic about Old Testament prophecies. As they do so, a group of Jewish, Christian and Muslim educators is calling on them to examine where antisemitic ideas might be lurking undetected. 

On Wednesday (Dec. 14), the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations — a group of roughly ...

The Biden administration can’t force a group of Catholic hospitals and doctors to cover or perform gender transition surgeries under an ObamaCare rule barring nondiscrimination in health care, a federal appeals court ruled.

In a ruling issued Friday, a three-judge panel on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously found the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) violated the religious beliefs of the plaintiffs, which included a group of nuns who run health clinics for the poor and an association of Catholic...

It's Sunday morning and a small group sits around a fire pit in a community garden under the limbs of an expansive box elder tree. Church is about to start. And it's cold.

"God our Father, we are just so thankful for this time that we have to share this morning," says Pastor Chris Battle, a big man with a pipe clenched in his generous smile. "And we really thank you for fire that keeps us warm even as we sit up under this tree. We just pray that you would bless our time together."

Three years ago, Battle walked away from more than three decades leading Black Baptist...

As Congress decided last week to codify federal protection of same-sex marriage, a high wall continues to divide the debate on religion and LGBTQ issues.

Some Christians consider same-sex relationships and gender fluidity to be sinful and contrary to biblical teachings.

Other Christians affirm LGBTQ distinctions and support same-sex unions and ordination of gay and transgender clergy.

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When queer students at Yeshiva University sued the school for discrimination in spring 2021, critics were quick to question why LGBTQ students would opt for an Orthodox Jewish university in the first place.

But for many LGBTQ Orthodox Jews, as with believers of other faiths, their religious identities are as nonnegotiable as their queer identities.

“A lot of people ask, why would somebody who is queer stay Orthodox? It’s like...

Across the country, United Methodist churches are voting to leave the denomination by following an exit plan approved by its leaders more than three years ago.

But in Florida and North Carolina, some churches have decided to sue United Methodist regional bodies, called conferences, in state courts as they seek independence from a denomination they view as having strayed from its theological moorings on issues related to human sexuality.

Last month, 38 churches in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church ...

The Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow has always been bothered by Advent’s emphasis on the imagery of light and darkness.

For at least the last decade, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) pastor has been urging other clergy to be thoughtful in how they use the language — often equating light with good and dark with bad — during the liturgical season of Advent in the roughly four weeks leading up to Christmas.

“My annual plea to preachers that during Advent we be aware of how much and how often we equate dark with bad and light with good,” he ...

A bipartisan bill to ensure national protection of same-sex marriage rights is inching closer to President Joe Biden's desk, thanks in large part to statements of support from religious leaders who oppose same-sex marriage but are satisfied with the bill's religious liberty protections.

However, the nation's Catholic bishops are continuing to sound a familiar alarm that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage — which has been the law of the land since the U.S. Supreme Court's ...