By the time the red, white and blue-colored microphone had been switched off, the crowd of 3,000 had listened to hours of invective and grievance.

“We’re under warfare,” one speaker told them. Another said she would “take a bullet for my nation,” while a third insisted, “They hate you because they hate Jesus.” Attendees were told now is the time to “put on the whole armor of God.” Then retired three-star Army general Michael Flynn, the tour’s...

Four years after the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue, believed to be the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has rattled a diverse swath of the state’s Jewish community, alarming liberal Jews with his remarks and ...

Queer students like Veronica Bonifacio Penales, who have been protesting religious university policies they call discriminatory and homophopic, often find themselves confronting the same question: “Why would you go to a Christian school if you are LGBTQ?”

For many of these students, this fight at religiously affiliated universities is part of a larger push happening from within Christianity toward more inclusive beliefs to, as activists at Seattle Pacific University put it, “deconstruct harmful theologies on sexuality, gender and queerness.”

And, as they’ve reminded...

United Methodists have for generations been a mainstay of the American religious landscape — one of the most geographically widespread of the major Protestant denominations, their steeples visible on urban streets, in county seats and along country roads, their ethos marked by a firm yet quiet faith, simple worship and earnest social service.

But the United Methodist Church is also the latest of several mainline Protestant denominations in America to begin fracturing, just as Episcopal, Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations lost significant minorities of churches and members...

Leandro De Leon wondered if his Catholic faith would remain strong during a global pandemic.

He left his home in the Philippines 17 years ago and has lived in Squirrel Hill with five colleagues and friends since 2019. The 61-year-old graphic designer lost his job and learned how to bake and cut hair during the pandemic.

Sometimes he wondered why God allowed so much misfortune to fall on people, both the ones he knew and those he didn’t. He went to a Zoom funeral for someone who died before the COVID-19 vaccine became available. The ceremony was streamed through a...

Around 5pm in Fort Worth, Texas, as the April evening sun splashed angelic beams of light across the event space’s concrete walls, Brittany Dawn Davis began baptizing women in a horse trough.

Wearing a black sweatshirt stamped with the word “mercy” – a nod to a local megachurch, Mercy Culture – and her white-blond hair extensions tied in a loose ponytail, Davis dunked woman after woman into the cold water as cheers of “woo!” erupted from onlookers.

Most of the women looked younger than 30 years old. Some shivered; some wept and smiled as they received their blessing...

Father Patrick O’Connor, pastor of Jesús Obrero (Jesus the Worker) Parish, northwest of downtown Fort Myers, orchestrated a familiar operation Oct. 4 as he shuffled about his parish hall stacked high with clothing.

An efficient food and water distribution line was in full swing to serve an estimated several thousand members of the mostly farmworker and Hispanic community who arrived on what was the busiest day of emergency supply distribution since Ian landed, according to O’Connor.

Volunteers from a Spanish-language radio station in West Palm Beach had just...

A new NBC News/Telemundo poll focusing on the Latino electorate found that 41% of Latinos who do not currently claim Catholicism as their religion said they had previously been Catholic.

Jonathan Calvillo, an assistant professor of Latinx studies at Emory’s Candler School of Theology, said the flip side of that statistic is just as important: the growing number of non-Catholic Latinos who were never Catholic to begin with (58%).

Some were raised Protestant, of course, but increasingly, he said, many are raised nonreligious.

Source:...

On the first Saturday of fall, a sweating Bart Barber trekked across a weedy pasture in search of Bully Graham, the would-be patriarch of the rural Baptist pastor’s fledgling cattle herd.

With the afternoon temperature in the mid-90s, the 52-year-old Texan found the bull — whose nickname reflects his owner’s deep affection for the late Rev. Billy Graham — and 11 heifers cooling under a canopy of trees.

“Hey, baby girl,” Barber said as he patted one of the cows, a favorite he dubbed Lottie Moon after the namesake of his denomination’s international missions offering...

Across the ideological spectrum, there were predictions of dramatic consequences when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a public high school football coach’s right to pray on the field after games.

Yet three months after the decision — and well into the football season — there’s no sign that large numbers of coaches have been newly inspired to follow Joseph Kennedy’s high-profile example.

“I don’t think there has been a noticeable uptick in these sorts of situations,” said Chris Line, an attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocates for...

Dolores Mejia thought the Chicago Bears could use a Hail Mary.

In fact, she said the prayer several times as she watched the 1986 Super Bowl, pairing the intercession to the Holy Mother with two other rosary staples — the Our Father and the Glory Be — before her team defeated the New England Patriots 46-10 and took home their first and only Vince Lombardi Trophy.

“I was ecstatic, but I couldn’t believe it,” she said.

Source:...

Inmates, college students, climate activists, LGBTQ people, clergy sex abuse survivors, health care professionals, church reform advocates and older Catholics are among those who have participated in their own listening sessions for the grassroots consultation that has been held ahead of the 2023 Synod of Bishops in Rome.

In all, 110 non-diocesan Catholic groups—universities, advocacy nonprofits, religious congregations, ministries and private associations of individuals, among others — submitted their own synodal "synthesis" reports this year to the U.S. Conference of...

While the 50 Venezuelan migrants that were transported to Martha’s Vineyard by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did create a crisis on the island, Massachusetts was already experiencing a migrant crisis, according to some of the state’s religious leaders.

Debra Feldstein is a bit frustrated, and cautiously optimistic.

Since her older child started going to school 11 years ago, she’s been asking teachers, principals and administrators if they could consider not having picture day, school dances or crucial testing happen on important Jewish holidays, such as the Rosh Hashana New Year’s celebration happening this week.

“I have been fighting this battle every year for 11 years,” she told Lookout on Wednesday. Now, given new efforts to respond to such concerns by both the Santa Cruz County Office of Education and some...

Hours into last month’s debate over one of the most significant pieces of climate legislation ever passed, Maryland’s senior senator turned his remarks to Jewish tradition.

Sen. Ben Cardin, who is Jewish, noted that discussion of the Inflation Reduction Act, with $369 billion in funding for climate and energy at stake, coincided with Tisha B’Av, a time of Jewish collective mourning over historic tragedies.

The Democrat’s comments stemmed from Dahlia Rockowitz, a leader for the group Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, who had reached out to Cardin’s office over...