This has been a wonderful summer if you follow sports: tennis championships, end-of-season tournaments and soccer’s European Championship and Copa America – all leading up to the most global event of all, the Olympics.

The Olympic Games began as a religious celebration in ancient Greece, with competitions to honor their gods. But the Olympics declined once the Roman Empire replaced...

(RNS) — While most Americans continue to broadly support LGBTQ rights, that support may be waning, including among religious Americans, according to a new poll from PRRI. The report, based on interviews with more than 22,000 U.S. adults in 2023, found that Americans are slightly less likely to support same-sex marriage and LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections and less likely to oppose allowing business owners to refuse to serve LGBTQ people for faith reasons, compared with the year before. 

Source: https://religionnews.com/2024/03/12/poll-shows-slight-dip-in-us-...

When Nabeela Elsayed was speaking at a corporate conference several years ago and explained that she would miss the group dinner because she was fasting for Ramadan, she recalls, her manager responded: “Just don’t fast.” Ms. Elsayed, an executive coach who was previously chief operating officer for Walmart Canada, said she had heard many such slights when stepping away during the workday to pray.

For years, she told business leaders that their diversity, equity and inclusion programming should teach workers about anti-Muslim hate, antisemitism and other...

Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas. Articles and op-eds in newspapers remind readers of that fact every year, lamenting that the Jewish Festival of Lights has almost become an imitation of the Christian holiday.

These pieces exist for a reason. Hanukkah is a minor festival in the Jewish liturgical year, whose major holidays come in the fall...

in places like Passaic County, which boasts a significant concentration of Palestinian Americans and has long been a hub in New Jersey for the more Conservative and Orthodox followers of Judaism, the bewildering events in the Middle East are being acutely monitored — and exposing the delicate divisions among neighbors that resurfaced this past summer, prior to the war.

While residents stand firm that violence and bias are not welcome here, charged language on social media and the bloodshed overseas are exposing stark differences but also mutual concerns among Palestinian...

A member of the second-oldest Black Catholic order in the United States.

A voodoo priestess.

A gay atheist woman.

A new documentary from the National Museum of African American History and Culture explores the range of faith and spiritual expressions of Black millennials and the choices they have made to reject — or embrace — the religious rituals of their childhood.

Source: https://religionnews.com/2023/10/24/documentary-on-black-millennials-depicts-wide-range-of-religion-rebellion/

Like the U.S. public as a whole, a growing percentage of Asian Americans are not affiliated with any religion, and the share who identify as Christian has declined, according to a new Pew Research Center survey exploring religion among Asian American adults.

But the survey also shows that 40% of Asian Americans say they feel close to some religious tradition for reasons aside from religion. For example, just 11% of Asian American...

Although Sri Lanka suffered decades of violent ethnic conflict, Sri Lankans seem to have positive attitudes toward people of other religions – despite the fact that most see religion as key to their Sri Lankan identity.

A new Pew Research Center report titled “Buddhism, Islam and Religious Pluralism in South and Southeast Asia” found that 62 percent of Sri Lankans surveyed...

Faith offerings are plentiful and deep-rooted at the late-summer agricultural fairs that, nationwide, bring together 4-H children parading their prize animals and political candidates unleashing their ambitions.

Here in the middle of the Twin Cities, in addition to two church dining halls that have served up hot meals for a combined 200 years, there are fairgrounds Sunday services, booths handing out free Bibles or Qurans, and a stage for Christian bands beside the rides.

With pre-pandemic attendance surpassing two million — in a state with 5.7 million residents —...

The 21st century has been hard on God, with faith in the divine and organized religion facing unrelenting decline.

The devil, it turns out, is not doing much better.

Losing faith in God seems to be accompanied by disbelief in the Devil, according to a new Gallup report that found more than half of Americans (58%) believe it exists, down from over two-thirds (68%) in 2001. About the same percentage (59%) said they believe in hell, down from 71% two decades ago.

The poll of 1,011 adult Americans, conducted in May, asked about beliefs in five spiritual...

Public school teachers may soon be free to wear a religious insignia, clothing, marks or emblems to work without fear of losing their job.

What happened: The House Education Committee unanimously passed legislation on Tuesday that would eliminate a section of the Public School Code that barred teachers from wearing such items while performing their teaching duties. Violators faced a year’s suspension for the first offense or permanent disqualification after multiple offenses. That section of law also allowed school directors to be held criminally liable for...

More pro-gay God-talk at Pride this year is no accident. It's a national initiative of the progressive Interfaith Alliance, involving Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and others. It's called Faith for Pride, and it's meant, in part, to counter the message of anti-LGBTQ rights legislation in statehouses around the U.S.

"We are not going to let this happen to our LGBTQ siblings," said Interfaith Alliance president Paul Raushenbush, who is also a Baptist minister. "Not on our watch."

Beyond passing out swag and having fun at Pride events, he says it's a time to...

Gov. Joe Lombardo on Thursday signed a bill permitting Nevada students to wear religious and cultural regalia for graduation ceremonies.

Students are entitled to express themselves at graduation through any unique cultural and religious identity, Lombardo said.

“This legislation will allow students to walk with pride and confidence at their graduation, and I’m grateful to all of the teachers, legislators, and students who worked to get it to my desk,” he said in a statement.

Source: ...

A lawsuit brought by a former Hamline University art history instructor who showed images of the Prophet Muhammad in class is raising new questions about how to interpret laws prohibiting religious discrimination.

An attorney representing Erika López Prater told a federal judge Wednesday that he believes the private university in St. Paul would have treated his client differently had she been Muslim. The university decided not to renew her contract and in a campus email an administrator called her actions "undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and...

A former Chicago high school student’s claim that a transcendental meditation instruction program is unconstitutional can proceed, a federal court said. 

The US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied cross-motions for summary judgment on Tuesday because there were factual disputes on whether an initiation ceremony into the program violated the establishment clause. 

Amontae Williams sued Chicago’s Board of Education, the David Lynch Foundation, and the University of Chicago over the program in 2020. Williams signed a consent form to...