ATLANTA — The Southern Baptist Convention revealed on Friday that is under investigation by federal officials over the mishandling and cover-up of sex abuse complaints that go back decades.

The SBC said in a statement that the investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice will include several entities, each of which have committed to full ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — For 25 years Rabbi Barry Silver has served as the spiritual leader of L'Dor Va-Dor, a progressive synagogue in Boynton Beach, Florida. Like most congregational rabbis, he offers a Jewish perspective on major life events, giving weekly sermons, performing weddings, funerals and baby namings, and occasionally counseling congregants...Read more

WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito decried what he called “hostility to religion” in his country and Europe, as he made his first public remarks since the release of his opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion.

Speaking in Rome at a religious-liberty summit sponsored by Notre Dame Law School, Alito said ...Read more

In this era of reflexive counterpunching, where powerful people and institutions are often conditioned not to back down, public apologies are rare. When they do come, they are often begrudging statements designed to silence critics, not soul-searching, heartfelt acknowledgments of wrongdoing.

That makes it refreshing to see Pope Francis — ...Read more

SEATTLE — For the past three Sundays, a couple of dozen people gathering to pray in Mount Baker have met outside a locked church door.

As far as the Seattle Archdiocese is concerned, Our Lady of Mount Virgin Catholic Church was one of two churches that closed July 1 as part of a wrenching consolidation effort from Tacoma to Everett that has ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Holding her sons tight, Deborah Contreras shuddered with sobs as the women in a Los Angeles courtroom recounted years of sexual abuse inflicted by the man they once believed was an "apostle" of Jesus Christ.

She nodded as one of the women said there were countless other victims beyond those involved in the prosecution's case ...Read more

BALTIMORE — A jurisdiction of one of Christianity’s oldest churches will hold its national convention in Baltimore this week, marking the second time this month that a prominent Christian faith tradition has held its most important regular gathering in the city.

The Orthodox Church in America — one of the largest jurisdictions of the ...Read more

BALTIMORE — The Episcopal Church made good on vows by its leaders to take vigorous action against systemic racism, passing a number of resolutions aimed at promoting racial reconciliation — and electing minority candidates to two key churchwide positions — at its 80th general convention, a gathering of nearly 1,300 representatives that ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Racial reconciliation and healing will be the key issues on the agenda this week when a major religious denomination brings its national convention to Baltimore.

About 120 bishops and more than 1,200 clergy and parishioners will converge Friday on the Baltimore Convention Center for the 80th iteration of the general convention of ...Read more

People in the United States have an increasingly shifting outlook on the Bible, according to a new poll from Gallup.

Only 20% of people in the U.S. now say they view the Bible as the literal word of God — a record low — while a record-high of 29% of Americans agree the Bible is only a collection of “fables, legends, history and moral ...Read more

The six conservatives on the Supreme Court, who purport to revere the Constitution, have a funny way of ignoring the parts of the document that go against their conclusions. We know of no other way to rationalize their blithe ruling letting a high school football coach lead post-game prayers on the 50-yard line.

Joe Kennedy’s religious ...Read more

The Supreme Court on Monday took a significant step toward allowing prayer back in public schools. As with a decision last week that required the state of Maine to subsidize religious schools, the court rejected any notion of a wall separating church and state. Indeed, the conservative justices have again overruled a half-century-old precedent ...Read more

For Southern Baptists across the nation, Friday was a day of triumph, rejoicing and praising God.

After 50 years of legal battles and prayer, Roe vs. Wade was overturned as the court declared a woman's right to an abortion is not protected by the Constitution.

But even as millions of Southern Baptists celebrated what they regard as a historic ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- What's in a name? Plenty, if you ask leaders and members at Edina, Minnesota's Meetinghouse Church, which was known for more than seven decades as Colonial Church.

After a divisive, two-year process that included weekly meetings with a local branding studio, the church ditched a name linked to colonialism and adopted one it hopes...Read more

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court took another major step toward obliterating the wall separating church and state by holding that the state of Maine is constitutionally required to subsidize religious education when it pays for private secular education. The implications of this decision in mandating government financial support for religion are ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho -- As the housing crisis in Idaho's Treasure Valley weighs down on Idahoans struggling with housing insecurity, a new affordable housing project plans to build homes for low-income families in a nontraditional place: underused church land.

Collister United Methodist Church in Boise and Leap Housing, a nonprofit that creates ...Read more

Just days after an independent investigation revealed a list of 700 volunteers, ministers and pastors known to be “credibly accused” of sexual abuse, the Southern Baptist Convention ushered in a series of reforms meant to ensure public oversight over the nation’s largest Protestant denomination continues.

Roughly 8,500 delegates ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended its support for religious schools, ruling that parents who send their children to these institutions have a right to tuition aid if the state provides it to similar private schools.

The 6-3 decision in the Carson vs. Makin case from Maine could open the door to including religious schools ...Read more