LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Christian school in Louisville gave an assignment this week asking middle school students to write a letter to a hypothetical friend warning against homosexuality, resulting in public criticism and a review by school leaders.

The Christian Academy of Louisville School System assignment calls for a seventh grader to write a ...Read more

The imminent overturning of Roe v. Wade is a disaster for women. It is also a disaster for the Catholic Church, whose hierarchy in America has made opposition to abortion central to its mission.

The American Catholic Church is deeply divided, and the bishops’ obsession with matters of gender and sexuality is driving these rifts. Most American...Read more

BALTIMORE -- It has been an agonizingly long time since the members of Baltimore’s two oldest Reform Jewish temples have been able to worship as well and as fully as they’d like.

Membership at Har Sinai Congregation and Temple Oheb Shalom dwindled for years, and with it their prospects for long-term survival. They considered merging five ...Read more

On April 25, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, about a public school football coach who pressured his players to pray with him at the 50-yard line. The court’s conservative majority seemed to signal support for the coach.

It’s an important case for a nation where religious freedom ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina churches can stay open during a crisis, even amid a pandemic like COVID-19, under a bill Gov. Henry McMaster signed on Tuesday.

The bill prohibits the state from closing churches and other places of worship during a state of emergency if other essential services are allowed to operate. However, the state can ...Read more

BELL, Calif. — The scent of shawarma and rice floated through the Mediterranean fusion restaurant during the lunchtime rush as servers brought heaping plates of meat, hummus and pickled vegetables to hungry diners.

Ali Tehfi watched as his crew, many of them fasting for Ramadan like him, bagged orders, filled soda cups and alternated between ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Driving north on Interstate 294, Chicago-area drivers might notice a billboard that reads “My hijab, my right” featuring an illustration of a Muslim woman with her arm raised to make a fist. The ad is part of a campaign organized by local Islamic organizations to raise awareness of the violation of the freedom of religion right of...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- The Sisters of St. Basil never put out so much as a leaflet seeking donations for Ukraine.

It wasn’t necessary. Stuff simply started showing up.

Sleeping bags. Medicines. Clothing. Children’s games. Socks for soldiers. Baby bottles, wipes, diapers and strollers, walkers and wheelchairs, soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes, ...Read more

HOLLAND, Mich. — Growing up in this small town near the western edge of Michigan, Christy Berghoef learned to live by a simple rule.

"To be Christian is to be Republican is to be 'pro-life,'" she said recently, sitting in a renovated shed-turned-office behind her house on the 40-acre farm of willows and gladiolus where she was raised. "All ...Read more

MIAMI -- What can get millennials and Gen Z-ers to pause Netflix and avoid Instagram?

For some teens and young adults, it’s the call of Jesus.

A 13-year-old says she found God through break-dancing. A 29-year-old who was “church hurt” is using music to help welcome others into his parish. And a group of college students said preparing ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Maria Fedachtchin’s fingers trembled a bit as she etched the first intricate lines of beeswax along the smooth, unblemished shell of an egg cradled in her palm.

She’s learning to design pysanky, the ornately decorated traditional Easter eggs of Ukraine, where the 60-year-old was born and lived until her 1991 immigration to ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Muslim children typically aren't expected to fast during Ramadan until they reach puberty. But often kids will want to start earlier because they see everyone else abstaining from food and water from sunrise to sunset — followed by their community gathering to break their fast together — and they want to participate.

"I ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Last year, Maqsood Maqsoud celebrated Ramadan, a time of reflection, piety and charity, in the city of Kabul, where he grew up.

He heard the adhan, the call to prayer, broadcast from a nearby mosque. He broke his daily Ramadan fast with dates in the two-story compound where he lived with his parents, younger brothers, wife and ...Read more

Yaz Kubba, a fitness trainer and founder of YazFit, drinks about a gallon and a half of water a day.

She started that about 10 years ago, and the first year, when it came time to fast for Ramadan — when Muslims don't eat or, often more challenging, drink while the sun is up — she had to adapt.

"So I tried to squeeze in a gallon of water ...Read more

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is clear about forbidding Congress from passing laws that mix the business of the state with matters of religion. Yet Republican lawmakers, many of whom are lawyers and constitutional scholars, seem intent on delving into matters of religion anyway from their Capitol Hill and statehouse pulpits.

A...Read more

SEATTLE — The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not review a case involving Seattle's Union Gospel Mission, which was sued in 2017 over its anti-LGBTQ+ hiring policy after it declined to hire a bisexual lawyer who applied for a job.

Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the decision not to hear the case ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- One by one, the Buddhist priests bowed before the altar at the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo, wearing robes of yellow, orange and black.

Accompanied by the chanting of the Heart Sutra in Korean, they dipped a paintbrush into a bowl of golden lacquer to gently fill in the cracks of a white ceramic lotus that had...Read more

During World War II, sailors departing ships for shore leave would follow a beacon of light emanating from the steeple of San Pedro United Methodist Church. Upon arriving, they could take a shower, eat a meal prepared in our kitchen, maybe write a letter home.

History is never far away when the church you lead, and worship in, was built in 1923...Read more

BALTIMORE -- Growing up in Baltimore's Canton neighborhood in the 1950s, Maria Kaczaniuk embraced her Ukrainian heritage, learning to embroider traditional dresses and pillows, dance in the Ukrainian style and cook Ukrainian food. When she married a fellow Ukrainian American in Baltimore, they spoke to their children in Ukrainian at home.

“It...Read more

The Global Methodist Church, a new denomination of theologically conservative Methodists, will officially launch on May 1, a move that was expected for some time in the fight over full inclusion of the LGBTQ community.

The issue of full inclusion has been brewing in the United Methodist Church for decades.

In 2019, the denomination upheld and ...Read more