religion news service

People take part in the annual "March of the Living" to commemorate the Holocaust, in Oswiecim, Poland, April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

“Being here made me realize how important my Judaism is. I’m a link in a long chain that the Holocaust tried to break. People my age are the future.”

Image via Katie Haugland Bowen/Creative Commons

San Antonio is about 63 percent Hispanic — the largest majority-Hispanic city in America — 30 percent white and 7 percent black. Helmke suggested the interfaith group ought to look more like the population itself.

Kimberly Winston 4-11-2018

Image via Kimberly Winston / RNS

In an attempt to reframe the story of slavery and reclaim food traditions, she has dedicated a section of the garden to re-creating some of the farming techniques and foods that enslaved Africans brought to America.

Pope Francis arrives to lead a Holy Mass to mark the feast of Divine Mercy in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican April 8, 2018. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

“As with any magisterial document, it will take some time to digest and unfold the gift that Pope Francis has given us.” 

Image via Adelle M. Banks / RNS

“Certainly, ending racism might seem like an aspiration but, like the very first disciples, we followers of Jesus are called to bear witness to something that the world cannot yet believe is possible,” said the Rev. Sharon Watkins, director of the NCC’s Truth and Racial Justice Initiative and the president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). “We are called to say this can happen. Racism can end.”

Aysha Khan 4-04-2018

Image via University of California Press / RNS

The most important thing for Muslims is that we have individual Muslims occupying spaces of power now. We have the agency and the empathy to develop stories about our religion and our people that can help erode demonization of our faith. We have a mounting generation of leaders in various sectors who can do that more successfully than ever. I see that as a big step.

Kimberly Winston 4-02-2018

Image via Creative Commons / RNS

“Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity,” King said in a radio address in India.

Image via HarperCollins / RNS

People have often said to me, “If Paul came back today, what would he be most shocked at in today’s church?” And I say, unhesitatingly, our disunity — not just the fact that we’re not united, but the fact that we don’t care.

Image via Adelle M. Banks / RNS

As tourists move toward Room 306, they can look out a window past the wreath on the balcony across the street to the partially open bathroom window of the boardinghouse from which the assassin’s bullet was released. “Dr. King never uttered a word after being shot,” reads the display in front of the room.

Image via Rafael Ozen / Yad Ben-Zvi Institute

“There are hundreds of web pages of Holocaust denial” in the Arab world “but almost nothing in Arabic that combats this denial,” Saadoun said. “We’re teaching Arabs about their own history.”

Naila Inayat 3-28-2018

Ahmadi women walk past graves at the Ahmadi graveyard in the town of Rabwah, Pakistan, on Dec. 9, 2013. Three years earlier, 86 Ahmadis were killed in two simultaneous attacks on Friday prayers in Lahore. Image by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

“Why should my religion be a business of the state? If my religion is mentioned on the identity card, that makes me even more vulnerable as a minority,” said Asher Daniel, 19, a university student in Lahore and a Christian.

Image via Adam Covington/Baptist Press

“This news will, we understand, bring great sorrow,” Rummage said. “I have shared with the Executive Committee officers what Dr. Page shared with me, including Dr. Page’s repentance and deep regret that his actions have caused pain for others.”

Image via Fredrick Nzwili / RNS

“I think it’s important that we do not let the interest in Black Panther go without harnessing that moment to transform it from just a cultural movement into a sustained movement,” he said.

Aysha Khan 3-20-2018

Image via Seek Refuge Co. / RNS

Because for her, designing clothes for Muslim women is less about a modest fit and more about carrying out an Islamic ethic. Of course, it’s also about style. “The modest fashion industry didn’t have anything that was speaking to the fashion-forward and edgy Muslim girl,” Ijaz says. “They’re all speaking to a person that I would see as my mom or my aunt.”

RNS Staff 3-20-2018

Image via Google Maps / RNS

Courts have generally rejected challenges to “See You at the Pole” events, in which students who want to pray gather at their school’s flagpole outside of class time. And the Supreme Court has generally upheld student-led prayer as long as it is not compulsory or organized by school officials.

Image via Emily McFarlan Miller / RNS

Another issue that we know: In a number of states, pregnant women, when they give birth in the midst of their sentences, they’re forced to be shackled to a gurney in the midst of their delivery process. We know being born into that stress-induced state has irreversible cognitive impacts on the child, but we still haven’t changed the law in light of that.

Kimberly Winston 3-14-2018

British physicist Stephen Hawking delivers a lecture on "The Origin of the Universe" at the Heysel conference hall in Brussels May 20, 2007. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File photo

“What could define God [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God,” Hawking told Diane Sawyer in 2010. “They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible.”

A worshipper holds a cross during a protest in front of the closed doors of the Church of the HolySepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City, February 27, 2018. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
 

“It is absurd for Jerusalem residents to fund municipal services for the churches … on their own, and for the municipality to be prevented from collecting enormous sums that could significantly improve the city’s development and services,” Barkat said.

Image via Kit Doyle / RNS

“The internet is public space,” said John Kutsko, executive director of the Society of Biblical Literature, the oldest and largest learned society devoted to the critical investigation of the Bible, with about 8,500 members, mostly scholars. “It’s our understanding that .bible was registered to be public space and not have the kind of restrictions that you would expect of a domain that was proprietary or brand-oriented.”

Image via Michael Wuensch/Creative Commons

“I am sure the largest currency used on the black market, for [buying] haram things, is the U.S. dollar. So if the question of a currency being haram is what it is used for, the dollar would be the most haram,” Sabree said. “Just because a tool is used for something haram, doesn’t mean the tool is haram.”