NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS)—Jake Pulsipher’s first day as a working missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began at 6:30 a.m. with prayer and exercise, followed by breakfast and study. Then he put on a black suit, white…
Survey finds record 19 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans
(RNS)—Unbelief is on the uptick. People who check “None” for their religious affiliation are now nearly one in five Americans (19 percent), the highest ever documented, according to the Pew Center for the People and the Press. The rapid rise…
Project Ruth celebrates two decades ministering to Roma children
BUCHAREST, Romania (ABP)—Project Ruth’s Mihai Ciopasiu is all too glad to talk about the success the organization has enjoyed the past two decades serving the poorest and most shunned children in Romania. The nonprofit began as a day center with…
OPINION: Waiting for the bullets
What went through her mind during the final minutes of her life? What feelings of terror flooded her heart as she crouched on the rock-strewn barren ravine bank just outside her native village of Charikar in Afghanistan? Powerless to prevent…
Cornerstone ends, Wild Goose takes off
(RNS) Demon Hunter. Vengeance Rising. Payable on Death. Since 1984, these and other Christian heavy metal bands have been congregating every summer in a field near Chicago for the Cornerstone Festival. And for much of the 1980s and 1990s, it…
Retro music
CHICAGO (RNS)—Every year, some 100,000 pilgrims trek to the Taize ecumenical community in France where the biggest attraction is the music, a throwback—way, way back, about 1,500 years or so—to repetitive plainchant. Last month, for the first time, the Taize…
Power of faith
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS)—Andrew Hamblin’s Facebook page is filled with snippets of his life. Making a late-night run to Taco Bell. Watching SpongeBob on the couch with his kids. Handling rattlesnakes in church. Hamblin, 21, pastor of Tabernacle Church of God…
Interfaith talks on the rise in the Bible Belt
Interfaith dialogue is on the rise, not just in formal conversations led by judicatory leaders but in local communities where friendships forge as ministers of various faiths work together for common goals amid increasing religious diversity in the Bible Belt….
N.T. Wright asks: Have we gotten heaven all wrong?
NEW YORK (RNS)—The oft-cliched Christian notion of heaven—a blissful realm of harp-strumming angels—has remained a fixture of the faith for centuries. Even as arguments will go on as to who will or won’t be saved, surveys show that a vast…