SALEM, Mass. (RNS) — When America’s first ordained missionaries sailed from here to India 200 years ago, they kicked off a movement to spread the faith and created America’s most potent export: Christianity. That’s the message that will reverberate across…
Alaska Airlines suspends prayer cards
NEW YORK (RNS) — After causing a bit of turbulence with some passengers, Alaska Airlines will no longer serve prayer cards with in-flight meals, the company announced Jan. 25. The cards, which take a line or two from the Book…
At 200, missionary movement ponders the future
SALEM, Mass. (RNS) — When America’s first ordained missionaries sailed from here to India 200 years ago, they kicked off a movement to spread the faith and created America’s most potent export: Christianity. That’s the message that will reverberate across…
COMMENTARY: The ultimate badge of honor
(RNS) — Even though men and women from every faith have been members of our armed forces since the Revolutionary War, the struggle for Catholic and Jewish chaplains to gain equality within the American military has been long and difficult….
10 minutes with … Lobsang Sangay
DHARMSALA, India (RNS) — At least three Tibetan Buddhist monks drank gasoline and set themselves ablaze in January, bringing the count of self-immolations to 15 since March 2011. Lobsang Sangay, the prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, attributes the deaths…
COMMENTARY: Spike Lee does right thing by religion
PARK CITY, Utah (RNS) — I have a confession to make. The only real reason I saw Spike Lee’s new film at the Sundance Film Festival here is because it is set in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, where…
After angering Catholics, White House honors teachers
WASHINGTON (RNS) — Following days of tension between the Obama administration and the U.S. hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, the White House on Jan. 25 heralded nine Catholic educators as “Champions of Catholic Education.” “Irony is the word of…
Top Catholic bishop feels betrayed by Obama
WASHINGTON (RNS) — In the wake of President Obama’s controversial decision to mandate that religious groups pay for contraceptives for their employees, much of the coverage focused on how the president had disappointed progressive allies by giving religious groups an…
Why Mitt Romney can’t be the Mormon JFK
NEW YORK (RNS) — Mitt Romney’s sudden downgrade from Republican frontrunner to potential also-ran coincided with a massive shift of conservative Christians voters in South Carolina to Newt Gingrich’s camp. Why? Many observers trace it to lingering suspicion among evangelicals…
Workers at religious institutions fear future of pensions
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (RNS) — Sue Fritz tended to the sick for more than two decades as a nurse at St. Peter’s University Hospital. By the time she left for another job in 1999, she was vested in the hospital’s…
Shhh! Pope praises value of short tweets, silence
VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Benedict XVI praised new communications technologies like Twitter on Jan. 24, saying that even “concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible,” can convey “profound thoughts.” Benedict did not explicitly refer to…
‘A miniature Christian bookstore’ in your palm
NEW YORK (RNS) — God may hold the whole world in his hand, but persecuted Christians can now hold an entire seminary library on a fingertip. Bible League International is working with the Digital Bible Society to carry the thumbnail-sized…