(RNS) — In late April of 2015, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, senior pastor of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, opened a “Requiem for Racism” program by praying: We know only love can conquer hate, that...
(RNS) — On the last day of this year’s U.S. Supreme Court term, the justices ruled that parents may withdraw their children from public school classes where LGBTQ+ issues are discussed in an inclusive way. The right of parents “to...
(RNS) — Last week, a federal judge issued an injunction barring the state of Washington from enforcing an amendment to the state’s mandatory reporting law that would have required Catholic priests to inform authorities of child‑abuse disclosures made during confession....
(RNS) — Like other Jews of my generation, I grew up with a binary system: either “good for the Jews” or “not good for the Jews.” That was how we interpreted what was happening in the world. If a public...
NEW YORK (RNS) — New York Zendo Shobo-ji was quiet on a Saturday morning in late June, far removed from the muted hum and chatter that lingers in Lenox Hill, in Upper Manhattan, even on rainy summer days. Inside, a...
NEW YORK (RNS) — Illuminated by a skylight at the center of a small factory-turned-Hindu temple in Queens sits a murti of the Divine Mother — a 1-ton, 6-foot-tall icon of the South Indian village goddess Mariamman, an incarnation of...
AUSTIN, Texas (RNS) — Sandy Davis Kirk woke at 5 a.m. on July 4 to a roaring sound outside her window. “I heard people shrieking from the waters,” said Davis Kirk, whose backyard is bordered by the Guadalupe River. “It...
(RNS) — A West Virginia circuit court judge ruled that the state’s Water Development Authority violated the state constitution when it awarded a $5 million grant to an out-of-state Catholic school, a win for champions of church and state separation....
(RNS) — A report on the state of reproductive rights presented to journalists, policy wonks and activists in Brussels on June 26 begins with a quote from the 15th-century general and military theorist Raimondo Montecuccoli: “To wage war, you need first...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) –On a warm June evening, Christian music legend Amy Grant finished up a set at church in Brentwood, a music celebrity-laden suburb of the country music capital, set down her guitar and picked up her phone. “I’ve...
