Author: Peggy Fletcher Stack

Source: The Pew Forum/The Salt Lake Tribune

Wire Service: RNS

http://pewforum.org/Religion-News/RNS-Utah-meeting-seeks-to-unify-Orthodox-Christians.aspx

If a group of Orthodox Christians meeting in Salt Lake City this week (Oct. 14-16) has its way, future generations of Greek, Serbian, Russian and other ethnic faithful all will worship together in a...

Author: Whitney Jones

Source: Beliefnet News

Wire Service: RNS

http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2010/10/courts-uphold-teens-piercing-r.php

Two federal courts have issued strong defenses of religious expression in two separate decisions, one involving a teenager's nose piercing and the other a license plate.

Author: Nick Miroff

Source: NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130108154&sc=17&f=1001

When Cuban President Raul Castro met with the country's Catholic Church leaders this summer and agreed to free dozens of political prisoners, it was a major boost to an institution facing increased competition for Cuban worshippers.

The island has undergone a spiritual revival since the communist...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130409561

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing a South Carolina jail over a policy that prohibits inmates from having any reading materials other than the Bible.

The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday seeking to overturn the policy on behalf of Prison Legal News, a monthly journal on prison law. Since 2008, the magazine's...

Author: Paul Vitello

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/nyregion/08zero.html?ref=religion_and_belief

Many New Yorkers were suspicious of the newcomers’ plans to build a house of worship in Manhattan. Some feared the project was being underwritten by foreigners. Others said the strangers’ beliefs were incompatible with democratic principles.

Concerned residents staged...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: The Baha'i World News Service

http://news.bahai.org/story/795

Britain's most prominent heads of religion have called for the release of the seven Baha'i leaders serving prison sentences in Iran.

A statement by the United Kingdom's religious leaders – describing the sentencing of the seven as a "gross violation of the fundamental human right to freedom of religion" – was signed by, among others, the...

Author: Mary Fitzgerald

Source: The Irish Times

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1006/1224280471825.html

Inside the imposing five-storey meditation hall shaped like a lotus and covered with more than 1,000 marble petals, there are representations of several Hindu deities, but none as prominent as that of Lakshmi, a goddess of wealth and prosperity.

Every year, millions come here to the sprawling...

Author: Jeanette Rundquist

Source: Beliefnet News

Wire Service: Religion News Service

http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2010/10/ban-on-school-christmas-carols.php

"Silent Night" and other religious songs will remain off the program at holiday concerts in one New Jersey school district -- and possibly others across the country -- after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a school...

Author: Bob Unruh

Source: World Net Daily

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=210073

A court decision in Wisconsin has turned back an attack on the inclusion of the national motto "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, a $600 million-plus facility that highlights the heritage of the United States.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge William M. Conley...

Author: Christi Parsons and Peter Nicholas

Source: The Los Angeles Times

Author: Laurie Goodstein

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/us/28religion.html?ref=religion_and_belief

Americans are by all measures a deeply religious people, but they are also deeply ignorant about religion.

Researchers from the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life phoned more than 3,400 Americans and asked them 32 questions about the Bible, Christianity and...

Author: Electa Draper

Source: The Denver Post

http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_16182492

In her mind's eye, Sue Wood still clearly sees the young man burned head to toe in a grease fire.

He had fled a hospital emergency room to seek help at Wide Horizon, a nonmedical religious nursing-care center.

"He was in tough shape," said Wood, the center's director of nursing.

The burn victim, in his early 20s, was a Christian...

Author: Amy Flowers Umble

Source: The Washington Examiner

Wire Service: AP

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nation/va-christian-activist-hopes-to-distribute-qurans-103807604.html

Florida Pastor Terry Jones canceled his Sept. 11 Quran burning, but what has become of the Islamic holy books since the international controversy has subsided?

The...

Author: Bob Moen

Source: The Washington Post

Wire Service: AP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/25/AR2010092502285.html

Plans by a group of Roman Catholic hermit monks to erect an outsized monastery in northern Wyoming have pitted neighbor against neighbor and aroused debate with religious undertones.

At the center of the Wyoming...