Author: Staff Writer

Source: CNN

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/08/an-armada-of-faith-leaders-tours-the-gulf-spill/

There were only five small boats, 20 to 25 feet long, quietly moving through the water, barely making a ripple in the area designated as a “No Wake Zone." 

It was part show and tell, part media circus, part holy pilgrimage. On board the boats were a dozen high-profile...

Author: Khristina Narizhnaya

Source: Birmingham News

Wire Service: AP

Author: Sudarsan Raghavan

Source: The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/06/AR2010070605449.html?hpid=moreheadlines

For 13 years, Judge Mudhar Ahmed has worked in relative obscurity, issuing Muslim marriage certificates, divorcing Muslim couples and weighing in on Muslim inheritance disputes. Now, he's facing an issue unlike any he has seen. He has one...

Author: Becky Yeh

Source: One News Now

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=1075884

A California school district has decided in a 5-0 vote to adopt a Bible course that will be available to students in the upcoming school year.

Beginning this fall, high school seniors of the Chino Valley School District will have the chance to enroll in a new course called "Bible as/in Literature and History."

Author: Gaia Pianigiani

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/world/europe/04palio.html?ref=religion_and_belief

No horse race is more sacred in Italy than the Palio, which traces its lineage back 700 years. This year, however, the hotly contested chase has taken an unexpectedly ecumenical — and disputed — twist.

For the first time, a Muslim painter was asked to design...

Author: Robin Russell

Source: The United Methodist Portal

http://www.umportal.org/article.asp?id=6914

In a bold move to prepare future clergy for America’s increasingly diverse religious landscape, Claremont School of Theology will help offer clerical training this fall for Muslims and Jews as well as Christians.

And the project has the blessing of the United Methodist Church, with which the seminary has long been affiliated.

...

Author: Sean O'Sullivan

Source: The News Journal

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100701/NEWS03/7010329

Attorneys representing an anonymous Jewish family who unsuccessfully sued the Indian River School District over the school board's practice of opening its meetings with a Christian prayer have appealed to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Author: William Wan and Michelle Boorstein

Source: The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/29/AR2010062905331.html

At an evangelical institution such as Liberty University, personal testimonies are a kind of sacred currency; how Jesus saved you from damnation often defines you as a person. Nobody had a story quite as dramatic as that of Ergun Caner, dean of Liberty's seminary...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65R4RA20100628

A university can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that bars gays and nonbelievers, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a case that pitted anti-discrimination principles against religious freedom.

Such official recognition qualifies campus groups for funding and other benefits.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices upheld a U.S....

Author: Dan Barry

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/us/28land.html?ref=religion_and_belief

In a small white building along the baptizing Bon Secour River, a building that once housed a shrimp-net business, the congregation of the Fishermen Baptist Church gathered for another Sunday service, with the preacher presiding from a pulpit designed to look like a ship captain’s wheel.

After the...

Author: Lisa Wangsness

Source: Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/06/24/theological_schools_partnership_could_reshape_clergy_training/

Leaders of Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre and Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, which will become partners in a yet-to-be-named interreligious institution next summer, say...

Author: Aseem Shukla

Source: The Washington Post

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/aseem_shukla/2010/06/what_nikki_haleys_victory_does_not_mean.html

Last night's Republican primary runoff in South Carolina plausibly clears the way for Nikki Haley to join Bobby Jindal as governors with an epochal distinction: two Indian Americans leading two Southern states...

Author: Mariecar Mendoza

Source: The Desert Sun

http://www.mydesert.com/article/20100619/NEWS01/6190312/1141/news01/Feds+warn+cross+on+BLM+land+violates+law

Across illegally installed on land in La Quinta has prompted federal officials to issue a warning to residents that open space isn't a blank canvas for anyone to do as they please.

The 8-foot-tall white, wooden cross erected...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: ABC News

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/religious-duel-tennessee-10957587

God-fearing Christians oppose group of Muslims' bid to build a mosque.

Author: Mark Oppenheimer

Source: New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/us/19beliefs.html?ref=religion_and_belief

When a chaplaincy dies, there is nobody to preside over the funeral. But if there were a funeral, would anyone show up?

In May 2009, Jennifer Walters, dean of religious life at Smith College, closed a budget gap by laying off her only three practicing chaplains, representatives of the...