Author: Martin Weil and Susan Kinzie

Source: The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/07/AR2009040704634.html

The senate at the University of Maryland at College Park has voted to eliminate the invocation from the school's commencement ceremony.

The recommendation, which must be approved by the university's president to take effect, was intended to be more sensitive...

Author: Karin Hamilton

Source: Religion News Service

http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=17858

The Army's top chaplain has come under fire from some Jews for issuing a call for a day of prayer and fasting that falls on the first day of Passover.

Maj. Gen. Douglas Carver, a Southern Baptist and Army Chief of Chaplains, had issued the prayer call in response to the rising suicide rates among soldiers. Last year, the Army reported the...

Author: Le Roy Standish

Source: The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/04/06/040709_1a_Prayer.html

Those fighting to keep God out of public meetings have been attending the meetings themselves.

Armed with note pads, laptops and digital audio recorders, members of the Western Colorado Atheists and Free Thinkers have been filling the pews at Mesa County...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Hinduism Today/Religion News Service

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/hpi/2009/4/5.shtml#1

A secular organization in Britain that backs an atheist ad campaign on London's buses is now producing "certificates of de-baptism" for people wishing to renounce their Christian faith -- and claims it is getting thousands of takers. The National Secular Society says more than 100,000 ex-worshippers have downloaded the de-baptism...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Agence France-Presse

http://www.canada.com/Life/Americans+still+think+Obama+Muslim+poll/1457376/story.html

More than two months after Barack Obama placed his hand on the Bible and was sworn in as president of the United States, 11 per cent of Americans still think he is a Muslim, a poll suggested on Thursday.

White evangelical Protestants and Republicans were the most likely to...

Author: Adelle M. Banks

Source: Religion News Service

http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=17820

An Episcopal priest who professed two years ago that she was also a practicing Muslim has been defrocked by the Episcopal Church.

Rhode Island Bishop Geralyn Wolf informed Ann Holmes Redding, who lives in Seattle, of the decision on Wednesday (April 1). Although she lives outside the diocese, Redding was ordained in Rhode Island and...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Thaindian News

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/entertainment/hindus-jews-want-restructuring-of-prayers-at-uk-parliament_100173444.html

Hindus and Jews have asked the United Kingdom to re-evaluate the matrix of opening prayers in its Parliament, which probably date back from 17th century.

Rajan Zed, acclaimed Hindu statesman; and Rabbi...

Author: George Conger

Source: Christianity Today

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/marchweb-only/112-53.0.html

Jesus saves, the Episcopal Church teaches, but a growing number of its clergy and leaders believe other faiths may lead to salvation as well. Long divided and distracted by questions of sexual ethics, the Episcopal Church (along with most mainline Protestant communities) are facing a cultural and theological shift...

Author: Joe Millican

Source: Abbotsford News

http://www.bclocalnews.com/fraser_valley/abbynews/news/41861847.html

As he translated the words of Punjabi speakers unable to communicate in English, Abbotsford city councillor Moe Gill may not have been aware he was part of a historic occasion on Monday night.

However, a public hearing to debate the merits of Abbotsford’s fourth Sikh temple was considered just that by a...

Author: Electa Draper

Source: The Denver Post

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_11974138

Call it a leap of faiths — there's a reason a committed Muslim such as Emad Hussain attends a Methodist church and why he will raise his Muslim children in its sanctuary.

Hussain fled Iraq in 2007 after he survived an attack by militants on his workplace and became a target, but he left without his wife and two young sons.

It...

Author: Scott Wyman

Source: Sun-Sentinel

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/state/epaper/2009/03/21/0321busislamad.html

In the wake of controversial bus ads saying Jesus followed the principles of Islam, Broward County inspection reports commissioners are considering a ban on advertising religious messages on public transportation and all other government property.

The new policy would still permit...

Author: Victor L. Simpson

Source: The Houston Chronicle

Wire Service: AP

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/6321336.html

Religion must reject violence, Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim leaders Thursday before celebrating an open-air Mass in front of thousands and delivering a message of hope for Africa's expanding, vibrant Catholic flock.

In Cameroon's capital of Yaounde, a clapping,...

Author: Theresa Winslow

Source: Examiner/The Associated Press

http://www.examiner.com/a-1913972~Photos_explore_African_American_culture_of_faith.html

If Leroy Evans doesn't go to church, he feels lost.

"It's a part of me," said the trustee of Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church in Annapolis, where he's been going for decades. "It's about everything. I came in young, I've really enjoyed being...

Author: Bae Ji-sook

Source: The Korea Times

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/03/113_41615.html

Koreans are guaranteed with the constitutional right to any religious belief, but some schools and civil service offices have been found to have practiced religious bias, the government said Thursday.

Forty-five cases of such bias have been reported to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism since October last...

Author: Richard C. Dujardin

Source: The Providence Journal

http://www.projo.com/news/content/priest_03-15-09_QMDMFI7_v3.1dc7473.html

Even as a Brown University student, Ann Holmes Redding was never far away from controversy.

She was barely into her freshman year in 1968 when she joined a black student walkout to get the university to admit more blacks — a move that resulted in a near quadrupling of the number of...