To the average person, the idea of Christian hip-hop registers somewhere between Crocs sandals and minivans on the scale of “super lame things for white people.”

A person who has never listened to the genre might imagine it to be preachy, overly evangelizing and a little corny. As with most things, however, expectation and reality are two different things.

(RNS) An Alabama Presbyterian church may soon become the first in the nation to form its own police force, invested by the state with the rights of “regular” police.

Source: Alabama Senate gives megachurch the right to form its own police force | Religion News Service

HELENA, MT - A second Montana Roman Catholic diocese will file for bankruptcy protection as part of settlements involving more than 400 people in sex abuse lawsuits, church officials said Friday.

Source: Diocese filing for bankruptcy to settle sex abuse claims

TANTA, Egypt — Rattling a country already wrestling with a faltering economy and deepening political malaise, two suicide bombings that killed 44 people at Coptic churches in Egypt on Palm Sunday raised the specter of increased sectarian bloodshed led by Islamic State militants.

Source: Attacks on Christians in Egypt Undercut Sisi’s Promise of Security - The New York Times

WASHINGTON (RNS) A “sleeper” of a case before the Supreme Court pits three hospitals against employees who object to the institutions’ religious exemption from a federal law that protects pensions.

Source: Religiously affiliated hospital pensions at the center of Supreme Court case | Religion News Service

RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS ARE COMING FORWARD TO DEFY THE GOVERNMENT AND SUPPORT IMMIGRANTS. Refuting Donald Trump’s decisions on banning migrants, a network of Protestant and Orthodox churches are mobilizing their congregations to provide support and shelter to refugees. The church leaders have called on their congregants to stand against President Trump’s orders on banning refugees and building a wall across the U.S.-Mexican border and to lobby the president and the congress members who implement such plans.

Source: ...

(RNS) After President Trump signed a sweeping executive order on immigration and refugee resettlement, the Christian response seemed unambiguous.Statements condemning the action came from Christian leaders and groups considered both conservative and progressive, evangelical and mainline, Catholic and Protestant ­– Christians who otherwise might disagree on any number of political or theological issues.

Source: Christians in the pew and pulpit...