(RNS) — Controversial Seattle megachurch founder Mark Driscoll will step down for at least six weeks while leaders review formal charges lodged by a group of pastors that he abused his power. The 43-year-old pastor has been under fire in recent months for plagiarism, inappropriate use of church funds and improper behavior toward subordinates. Returning from vacation Sunday (Aug. […]

Tony Palmer, the former South African director of Kenneth Copeland Ministries who recently used a cellphone camera to record Pope Francis issuing an appeal for unity between Catholics and Christians, died Sunday after a motorcycle crash in the United Kingdom. In January, Palmer held the smartphone that recorded Pope Francis calling on all Christians to set aside […]

CHICAGO — A federal court has ruled that humanist couples in Indiana can be married by their own ‘secular celebrants,’ something that until now was illegal under state law. In a unanimous ruling, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said denying humanists the right to be married by celebrants who share their lack […]

OKLAHOMA CITY (RNS) — A lesbian student who “married” her partner was recently expelled from an Oklahoma university one semester shy of her sports management degree. Christian Minard, 22, attended Southwestern Christian University, a school affiliated with the International Pentecostal Holiness Church in Bethany, Okla. As part of her admission requirements, she signed a lifestyle […]

(RNS) — Many Muslims leave Islam when they are told their sexuality and faith are incompatible. But a new photo exhibit of homosexual and queer Muslims challenges that notion. The exhibit, which opens June 18 at the Toronto Public Library, captures the humanity of subjects with close-up, intimate images. It’s the latest example of LGBT […]

BALTIMORE (RNS) — The head of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary offered an emotional apology to Southern Baptists for accepting a Muslim student into his school’s Ph.D. program — an unusual step for an evangelical seminary but one other schools have taken for years. “I made an exception to a rule that I assumed, probably wrongly, […]

WASHINGTON (RNS) — A Christian, a Muslim and a Jew turn up together on a Washington, D.C., bus. It’s no joke. They’re the faces of a new ad campaign by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil liberties group. And the ad is the latest volley between Muslim and non-Muslim groups that has played […]

RIO DE JANEIRO (RNS) As Brazil counts down to the opening of the World Cup on June 12, churches in cities hosting the international soccer tournament are not content to sit on the sidelines and cheer. They’ve launched a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of the hundreds of vulnerable children at risk of sexual exploitation […]

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Americans are showing more tolerance for a range of behaviors, with sex between unmarried adults, medical research on stem cells from human embryos, and doctor-assisted suicide all showing record highs and increases in “moral acceptability” from last year. The Gallup poll’s annual “moral acceptability” scale has been conducted since 2001 and charts […]

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — In the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, al-Qaida became a household name. But today, other extremist Islamist groups, many in Africa, are vying for headlines. Recently, the group Boko Haram gained international infamy after it abducted more than 250 schoolgirls. Since 2009, Christians in northern Nigeria have borne the […]