Institutions and movements — secular and religious — need each other to retain their vitality, even as they frustrate each other, cutting-edge theologian Brain McLaren told several hundred Presbyterians gathered here last week for "Church Unbound."

The annual "Church Unbound" conference, now in its third year, is billed as "for lay leaders, clergy, commissioned lay pastors, seminary students, and all who wish to take part in fashioning a new vision for the church."

Christian and Muslim groups have condemned a planned public burning of the Quran by a Florida church on the 9th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in new York and Washington.

A statement released by the Protestant Churches of Egypt through the United Church of Christ last week said it “regrets this destructive thought and declares total rejection of any attack against others’ religions and beliefs.”

It said Christian teaching encourages cooperation and “respect for others regardless [of] their affiliation or religion, and every person of all mankind is seen as a brother.”

The statement was in reference to …

Christian author Carole Lewis stands at the front of the church sharing her tale of woe: bankruptcy, a daughter’s death, a husband’s prostate cancer, a home destroyed by a hurricane. Pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman stands nearby, listening attentively.

Neither Coleman nor the congregation seems particularly fazed by Lewis’ litany of tragedies. Instead, they wait for what everyone seems to know is coming: a positive message.

And then, as if on cue, Lewis delivers.

“God has been so faithful to our family,” Lewis says, as Coleman and others nod in agreement.

It’s an ordinary Sunday at the Crystal Cathedral, the gleaming …

Laura Stover is proud of her reputation. 

Among the many ways she has served in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the veteran Christian educator is perhaps proudest to be known as the Presbyterian Youth Triennium’s biggest cheerleader.

Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons will join the staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness (OPW) for a webinar on Thursday, September 16 from 11:15 a.m. until noon. The webinar will present the public policy-related Overtures approved by the 2010 General Assembly.  The webinars periodically conducted by the Office of Public Witness provide an opportunity for Presbyterians at the local level to learn about and share in the development of priorities for the office and the larger church.  The Rev. Dr. J.Herbert Nelson II, Director of the OPW, has invited representatives of local congregations and presbyteries to participate …

For pastors, taking care of one's own spiritual, emotional and physical needs is essential, but it's a responsibility that's often pushed aside.

The Rev. Shawn Lovejoy urged leaders at the National New Church Development Conference here Aug. 9-12 to take time for themselves.

"We bring life to everyone else at the expense of our own physical, emotional and spiritual vitality and health," he said. "If the pastor is not healthy, the church will not be healthy."

Lovejoy is pastor of Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, Ga. Speaking to the conference Aug. 11, he detailed the series of events that led …

In the remote Bolivian Gran Chaco countryside, a Guaraní teenager and an old man walk side by side through the dry brush, looking at the ground and the horizon.  The boy is taking notes to reconcile with a global positioning system (GPS) mapping project he has in progress.

The teen is one of tomorrow’s generation of indigenous leaders in the vast Gran Chaco region of South America, spanning parts of Bolivia, Argentina and Paraguay. He and other indigenous youth are now mapping out the future for their people and delineating their past, in part by using GPS technology to document …

A Somali Christian leader has condemned the halting of the work of three relief organizations in Somalia by Al Shabaab, an Islamic militant group, which alleged the agencies were propagating Christianity.

“Now that they have suspended their work, it is the local people who will suffer,” Pastor Ahmed Abukar Mukhtar, the leader in exile of a small Christian community in Somalia, told ENInews on Aug. 10 in Nairobi.

Abukar, who fled Somalia for Kenya, criticized Al Shabaab, which controls most of southern Somalia, for claiming that the agencies engaged in attempting to convert Muslims, who account for almost all of …

Twenty religious organizations are calling for Congress and President Obama to ensure a fair and thorough investigation into allegations of forced human experimentation by the CIA on detainees after 9/11.

In June, the group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) released “Experiments in Torture” which detailed health professionals’ involvement in CIA interrogation programs.

The report alleged that the CIA used forced human experimentation for several purposes, including calibrating “the level of pain experienced ... ostensibly to keep it from crossing the administration’s legal threshold of what it claimed constituted torture.”

Religious groups affiliated with the Washington-based National Religious Campaign Against Torture …

After spending a few days at the National New Church Development Conference, the Rev. Edwin Andrade said he was leaving excited for the church of Jesus Christ.

"God is really doing amazing things and moving in powerful ways," he said. "And friends, there is more than just hope. In Jesus, there is victory."