Barely visible among the high-rise apartment buildings and cocktail lounges, a battered steel door in Manhattan’s trendy Tribeca neighborhood leads to a basement jammed with barefoot men praying on their lunch break.

The makeshift mosque is a far cry from the 13-story proposed Cordoba House, the so-called planned “Ground Zero mosque” that’s two blocks closer to the busy construction site where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood.

And the leaders of Masjid Manhattan want to keep it that way.

“We are not involved with that other group,” said Imam Mustafa Elazabawy, raising his voice just loud …

The Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has already taken several steps in order to comply — early in some cases — with the healthcare reform legislation passed by the U.S. Congress earlier this year.

"We've all heard a lot about the legal requirements arising from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) legislation," said Pat Haines, senior vice president of benefits for the Board of Pensions. "We will meet or exceed these requirements while placing the best interests of members, churches, and employing organizations first at all times."

At its July 24 meeting here, the board …

Christians and Muslims need to recognize that they are “spiritual siblings,” speakers at a global Baptist congress have stated, while warning against Islamophobia.

“The vilification of Christianity by Muslim extremists in order to justify militant jihad and the need to convert an ‘immoral’ West to Islam is alive and well,” Nabil Costa, executive director of the Lebanese Baptist Society in Beirut, Lebanon, said during the July 28-Aug. 1 Baptist World Congress in Honolulu.

“In the same way, political and media voices in the West have used long-standing prejudice against Islam in order to paint a vile picture of a religion …

The Catholic Church’s highest official in the Holy Land sharply criticized Israeli authorities for permitting a gay pride march on July 29 through the streets of Jerusalem.

In a statement issued the day after the city’s 8th Annual Gay Pride Parade, which attracted 3,000 marchers, Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal said the event seeks to “defy family and marriage.”

Twal said the parade, “its organizers and the authorities who allow it, care neither for the feelings of families nor the holiness of this city.”

The patriarch said homosexuals can “have their parade wherever they want,” as long as it is not …

The Rev. Saleem Ghubril was a ninth-grader in Lebanon when he first heard about Jesus. At 14 years old, his first prayer was that he wanted his life to count.

"That continues to be the heartbeat of this man," said Ghubril, co-pastor of Mosaic Community Presbyterian Church and executive director of The Pittsburgh Promise, which raises college scholarship money for students in Pittsburgh Public Schools.   

That desire to not waste one's life is universal, Ghubril said July 28. He was speaking at the New Wilmington Mission Conference held at Westminster College July 24-31, where he was the daily morning …

In society, as in science and mathematics, a group that shares common qualities and goals is called a family.

In modern society, the definition of what makes a family unit has evolved tremendously and no longer fits the traditional black-and-white images of 1950s television programs. Now, there are many shades of gray.

And congregations, treasured as "church families" because they are united in faith and purpose, have also experienced many changes. Church families are not perfectly running social establishments but rather, imperfect faith-based units called to gather around the presence of the perfect God. Church members are called to strengthen …

Concerns about pollution and water quality have prompted an environmental advocacy group to call for the banning of baptisms in the lower Jordan River, where the Bible says Jesus was baptized.

“For reasons of public health as well as religious integrity, baptism should be banned from taking place in the river,” said Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli director of EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East.

Israeli authorities said on July 27 that tests done on the water of the lower Jordan River show the popular site for baptismal ceremonies at Qasr el Yahud on the West Bank meets health ministry standards. …

One group of Christians confidently proclaims that a plain reading of the Bible is a slam dunk in their favor. The other side appeals to Scripture’s grand narrative toward freedom and inclusive love.

The argument boils over and ripples through the wider culture. The search for middle ground proves futile. Denominations break apart.

Sound familiar? It could be 2010 — or the mid-19th century.

As U.S. churches and denominations slog through divisive and long-running arguments over homosexuality, many Protestant progressives have sought to claim the historical and moral high ground by aligning their cause with abolitionism.

“I think almost everybody …