Representatives of Christian Churches Together (CCT) — a fellowship of 36 denominations and six national organizations representing a large spectrum of Christians — has issued the first known formal clergy response to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Sunday morning, as I drove from Tucson to Phoenix to visit one of our churches — Pinnacle Presbyterian Church in north Scottsdale — I had lots of quiet time to listen to the news and think and pray about the horrific events of yesterday: a congresswoman, shot by a young man with the intention to kill her, then shooting eighteen others and six of them dying.
While the progress of ecumenism can typically only be measured over decades, simple local events during the upcoming week devoted to Christian unity are critical to the future of the church, said an ecumenical leader in the United States.
The late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has long been hailed as a civil rights leader, but religious studies professor Lewis Baldwin said one aspect of his life has often been overlooked: the role of prayer.
In an open letter to Congress published today (Jan. 13) as a full-page advertisement in Roll Call newspaper, faith leaders are calling for national “soul searching” and praying for Members of Congress after Saturday’s shooting spree in Arizona, which left six people dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ, critically injured.
Churches in Pakistan have expressed frustration over the government’s refusal to amend a controversial blasphemy law, as urged by the Pope and protesting civil rights activists.
Four days after an assassination attempt critically wounded a Jewish congresswoman and killed six others, Sarah Palin on Wednesday (Jan. 12) accused “journalists and pundits” of manufacturing a “blood libel” that seeks to link her and other conservatives to the massacre.
Top leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have sent a letter to the denomination’s partner church in Egypt expressing their “anguish” over the New Year’s Day terrorist bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria.
Lutheran World Federation (LWF) General Secretary the Rev. Martin Junge has urged in his 2011 New Year Message that Christians adopt language and actions that foster nonviolence and peace-building.
From the streets of Port-au-Prince to the hills of northern Haiti, Haitians today are commemorating the anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake that killed some 250,000 persons, devastated major cities and fueled Haiti’s uncertain political future.