As waves of demonstrators descended on New York City to protest corporate greed, they were met by typical sounds of raucous youth-led protests: drum beats, police sirens and shouted political slogans.
They didn’t expect to hear hymns.
Yet protestors rounding the corner of Zuccotti Park encountered dozens of white-robed worshipers singing spirituals and blessing the demonstrators while holding signs reading “Blessed are the poor” and brandishing handmade Christian crosses.
U.N. officials have condemned the sectarian violence in Cairo on Oct. 9 that left at least two dozen dead and hundreds injured. A protest against a church attack in Aswan turned violent as some Christians and Muslims battled each other and others joined forces to protest military rule and oppose soldiers and riot police.
Embracing a rapidly changing American religious context in which diversity is on the rise across the United States, the Presbyterian Multicultural Network (PMN) is committed to exploring a “Pentecost vision” for the church by imagining and working toward a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) which truly embodies communities of all God’s people “together in one place.”
Since the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ratified amendment 10-A in May, the denomination has heard a variety of reactions from its partners around the world, said the Rev. Hunter Farrell, director of Presbyterian World Mission, at an Oct. 6 meeting of the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA).
The Values Voter Summit that ended here on Oct. 9 offered a number of key insights into the 2012 presidential campaign, particularly the crowded and increasingly contentious GOP field.
The Family Research Council, which organized the gathering, said it drew more than 3,000 conservatives to hobnob, participate in panel discussions and hear every major GOP candidate except former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.
A four-day visit to North Korea by representatives of several South Korean religious denominations is a sign tensions may be easing between the two nations, observers said.
Led by Roman Catholic Archbishop Kim Hee-joong of Kwangju, the 24-member delegation planned to deliver wishes for peace from South Korea’s faith community, hold talks with religious counterparts and participate in joint prayer meetings.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Mid Council Commission (formerly Middle Governing Body Commission) has voted unanimously to eliminate synods and vest their ecclesiastical functions in five regional administrative commissions of the General Assembly.
But by a vote of 11-8, the commission rejected a proposal from its constitutional issues group, led by commission chair Tod Bolsinger of Los Ranchos Presbytery, that it recommend “the organization of non-geographic presbyteries and other covenant communities of congregations for missional purposes.”
Climate change is impacting human life and nature in severe ways. Yet it is the vulnerable who suffer most. As the life of such people is dependent on eco-systems for survival, churches join hands with other faith based organizations to support their cause, stressing an ethical aspect in the debate on climate change.
Five of the Dead Sea Scrolls that have been stored for decades in a climate-controlled exhibit at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem are now available in digital form to anyone with an Internet connection.
As a new international initiative seeks to stop child marriages, church-based centers in southern Kenya are an example of faith organizations providing a haven for girls and educating communities about the issue.