The Obama administration’s new envoy for international religious freedom told a U.N. commission on Tuesday (June 14) that government, political, religious and business leaders must stand ready to condemn hateful ideology.

This morning (June 15), Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leaders joined ecumenical and interfaith colleagues here in a prayer breakfast on human rights in Colombia.  The interfaith community called on Congress not to pass the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) until major improvements are made to labor and human rights conditions in Colombia.

The PC(USA) Office of Public Witness helped plan and participate in the Congressional Prayer Breakfast, hosted by the Interfaith Working Group on Trade and Investment.  Featured speakers included Congressman James McGovern (D-MA) and the Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, the PC(USA)’s director of Public Witness.

Colombia suffers from the world’s worst displacement crisis ― more than 5 million people, most of whom are indigenous small-scale farmers, have been forced off their land by paramilitary and guerilla groups, who sell the land for large-scale commercial farming, mining, and other extractive industries.

Substantial information on torture and other human rights abuses during 20 year of military rule in Brazil was entrusted to the Brazilian attorney general at a ceremony in São Paulo on Tuesday (June 14).

World leaders must set binding targets for phasing out fossil fuels and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to less than one degree centigrade as a measure of slowing down global warming, African faith leaders have said.

Southern Baptists meeting in Phoenix adopted a plan Tuesday (June 14) to try to boost minorities in their top leadership posts as they face continuing reports of stagnant baptism rates and declining membership.

Fulfilling a portion of its mandate by the 219th General Assembly (2010) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Middle East Monitoring Group (MEMG) has finished its work on a study guide for the Kairos Palestine document. The guide is available for download.

According to the MEMG’s preamble to the study guide, it “is designed for ordinary Presbyterians, who may have little experience with the plight of Palestinian Christians or the dynamics of the larger Israeli-Palestinian struggle, to better understand what our sisters and brothers in Christ from that region are experiencing and saying about faith and life in the Holy Land through the Kairos Palestine document.”

The Kairos Palestine document (“A moment of truth: A word of faith, hope and love from the heart of Palestinian suffering”) was released in December 2009 by a group of Palestinian Christian theologians, many of whom belong to churches that are partners with the PC(USA).

C. Ellis Nelson, a pioneer in research and writing about forming Christian disciples through the life of a congregation, died June 9. He was 95.

Today three boxes containing records of brutal torture and repression suffered under two decades of Brazilian military rule will be returned to the South American country from Switzerland, where the material has resided at the World Council of Churches (WCC) archives.

Though never short on spectacle, this year’s annual gay pride festival was even more colorful with a parade float, sponsored by Google, representing the country’s religious gay and lesbian communities.

The first-ever gathering of churches and organizations of Afro-descendent minorities across Latin America will take place in this Nicaraguan capital June 22-24.