The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has voted to continue dialogue on same-sex relationships and the ministry following a Special Commission report to the Assembly.

India’s Mar Thoma church celebrated the 175th anniversary of its reformation with a visit from the general secretary of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC), who said that “reformation requires a unity in which we challenge one another.”  

“The gift of the cross binds us together. Our open arms can be a sign of the ecumenical movement of the cross, showing that we need one another,” said the Rev. Olav Fyske Tveit on Aug.  20, addressing church leadership at the headquarters in Thiruvalla, Kerala state.

― In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, “Lojong” is the practice of training one’s mind to be clearer and more compassionate by studying and meditating on 59 short aphorisms from the Buddha’s teachings.

No. 21 on the Lojong list: “Approach every situation with a joyful mind.”

If Jeff Bridges hadn’t chosen to self-title his new album of “blues and country hymns,” he could have called it “A Joyful Mind.”

Bridges, 61, the Oscar-winning actor best known for playing the iconic character Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski in Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1998 cult classic, “The Big Lebowski,” released the 10-song album earlier …

Jesus is a terrible party planner, said the Rev. Amos Disasa at the closing worship of the National New Church Development Conference here Aug. 11.

His rising from the dead deserved a big party, but Jesus instead told his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit, said Disasa, preaching on Luke 24: 36-49.

Kairos Church, a ministry experiment of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, is located in downtown Atlanta. But it was born out of a small rural village in Japan.

Beth and Thomas Daniel, co-pastors of Kairos since it began in their living room in 2007, first met in that Japanese village when they were both part of a teaching program.

Police investigators in Pakistan are developing a theory that the murder of Pakistani religious affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti was due to a “family dispute,” not religious extremism, according to a story on Aug. 9 in the Express Tribune English daily newspaper.

Quoting an unidentified official associated with the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the assassination, the Tribune said “Shahbaz’s murder is said to be linked to a ‘chronic rivalry’ with relatives who lived in Faisalabad five years ago."

Bhatti, 42, was a Roman Catholic and vigorously campaigned for minority religious rights in Pakistan, which is 95 percent Muslim. He had criticized the country’s blasphemy law, which makes it a capital crime to insult Islam, before he was ambushed and sprayed with bullets on March 2 as he was leaving for his office in Islamabad. Groups claiming ties with the Islamic Taliban and al-Qaida later claimed responsibility for the murder.

Almost every major college and university offers a degree in religious studies. But secularism? Nary a one ― until now.

Starting this fall, Pitzer College, a small liberal arts school in Southern California, will offer a bachelor’s degree in secular studies. The degree is the first of its kind in the United States, according to the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College.

As the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks approaches, church leaders reflect on the past and look forward to the future.

In a letter to “all who minister in the name of Jesus Christ in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),” elder Cindy Bolbach, Moderator of the 219th General Assembly (2010), Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, and Linda Valentine, Executive Director of the General Assembly Mission Council, equate the attacks with those “that define a generation.”

At the end of the Engage Conference here Aug. 11, the Rev. Alice Ridgill encouraged participants to use what they learned during the week.

Preaching on Luke 24:49, Ridgill spoke of Jesus’ commandment to the disciples to stay in Jerusalem after his resurrection until they’d received the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was the new kid on the block, said Ridgill, organizing pastor for The New Faith Church in Greenwood, S.C. Jesus no had presence on Facebook or Twitter, no praise team, no PowerPoint presentations and no seminary education.

There’s been a lot of talk lately around the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s 1001 in 10 challenge — to plant 1001 worshiping communities in the next 10 years.

Various entities within the denomination have begun making commitments to plant 100, 200 or even 250 of these new communities.

But fairly quickly comes the question: Where will these 1,001 communities come from?