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Americans’ acceptance of gays and lesbians is continuing to grow, with a new poll showing that just over a third of Americans view homosexuality as a sin, down from 44 percent a year earlier....

Last week’s shooting at a California high scho...

Sometimes when I set out to preach from the Revised Common Lectionary I feel like calling someone from the Consultation on Common Texts to get the scoop on why the group settled on a particular set of pericopes. This week, Isaiah’s marriage metaphor and Jesus’ miraculous transformation of water into wedding wine are an obvious match. The rationale for including 1 Corinthians 12:1-11’s discussion of spiritual gifts is less clear.

New today from the Century: Ronald Rittgers on Brad Gregory's case against the Reformation, Steve Thorngate on Ryan Heber's masculine heroism, more.

We watch cars crash, bodies crush, drunks stagger, adolescents weep,              until...

How has Western society become so fractious, polarized and secular? Why are we powerless to curb consumerism? Brad Gregory blames the Reformation.

"I've been given an opportunity to color outside the lines," says Nanette Sawyer of Grace Commons and St James Presbyterian Church in Chicago, "the permission and charge to be creative and experimental."

This past week I have shifted into a new phase of ministry, which has necessitated saying goodbye to the congregation that I have served with joy over the past ten years. I was sad to leave, but excited for new possibilities. I was especially good at holding my emotions together over the entire transition, and though I am notorious for “losing it” in worship at the first sign of sentimentality, I held it together through all of my lasts—until it came to the last moment I would be at the church with my now eight-year-old son.

I'll admit it: I'm one of those people who, back in the 90s, learned Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" and played it note for note without even realizing it was written by the great Leonard Cohen. Glad to say I'd moved on by the time The West Wing, Scrubs and !@#$% Shrek got hip to the song, but still: no excuse for that.

New today from the Century: Interview with Nanette Sawyer, a pastor's child says goodbye to a church, more.

An ad campaign on San Francisco buses is aimed at trying to change public perception of the word "jihad," which the program's founder says has been distorted by extremists – Muslim and anti-Muslim ...

WASHINGTON (RNS) The persecution of Christians "vastly rose" in 2012 as radical Islamists consolidated power in Africa, according to Open Doors, a Christian missionary organization that publishes a...

Worried about exposure to foul language, immodest dress, peer pressure, and other inappropriate behavior, Susan Brown didn't want her two daughters attending public schools – even though she's a su...

CANTERBURY, England (RNS) A royal row has broken out between Church of England bishops and Prime Minister David Cameron's liberal-minded coalition government over a planned bill to change ancient l...

The seven deadly sins have new partners in crime....

Last year, Connecticut repealed the death penalty and California declined to. Americans are conflicted about capital punishment.

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama will take the oath of office with two Bibles that once belonged to a pair of civil rights icons: Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr....

NEWTOWN, Conn. (RNS) Four days after a gunman killed 20 schoolchildren and six others inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, boxes of books showed up at the Newtown public library....

The evangelical pastor chosen by President Obama to deliver the benediction at his inauguration ceremonies withdrew on Thursday (Jan....

The interior of the West End Temple in New York City’s Rockaway Beach neighborhood in Queens looks like a construction zone—walls and floors gutted down to the wooden studs, bathroom fixtures gone,...