NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ Grammy-nominated Christian artist Francesca Battistelli and her husband Matt Goodwin are the proud parents of a baby boy. Battistelli’s publicist, Jensen Sussman, says the couple welcomed their first child, Matthew Elijah Goodwin, on Sept. 22. He weighed 8 pounds, 15 ounces and was 21.75 inches long. Sussman says mom and baby [...]
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ President Barack Obama says he’s a “Christian by choice.” Obama says he became a Christian as an adult because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to him, and because he came to believe that Jesus died for his sins. Obama discussed his faith in response to a question Tuesday during a [...]
UNDATED (AP) _ A new survey of Americans’ knowledge of religion finds that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperform Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths. Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study by [...]
LONDON, Ont. (AP) _ A spokesman for Open Doors International — a ministry to persecuted Christians — says he prays that the elevation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s son will ease the plight of the country’s Christians. Paul Estabrooks, who visited North Korea last month, says an estimated 100,000 North Korean Christians are [...]
Why do things not appear to be getting better more quickly? What’s the cause of the situation we face? And what can we do to prepare for the future? I talk with Jason Remiger.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) _ The lawyer for an indigenous Malaysian tribe says the nation’s High Court has awarded the tribe damages after ruling that authorities unlawfully demolished their chapel. Members of the small tribe known as the Straits People went to court after authorities tore down their new Christian chapel 10 days before Christmas [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) _ The 225 Qurans that Florida Pastor Terry Jones threatened to burn are now in the hands of the Christian Defense Coalition, whose director has other plans for Islam’s holy book. The Rev. Patrick Mahoney says he’ll distribute the Qurans to churches and Christian leaders who promise to keep them as a reminder [...]
ATLANTA (AP) _ Casting Crowns lead singer Mark Hall says he’s proud of the students taking part in today’s “See You at the Pole” gatherings. Hall, who also is a youth pastor, says it takes courage — especially for public school students — to meet at their school flagpole with other Christians for prayer before [...]
SAN DIEGO (AP) _ Christian students at schools nationwide are planning to get up early Wednesday to gather and pray before class around their school flagpoles. Organizers of the annual “See You at the Pole” event predict that between one million and two million students will participate this year. “See You at the Pole” began [...]
ROME (AP) _ The Vatican is calling Pope Benedict’s four-day visit to Britain a “great success.” The pope returned to Rome Sunday after an open-air Mass in Birmingham that also was a beatification ceremony for Cardinal John Henry Newman, a 19th century convert from Anglicanism. The Mass was the last major event of Benedict’s trip, [...]
