Religion
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From Diwali parties to daily puja: Hindu campus houses push for deeper faith practice
(RNS) — With more than 20 South Asian cultural and religious organizations on the campus of University of Illinois, where 25% of the student population is Asian, Connecticut native Rishabh Bhandari felt spoilt for choice as an eager freshman. Yet despite the widespread popularity of large-scale Diwali and Holi events, Bhandari said he felt there was a lack of focus…
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a year of pro-democracy prayer vigils in New York
NEW YORK (RNS) — On a recent Monday evening as commuters hurried past, a group of faith leaders set out a microphone and battery-run candles at the Columbus Circle entrance of Central Park in Manhattan for their weekly prayer vigil and held up a worn-out banner reading “Multifaith Monday: Witness for Democracy.” Within minutes, nearly 30 people had assembled, greeting…
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Multnomah gave up its campus in a failed takeover. Alums want it back.
(RNS) — Multnomah University was facing the end of its days. “We have cried, prayed, and walked a difficult path together as a community,” the Christian school’s president, Jessica Taylor, said in a 2023 video. “Without God’s provision, there was no path forward.” Then, in the fall of 2023, Taylor announced a new “transformative partnership” with Jessup University, a similarly…
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Judge stops Noem from ending Haitians’ protected status, but fear of ICE remains
(RNS) — In a last-minute ruling on Monday (Feb. 2), a U.S. district judge in Washington halted the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants. TPS, which allows designated Haitian nationals to live and work in the United States, was set to expire on Tuesday (Feb. 3) for some 350,000 people. In her ruling…
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A language course is reviving Moroccan Jewish culture and bridging Middle East divides
(RNS) — Growing up in Fez, Morocco, Yona Elfassi was always aware of the history of the city, which has been a center of culture, learning and spirituality since the ninth century. Home to great minds such as the 12th-century philosopher and jurist Ibn Rushd and his contemporary, the physician and codifier of Jewish law Maimonides, the city was shaped…
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DOJ vows to press charges after activists disrupt church where Minnesota ICE official is a pastor
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice said Sunday it is investigating a group of protesters in Minnesota who disrupted services at a church where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement apparently serves as a pastor. A livestreamed video posted on the Facebook page of Black Lives Matter Minnesota, one of the protest’s organizers, shows a…
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USCCB President Paul Coakley meets with Trump, Vance at White House
(RNS) — Archbishop Paul Coakley, the recently elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, met with President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other officials at the White House on Monday (Jan. 12). It marks the first time a U.S. president has met with the president of the bishops’ conference in nearly a decade. According to…
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Tending to ‘rough sleepers’ and finding Heschel’s radical amazement
(RNS) — The doors to St. Andrew’s Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which open at 7:30 a.m. on weekdays, opened to a crowd that had been gathering since 6 a.m. in the autumn chill. They were there for a hot breakfast. I was at the church with my daughter, Anna, a fourth-year medical student, one of a team of three…
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Religious-themed brick sets hold appeal for both children and adults in digital age
(RNS) — Sean Sutton was preaching at a small Bible camp in Georgia last year when he noticed a group of children and young adults focusing intently on building a small model of the tabernacle — they were using bricks repurposed from a Lego Minecraft set to recreate the tent-like sanctuary that housed the ark of the covenant, described in…
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Why do some people stay in their religion and others leave? A new Pew report has some clues.
(RNS) — Americans who had a positive religious experience as kids are most likely to keep the same faith as adults. Those who had negative experiences are most likely to change faiths or give up on religion. And while a majority (56%) of Americans still identify with their childhood faith, a third (35%) have switched — including 20% who now…
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