Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

Belief Beat

Thank you for visiting Belief Beat. This blog is no longer being updated. Please enjoy the archives. Here are some other blogs you may also enjoy:   Beliefnet News   Good News Happy Reading!  

Author Alain de Botton has announced plans to build an Atheist temple in the United Kingdom, presumably so nonbelievers have a place to gather and share their philosophies. Um… isn’t that what Starbucks is for? Also, I can’t wait to see how the architect will handle this kind of project. Maybe the building can feature…

Alaska Airlines, now the country’s seventh-largest airline, has announced it will stop offering prayer cards with its in-flight meals. (It’s just raining religion news in the great unchurched Pacific Northwest lately.) I’ve flown Alaska several times since moving to Seattle, but I confess that I’ve never noticed these Psalm quotations. They were only offered on…

I reported for Reuters at the Washington state Capitol yesterday, covering the public hearings on a gay marriage bill — and in between, the breaking news that the state Senate now has enough votes to pass the bill. (The House already had enough votes.) It now appears that Washington’s lawmakers will legalize gay marriage next month,…

Hope everyone had an introspective Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, whether observed as a faith-related holiday, a nice break from the work week or something else entirely. Check out this story from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly about how mandatory sentencing for drug crimes and non-violent offenses has created “The New Jim Crow” system in…

Are you proud of religion reporting that you or your colleagues did in 2011? Religion Newswriters Association has 19 contest categories that recognize journalistic excellence for stories about faith, values, and ethics in newspapers, blogs, magazines, TV, radio and books. The early-bird deadline is Jan. 13 (tomorrow!); regular deadline is Feb. 1. There are more…

I guess it’s true what they (sort of) say: You don’t go to the Supreme Court with the case you want, but the case you have. It didn’t seem to me that Hosanna-Tabor Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was a good example of a church’s “ministerial exception” right to fire someone in spite of anti-discrimination…

As I expected, the New Hampshire primary resulted in Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Jon Huntsman (the Christian conservative candidates) beating Newt Gingrich (Christian conservative redefining himself as conservative Christian), Rick Santorum and Rick Perry (conservative Christians). This is in contrast to the caucus results in Iowa, a more evangelical state, where we saw the conservative Christians…

Voting has begun in the New Hampshire primary, and I expect that Mitt Romney will continue to do well — especially since New Hampshire voters care a lot less about religious bonafides (aka Jesus talk) than their counterparts in Iowa and South Carolina. As for last week’s Iowa caucus results, here’s an excerpt from my analysis…

Thanks to everyone who made it out last week to the Religion Newswriters Association & Religion Communicators Council networking event at The Huffington Post. Looking forward to more RNA/RCC gatherings; it’s a great way to talk faith-related news and get new ideas and sources. Check out RNA’s list of the top religion news stories of…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners