By GREG GARRISON c. 2011 Religion News Service BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) Mormon missionaries are often unwelcome guests when they knock at local front doors wearing white dress shirts and holding a Book of Mormon. But after a tornado, when Mormon missionaries arrive in work clothes carrying chainsaws to help clear fallen trees, they are a…

By ADELLE M. BANKS c. 2011 Religion News Service (RNS) Religious and human rights activists are asking U.S. churches to invite Jewish and Muslim clergy to their sanctuaries to read from sacred texts next month in an initiative designed to counter anti-Muslim bigotry. The June 26 initiative, called “Faith Shared: Uniting in Prayer and Understanding,”…

By AL WEBB c. 2011 Religion News Service LONDON (RNS) Professor Stephen Hawking, one of the world’s most eminent scientists, says the concept of heaven is “a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” In an interview with London’s Guardian newspaper, the 69-year-old Cambridge University cosmologist said that as a victim of motor neuron…

By FRANCIS X. ROCCA c. 2011 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY (RNS) The world’s Catholic bishops have one year to set national policies on clerical sex abuse of minors, the Vatican said on Monday (May 16), but such policies may vary significantly in each country, and will not be binding on individual bishops. All national…

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