SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (RNS) As a white man surrendered to federal marshals Friday (April 15), workers were rebuilding the pulpit of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ that he was convicted of burning down the night of President Obama’s election. Michael Jacques, 26, surrendered a day after a jury convicted him on civil rights and…

WASHINGTON (RNS) A New York minister will soon fill the Obama administration’s long-vacant position to oversee international religious freedom after the Senate voted to confirm the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook for the post. Thursday’s (April 14) voice vote positions Cook to become the first female and the first African-American in the post after a lengthy…

NEW YORK (RNS) The heady days of American congregational expansion are over. The nation’s largest Jewish group, the 1.5 million-member Union for Reform Judaism, is now confronting the same stagnant or even declining membership trends that have become routine for Catholic, mainline Protestant and even some evangelical churches. So when the URJ recently tapped Rabbi…

MOSCOW (RNS/ENInews) A Jehovah’s Witness on trial in Siberia was found innocent on Thursday (April 14) of charges of “inciting religious hatred and enmity,” in a case that was seen as a litmus test of Russian religious freedom. Aleksandr Kalistratov had been accused of distributing Jehovah’s Witnesses literature, which has been qualified as extremist in…

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