Religion News Service

For the Gwich'in Nation, the more-than-three-decade fight to defend the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge from oil development has prompted a spiritual and cultural renaissance in Alaska's rural villages.

I wish I could publish a blank column today. As a 75-year-old white guy, it is hard to know what to say in response to racism and police violence toward black men and women.

Across the country, the clergy took different approaches in their protesting.Some preferred to express solidarity from afar — from their pulpits or social media accounts. Others organized their own faith-based demonstrations. A few activist-minded believers decided to, as they described it, " use their privilege " to put their bodies on the line in confrontations with police. 

On June 1, President Donald Trump stood before the historic St. John's Episcopal Church in downtown Washington, D.C., and held aloft a Bible for cameras. Authorities had expelled at least one Episcopal priest and a seminarian from the church's patio.

America is experiencing a health crisis, but the pandemic has also spotlighted the moral crisis that afflicts our country. Until we care for all God's children, we will continue to be a nation that is sick in its soul.

On May 21, we celebrate the Ascension, the day Jesus left the Earth. I think a lot of us would like to have him back. But Jesus did leave and gave us the Spirit. Was that a fair trade?

The expansion of Communion services will contribute to declericalization of the church. It will also allow parishioners to see how well or badly laypeople can preside at liturgical ceremonies.

The Poor People's Campaign, a grassroots group with branches in more than 40 states, is urging resistance to or noncooperation with state plans calling for the reopening of the economy just weeks after the coronavirus put most of the country on lockdown. 

It should come as no surprise to Pope Francis, the author of the encyclical "Laudato Si'," that at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic we find a relationship between human beings and the rest of God's creation that has gone terribly wrong.

It’s important to understand that the Mary we meet on Mother’s Day in 2020 is not the same Palestinian Jewish girl who gave birth to Jesus 2,000 years ago. Nor is Mary a sentimentally perfect woman, meek, mild and passive, a religious Hallmark card who has come to represent the idealized mother figure most of our own mothers would struggle to measure up to.

Like the flood that came and wiped away everything and everyone, a pandemic is sweeping across all households and street corners, stealing life and breath from so many. We grieve now, maybe the way that Noah grieved then, or, in the Potawatomi flood story, the way that Original Man may have grieved after the world was destroyed, drowned by water. 

The National Day of Prayer, like most events amid the coronavirus, will have a different look this year as it is marked on May 7.

Refugees and displaced persons live under conditions ideal for the spread of COVID-19: packed together in tents or crowded into housing where social distancing is impossible.

A new poll released April 30 from PRRI shows Trump's approval has fallen on average by 6 percentage points and is now more in keeping with 2019 levels among most demographic groups.

From hashtagged travel photos posted on Instagram to immersive apps, a number of digital pilgrimages are making spiritual journeys possible for the faithful and the curious alike, even as they stay home.

With issues of access and technical ability among some congregants, and a pandemic that has closed their church doors and scattered congregations, African Americans have been scrambling to sustain crucial connections to their houses of worship.

Signs of the Times: Many believe that "normal" is just around the corner, this summer or at least next fall. The truth is that we will not get back to normal until the American population is protected from the virus by a vaccine.

In 2014, the Rev. Anna Woofenden moved to Los Angeles to try a bold experiment: to reenvision church as an outdoor community centered on a garden. As a church, the community would grow food, prepare it and eat it together, and share it with the neighborhood.

One year after the Cathedral of Notre Dame was nearly destroyed by a fire, its future remains uncertain. Prominent voices in France continue to argue about what should happen to the medieval gothic structure once its complex reconstruction is completed.

A conservative law firm launched a "ReOpen Church Sunday" initiative this week, calling on churches to begin gathering in person again despite reports of the deadly novel coronavirus being spread during worship services.