Mark A. Kellner

Postal Reform Act clears Senate, heads to Biden’s desk for stamp of approval

The U.S. Postal Service is waiting for President Biden's signature to take advantage of legislation designed to relieve some financial burdens that have been on the balance sheet for more than a decade.

March 8, 2022

Christian music radio offers balm for the soul, with a contemporary beat

Contemporary Christian music is reaching an audience beyond the pews, a top broadcasting executive says.

March 6, 2022

Nearly 3 in 4 Protestant pastors say identifying as transgender ‘morally wrong’

Nearly 3 in 4 U.S. Protestant pastors say it's morally wrong to "identify" as a gender different than that one is biologically born with, a Lifeway Research survey reported Friday.

March 4, 2022

United Methodists postpone divorce-setting general conference to 2024

A convention at which the 6.3 million-member United Methodist Church was expected to finalize the terms under which so-called "traditionalist" congregations could amicably leave has been delayed again, this time to 2024, denominational officials said late Thursday.

March 3, 2022

Faith-based groups fund relief, evacuation efforts in Ukraine

More than 200 Jewish refugees from war-torn Ukraine are expected to be greeted as immigrants in Israel Sunday by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a Jerusalem-based relief official said Thursday.

March 3, 2022

Hundreds of Russian Orthodox clerics sign letter calling for end to Ukraine invasion

At least 272 clerics in the Russian Orthodox Church -- the faith often aligned with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin -- have signed an online letter calling for an immediate end of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the withdrawal of all troops and weapons.

March 3, 2022

Praying high school football coach gains support from NFL QBs Cousins, Foles

Eight current and former National Football League players, including quarterbacks Kirk Cousins and Nick Foles, have filed a friend of the court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a Washington state high school coach who was fired for praying on the 50-yard line.

March 3, 2022

Church openings approach pre-pandemic levels, but attendance levels stall, survey says

America's Protestant churches are gathering in person at a rate far greater than the beginning of 2021, a new survey from Lifeway Research reports.

March 2, 2022

Southern Baptist president won’t seek second term, breaking decades of precedent

The Rev. Ed Litton, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said Tuesday he would not seek a second consecutive term as head of America's largest Protestant denomination.

March 1, 2022

Alabama governor blasts high school sports association over inflexible playoff schedule

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, a Republican and self-identified Baptist, has sided with athletes from a Seventh-day Adventist high school that had to forfeit a game when the state's high school sports association balked at rescheduling a playoff game.

March 1, 2022

Washington National Cathedral embraces global reach via web streaming, pastoral care

The District of Columbia's newest megachurch doesn't have a smoke machine, praise band or rock concert-style musical numbers.

March 1, 2022

Catholic school parents ask D.C. mayor to drop mask mandate for religious schools

Five parents of students at parochial schools operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington are asking Mayor Muriel Bowser to lift mandates requiring masking at school.

February 28, 2022

Russian-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church leader joins opposition to Putin’s invasion

Metropolitan Onufriy, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate, an Eastern Orthodox body aligned with the Russian Orthodox leadership, ordered his clergy in the besieged nation to pray Sunday for Russia's defeat.

February 28, 2022

Eastern Orthodox faith leader joins Pope in condemning invasion

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world's 200 million Eastern Orthodox Christians, on Sunday condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine as "beyond every sense of law and morality," according to a message posted online by his office in Istanbul, Turkey.

February 27, 2022

Eastern Orthodox spiritual leader condemns Russian invasion

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world's 200 million Eastern Orthodox Christians, has condemned Russia's invasion in a phone call to the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the independent Orthodox Times website reported.

February 25, 2022

Museum of the Bible exhibit to probe Shroud of Turin’s controversial history

The Museum of the Bible will open a major exhibit on the Shroud of Turin on Saturday, but its top curator says the genuineness of the alleged burial cloth of Jesus isn't the point.

February 24, 2022

Christian docs’ group: Calif. law an attempt to make morally opposed physicians assist in suicides

A group of Christian physicians sued California Tuesday claiming last year's revisions to the state's 2015 assisted suicide law will force medical personnel to violate their conscience and participate in procedures they oppose on religious grounds.

February 22, 2022

Russia faces fine for violating ‘fundamental rights’ of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Russia's mistreatment of 14 Jehovah's Witnesses more than a decade ago violated their "fundamental rights to freedom of religion and liberty," the European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday.

February 22, 2022

Scandal, secularism eroding trust in America’s pastors, surveys find

America's clergy have lost the confidence of millions, according to two recent surveys, and experts say pastors will have to confront some harsh truths to regain that trust.

February 18, 2022

Atheist group sues West Virginia school district over ‘mandated’ Christian assembly

A lawsuit seeking to stop a West Virginia school district from sponsoring in-school religious assemblies was filed Thursday by attorneys representing the Freedom From Religion Foundation and 11 parents and students at the school.

February 17, 2022