Latest stories in Religion & Spirituality.

Young Orthodox Christians take part in a lights procession in Romania’s capital

  • A candlelit "Procession of Lights" lit up Bucharest as thousands of young Orthodox Christians marched from the new National Cathedral to Patriarchate Hill during the International Meeting of Orthodox Youth.
  • About 2,400 participants aged 16–35 from some 40 countries came together under the theme "Young people, Family and Life in Christ" to talk about challenges like hyperconnectivity and loneliness.
  • The event highlighted Romania's strong Orthodox identity — the huge National Cathedral (opened last year, 5,000-seat capacity) and a society where roughly 85% identify as religious — with Patriarch Daniel calling youth "a blessing" and central to the Church's mission.

Raphael Warnock has done it. Adam Hamilton wants to follow as a pastor-US senator

  • If Adam Hamilton wins his Kansas Senate race, he'd be only the second person in the past century to serve in the Senate while continuing to lead a church — he says he'd still preach about 12–18 times a year.
  • Raphael Warnock is the modern precedent: elected in 2021 and still regularly preaching at Ebenezer Baptist, saying pastoral work and politics can complement each other.
  • Hamilton leads the Church of the Resurrection — the nation’s largest United Methodist church (about 25,000 members) — and has consulted former senator-priest John Danforth on balancing both roles.

No Democrat has won a Kansas Senate seat in a century. Can a megachurch pastor change that?

  • Adam Hamilton, founder of a 25,000-member United Methodist megachurch, is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Kansas and says he would keep preaching if elected.
  • Conservatives have seized on a sermon suggesting non‑Christians could receive salvation, calling him "woke" or a heretic; Hamilton cites Methodist thinkers and defends his theology.
  • He presents himself as a centrist who won’t evangelize from the Senate, emphasizing unity, affordability and appealing to moderate, faith‑friendly voters.

California lawmakers pass bill allowing people to identify their Jewish ancestry on state forms

  • California lawmakers advanced a bill to let people voluntarily list "Jewish" as an ethnicity on state forms so the state can better count and serve Jewish residents.
  • Supporters say the data would help track things like unemployment, school representation and hate crimes; the bill includes privacy safeguards and a carve‑out to avoid losing federal funding.
  • Opponents worry about government lists of Jews given Holocaust history and distrust privacy promises, while supporters point to personal stories—like the bill’s author deciding to wear a kippah after an antisemitic incident.

A Jewish scholar chosen to lead the Catholic Biblical Association is hit by antisemitic backlash

  • Amy-Jill Levine — who as a child faced anti-Jewish taunts and even took Catholic catechism to learn about her neighbors — became a leading Jewish scholar of Christian Scriptures.
  • She was elected the Catholic Biblical Association’s first Jewish president, sparking an antisemitic social-media backlash despite strong support from many Christian colleagues.
  • Levine champions teaching Jesus in his Jewish context, works across denominations to combat antisemitism, and aims to strengthen Catholic–Jewish relations and religious education.

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