KARLSRUHE (ANS) — Church victory: The German Supreme Court has curbed Sunday shopping during the advent season in the capital Berlin. The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe today ruled the Berlin regulations allowing shops to open on up to ten Sundays annually, including all four Sundays leading up to Christmas, unconstitutional. The German federal constitution... Continue Reading

Despite Barack Obama’s face featuring prominently on the evening bulletins on the various televisions positioned around one of central Kabul’s large and grimy restaurants, tonight few of the diners were taking any notice of the news that an extra 30,000 US troops would be arriving in Afghanistan soon. “It is just a political decision taken... Continue Reading

The proposal to ban the construction of new minarets was approved by 57.5% of Swiss voters who participated in the Nov. 29 referendum. Only four of the 26 cantons opposed a ban, but there was a clear division between urban and French-speaking areas, where support was relatively low, and rural and German-speaking cantons, where two-thirds... Continue Reading

Thirteen embryonic stem-cell lines were approved for use by U.S.-funded researchers today, the first of hundreds of cell colonies that may become available under new polices promised by President Barack Obama. Stem cells taken from days-old human embryos can be kept alive indefinitely in solution, and have the ability to turn into about 200 cell... Continue Reading

Bowing to an outpouring of protests from residents, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors reversed a week-old rule Tuesday that had banned public displays, including Nativity scenes and Christmas trees, at the county courthouse. Supervisors voted 7 to 1 to allow community groups “equal access” to the courthouse grounds. The supervisor who voted to keep... Continue Reading

Until recently, Europeans, including Western Christians, had generally assumed that “the entire world is just as tolerant and indifferent to religion” as they are, an official of the Moscow Patriarchate points out, but for Muslims, Jews, and Eastern Christians, “religion occupies a place of first importance. But the Swiss vote to ban new minarets shows……that... Continue Reading

Rod Dreher is concerned about certain trends in law enforcement. He quotes Reul Marc Gerecht saying: “For the FBI, religion remains a much too sensitive subject, much more so than the threatening ideologies of yesteryear. Imagine if Maj. Hasan had been an officer during the Cold War, regularly expressing his sympathy for the Soviet Union... Continue Reading

According to a Kentucky Baptist Convention official, 2,587,995 Kentuckians “are lost without Christ.” Ross Bauscher, Evangelism Growth Team Leader for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, announced those figures at the convention’s annual meeting earlier in November. The context was a talk he gave promoting a major evangelistic campaign planned by the state’s largest denomination for early... Continue Reading

Of all the many venerable institutions in Tuscaloosa, Stillman College has one of the longest and proudest histories. Authorized by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1875, what was to become Stillman held its first classes in 1876 and was chartered as a legal corporation by the state of... Continue Reading

Oregon’s prohibition on allowing teachers to exercise their faith by covering their heads or wearing other religious garb dates to a shameful anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant period in state history and is overdue to be changed, House Speaker Dave Hunt, D-Gladstone, said. Hunt plans to introduce a bill to repeal the 1923 law and says he is... Continue Reading