News & Views

News and Views

3 weeks ago

Religious Russian President Vladimir Putin has used the common Orthodox character of Russia and Ukraine in his arguments for closer alignment between the countries. On one side is the Russian Orthodox Church and its Ukrainian denomination, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate. On the other is the Orthodox Church of Ukraine-Kyiv Patriarchate. Putin’s efforts to restore Russian prestige have included elevating the Russian Orthodox Church to the center of Russian identity and leveraging the potential religious soft power of the Moscow-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox […]

News and Views

3 months ago

Religious The sexual abuse crisis has had a heavy impact on Catholic church finances. From 2004 to 2020, dioceses and religious orders in the U.S. spent $4.3 billion on costs related to abuse allegations, mostly in payments to victims and attorneys’ fees. Thirty-one (31) dioceses and religious orders in the U.S. have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to Pennsylvania State University. Pew Research found that 26% of U.S. Catholics have reduced the amount of money they donate to their parish in […]

News and Views

September 1, 2021

Religious A recent Gallup poll showed, for the first time, the majority of Americans are not members of a house of worship. Thirty-five percent of Gen Z students are atheists, agnostic, or have no religious belief. — Religion News Service, 6/3/2021 (Editor’s note: Members of Gen Z are those born between 1997 and 2015. This puts the age group for Gen Z in the range of 6-24 years old in 2021) Increasing numbers of African American mosques are closing, while the overall […]

News and Views

July 1, 2021

PBI News Pastoral Bible Institute Annual Report for Fiscal 2021 The Directors of the Pastoral Bible Institute (PBI) and the Editors of our publication, The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom, rejoice to have served another year in the work of the vineyard (Matthew 20:7). This year was marked from beginning to end by the focus on the global pandemic. It created many challenges for the work, and resulted in almost no in-person contact with our fellow workers, even locally. We are grateful for […]

News and Views

March 1, 2021

Religious Recently uncovered notes reveal that Isaac Newton attempted to uncover the secrets of the pyramids in Egypt while proving his theory of gravity. The unpublished notes, thought to have been written in the 1680s and only discovered 200 years after Newton’s death, are now being sold by Sotheby’s. Newton, who studied the pyramids in the late 17th century while at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire, believed that finding out how the pyramids were made would unlock other secrets about the world. He […]