Author: Juan Antoinio Lizama

Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/JEHO11_20090710-223006/279388/

Food shortages, earthquakes, moral corruption and wars are clear signs of a looming Armageddon, according to Jehovah's Witnesses.

People should be alert, they say, and if you're ready, a heavenly kingdom awaits after this world ends.

For four consecutive...

Author: Heather Carney

Source: Howard County Times

http://www.explorehoward.com/community/63344/falun-gong-participants-gather-ellicott-city/

Concentrating on nothing but the music and finding their inner peace, 12 people gathered in Centennial Park on a recent Sunday morning, their arms stretched overhead, their eyes closed, their feet shoulder width apart.

One of the participants, Yuwei Zhang, let...

Author: David Grant

Source: Google News

Wire Service: AP

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jsHfl5YwIzzlUizUsk47mWZ3DsmwD995ILIG0

When the bride and groom arrive at the Mandaean Association, the Middle Eastern salad is ready and flower petals are lightly strewn across the floor.

For these Iraqis who follow the teachings of John the Baptist, weddings are an...

Author: Nikolaus von Twickel

Source: The Moscow Times

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1010/42/379152.htm

More than 50 worshippers gathered in a sacred grove on a hot June afternoon outside the village of Marisola. The crowd, mostly women dressed in national costumes and colorful headscarves, stood on a glade opposite a spruce where men were busy conducting prayers.

The congregation kneeled while the men under the spruce, dressed in suits...

Author: Robert Marquand

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0619/p06s11-woeu.html

France mingles a strong private Roman Catholicism with an ardent public secularism, and its acceptance of smaller faiths and sects swings back and forth. But in the past decade, there's been a singleminded focus on the Church of Scientology and its estimated 45,000 members here.

Now, in closing arguments before a criminal court...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Canada.com

Wire Service: Reuters

http://www2.canada.com/business/ancient+faith+modern+means/1692242/story.html?id=1692242

Guardians of an ancient faith with a cameo role in the Bible, the 750 surviving followers of the Samaritan religion are using surprisingly modern methods to keep their tiny community alive.

Internet acquaintances, mail-order...

Author: Pierre-Antoine Souchard

Source: The Houston Chronicle

Wire Service: AP

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/6440435.html

The Church of Scientology could be dissolved in France if it is convicted in a trial that opened Monday in a Paris court, where the group and seven of its French leaders stand charged of organized fraud and illegal pharmaceutical activity.

The group,...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Norway Post

Author: Leanne Larmondin

Source: Religion News Service

http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnspremiumtext/singlewnet/a_muslim_a_church_and_a_whole_lot_of_questions/

Some church-going families in the Western world would recoil at the thought of a Muslim being responsible for their children’s religious education.

But Farzana Hassan, activist, writer and advocate for Islamic...

Author: Dana Clark Felty

Source: The Buddhist Channel/Savannah Now

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=61,8095,0,0,1,0

Six-year-old Cayden Somers was rolling on the floor, jumping across the room and bouncing off the walls on Sunday as his Sunday school teacher prepared her lesson in the next room.

The energy soon transferred to 5-year-old Savana Kaufman and 6-year-old Dorothy Neal who jumped from side to side giggling...

Author: Alexa Olesen

Source: The Guardian

Wire Service: AP

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8471548

Now entering its second decade, China's relentless drive to obliterate the Falun Gong spiritual sect has left a human toll ranging from the deaths of followers in custody to the self-exile of others and the beatings of their lawyers.

Saturday marks the 10th anniversary of a protest by an estimated 10...

Author: James Millbank and Jonathan Petre

Source: Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1160263/CPS-gives-Scientologists-legal-protection-mainstream-religions.html

The Crown Prosecution Service has decided that anyone who attacks Scientology can be prosecuted under faith hate laws.

The move will for the first time provide the controversial Church of Scientology...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: The Star Tribune

Wire Service: AP

http://www.startribune.com/nation/40284587.html?elr=KArks:DCiUMEaPc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that a small religious group cannot force a city in Utah to place a granite marker in a local park that already is home to a Ten Commandments display.

...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7783278.stm

Seven members of a family belonging to the minority Yazidi community have been murdered in northern Iraq, police say.

Officers said a mother and father and their four adult children were shot dead when gunmen burst into their home in the town of Sinjar, west of Mosul.

The Yazidis are an ancient, religious sect and there have been a number of...

Author: Liz Sly

Source: The Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-iraq-sect_slynov16,0,2015980.story

On the western bank of the Tigris River, some of the last survivors of a dying sect still gather most Sundays, as they have for at least the past 2,000 years, to perform the baptism rituals that are central to their religion.

Donning simple white robes that they say are identical...