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- Religious sect probed in Toronto teen disappearance
- Artist Who Set Off Muslim Fury Visits New York City
- Why are fewer Americans identifying with a religion?
- Religious life won't be the same after downturn
- French mayors fear burqa ban could not be enforced
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The search for Mariam Makhniashvili, a missing student from Toronto, Canada has been expanded internationally to include a possible link with a religious sect from the Republic of Georgia.
Reports in the Georgian media recounted how a group of women left for Canada back in the mid-1990s with Rezo Bakradze, who was a university professor and head of a religious sect.
A Danish caricaturist is making his first tour of the United States since the 2005 publication of his cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked fury across the Muslim world, according to a Danish press freedom group that is promoting the trip.
Muslims throughout the world rioted in anger at the cartoon -- and 11 eleven others -- and the artist became the target of a terrorist plot.
The number of Americans who don't identify with any religion is growing. A new study by Trinity College suggests that more than one in five Americans will identify themselves as "Nones" in religious terms in 20 years (up from 15 percent now). Most would not consider themselves atheists. But they are increasingly skeptical of organized religion and clerics. They are, said one researcher, a stew of agnostics, deists and rationalists - and their numbers appear to be increasing.
Clearly, interest in religion is high. News magazines run cover stories. Megachurches are booming. Political campaigns target churchgoers as a valuable metric to win elections.
So why are fewer Americans identifying with a religion, denomination or particular faith group? Why are a growing number of people becoming faith-free? And if the trend continues, is it a matter of alarm?
These are questions Wayne Slater, of The Dallas Morning News, asked of a panel of religious leaders.
Organized religion was already in trouble before the fall of 2008. Denominations were stagnating or shrinking, and congregations across faith groups were fretting about their finances.
The Great Recession made things worse, AP reports.
It's further drained the financial resources of many congregations, seminaries and religious day schools. Some congregations have disappeared and schools have been closed. In areas hit hardest by the recession, worshippers have moved away to find jobs, leaving those who remain to minister to communities struggling with rising home foreclosures, unemployment and uncertainty.
Religion has a long history of drawing hope out of suffering, but there's little good news emerging from the recession. Long after the economy improves, the changes made today will have a profound effect on how people practice their faith, where they turn for help in times of stress and how they pass their beliefs to their children.
Several mayors of French towns faced with growing demands from Muslim residents say they fear a proposed ban on head-to-toe burqa and niqab veils could not be enforced and might even prompt more women to cover up.
All mayors said some Muslim residents were increasingly making religious demands on municipal services, such as halal school meals or women-only hours in pools.
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