(RNS) A federal appeals court on Wednesday (Nov. 28) temporarily blocked the enforcement of the Obama administration's contraception mandate while a Catholic business owner appeals a lower court's ruling that tossed out his suit.

Opponents of the law said that it was the first time that an appeals court had weighed in on the issue, which has spawned multiple suits across the country, and called it a “significant victory.”

Update (Mar. 27): Deadly attacks against Nigerian Christians continue. Two suicide bombers killed at least 40 people and injured scores more at a bus park in a Christian enclave of Kano, the largest city in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north.

"The bus station is primarily used by passengers heading for the mostly Christian South of the country," noted World Watch Monitor. "Five buses were destroyed, one reported to be full of people."

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Following months of deadly attacks, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) is seeking legal relief from both the Nigerian federal government and the United Nation's International Criminal Court (ICC).

Following the November 6 election, media commentators buzzed about election coverage from Fox News and MSNBC and the networks' respective conservative and liberal biases. But does recognition of such biases drive viewers away?

Probably not, according to a new poll by LifeWay Research. The survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. adults conducted after the election indicates that evangelicals may actually support Fox News more strongly now than they did before the election.

An Indian court has convicted 12 people for "arson, rioting and the torching of houses" in Orissa in 2008. The attack, which killed 90 people and displaced over 50,000 others, was "India's deadliest anti-Christian violence in decades" and ranked No. 3 on CT's Top 10 Religion News Stories of 2008.

Christians now comprise 1.4 percent of Nepal's population of 26 million, according to the Himalayan nation's first-ever census.

The United Nations's General Assembly voted today to grant the Palestinian Authority the same membership status as the Vatican.

The vote, which changes Palestine's U.N. observer status from "entity" to "non-member observer," represents a unilateral Palestinian bid to become an internationally recognized sovereign state. Both the United States and Israel voted against the change, citing the need for bilateral efforts in order to achieve peace in the region.

Bishop K. H. Ting, leader of China's official Protestant church, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, died last week at the age of 97. He was known for his efforts to lead Chinese churches through the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Update (Feb. 4): The Chimes student newspaper has additional details on Calvin's 2012-2013 final budget, including an unexpected healthcare cost of $1.1 million and a $6.2 million interest payment on the school's debt.

"In 2017, Calvin will begin to pay off its actual debt—not only interest—which [President Michael] Le Roy estimates could result in payments of $9 million per year," the paper reported.

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A new lawsuit charges an Orthodox Jewish group, Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH), with state-level consumer fraud in New Jersey for "providing conversion therapy claiming to cure clients of being gay."

Meanwhile, practitioners of reparative therapy are challenging the state of California, claiming its recent ban of the treatment for gay minors violates their religious freedom.

Update (Mar. 28): Religion Clause reports that the Tennessee Court of Appeals has ruled that "a portion of a church's multi-million dollar family life center is not exempt from property taxes."

According to the court's decision, the gym is eligible only for a 50-percent tax exemption, and the cafe and bookstore are not eligible for any exemption because they are retail facilities.
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Famed motivational speaker and author Zig Ziglar died today after suffering from a case pneumonia, CNN reports. He was 86 years old.

Ziglar was a Southern Baptist who served one term as First Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention, reports Frank Lockwood. (Baptist Press provides more details.)

Update (March 1): Morning Star News reports that Mohammed Isa, a Nigerian military commander, had prior knowledge of plans to bomb St. Andrews Chapel at the Command and Staff College in Nigeria—but failed to report the knowledge and avert the November 2012 attack that killed 20 Christians.

In addition, Morning Star reports that two Islamist extremists from the Boko Haram sect have been arrested in connection with the bombing.
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Less than three weeks after judge Thomas Wingate ordered Medi-Share to cease operations in the state of Kentucky, the Florida-based medical cost-sharing ministry is urging its 800 Kentucky clients to seek coverage through a competitor.

Beginning in 2013, students at Florida Christian College (FCC) in Kissimmee, Florida, will be eligible to receive funds from the Florida Resident Access Grant (FRAG), a popular grant program that previously excluded FCC for being too religious.

The youngest member of CBS's "Two and a Half Men" soon could be walking away from the raunchy show after 10 years—and he's urging other viewers to do the same.

In a YouTube video posted by Forerunner Christian Church, 19-year-old Angus T. Jones calls the show "filth" and encourages viewers to stop watching. Jones says he began to doubt his role on the show—where he earns an estimated $350,000 per episode—after converting to Christianity. (Jones is now a Seventh-day Adventist, reports RNS. CNN explores the denomination's emphasis on purity.)

ChurchAds.Net, a United Kingdom-based ecumenical charity, is best known for its annual holiday campaign: "Christmas starts with Christ." Past campaigns have featured a bus shelter nativity and an ultrasound Jesus; but this year, the group is targeting consumers with a rather different image: Godbaby.

After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) individual mandate this summer, Liberty University's entire lawsuit was dismissed.

But the school earned a small victory on Monday, when the Supreme Court—in an unusual move—ordered the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear Liberty's case against the ACA's mandate for employer-provided contraceptives coverage. Liberty argues that both aspects of the contraceptives mandate are unconstitutional and infringe on religious free-exercise rights.

Tough economic times may be responsible for America's declining abortion rate, which is at a 10-year low.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported last week that the rate and number of abortions performed in the United States fell by 5 percent in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available. According to the CDC, this represents "the largest single-year decrease" for legal, induced abortions since 2000.

(Update: The Vatican has critiqued press coverage for entirely missing the main message of the book.)

The newborn Christ may have been placed in a manger filled with hay, but that does not mean donkeys, cattle, and sheep were present at his birth. At least, so claims Pope Benedict XVI in his newest book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives.

Update (Mar. 4): New noise regulations in Kigali will punish loud preaching on public buses and street corners with fines, reports East African Business Week.

The central business district of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, is also having trouble with noise from churches that meet in office buildings during the work day.

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Government officials in Rwanda and Uganda are cracking down on noise pollution, telling church leaders that they must reduce worship-related noise levels or face penalties—including the risk of being shut down.

Update (Feb. 19): Many British religious groups seeking to open free schools are facing intimidation after a freedom of information request forced the government to reveal the list of applicants. Of the 518 applications revealed, 81 come from explicitly Christian groups.

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The British High Court rejected a challenge last week to the opening of Catholic faith schools in Richmond, West London, preserving the schools' right to selectively admit students based on their religious background.

According to The Guardian, the case is "the first legal challenge to new schools over religious discrimination." Other observers speculated that the case would be a precedent-setting "test case" for other religious schools throughout the U.K.

Update (March 1): A Colorado Court of Appeals has upheld a state voucher program that offered students state funds for tuition at private schools, including religious schools. The ruling overturns a lower court ruling in the case.

CT previously has reported on widespread misuse of scholarships for religious schools. CT also noted in January that a similar tax credit for scholarships in Georgia was raising questions about gay-student discrimination at religious schools.
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In another blow to Egypt’s democratic transition, representatives of the Muslim nation's three main Christian bodies jointly decided to end their participation in writing a new constitution.

The 113th Congress may not be wholly representative of the general public's religiosity. According to the Pew Forum, 299 of the 530 newly elected congressional officials (56 percent) identify as Protestant.

Pew reports that this is, more or less, the same percentage of Protestants as in the 112th Congress (307 of whom were Protestant). However, it stands in contrast to a Pew study released last month, which documented the rise of the "nones," the increasing number of Americans who say they do not affiliate with any particular religion or denomination. The same study showed that, for the first time ever, the percentage of Americans identifying as Protestants had dropped below 50 percent.

According to CNN, historically black churches in Harlem, New York, suddenly are attracting white European visitors for a "uniquely American" experience.

As politicians wrangle ahead of a December deadline over the still-disputed status of the oil-rich Abyei region, straddling the border of Sudan and South Sudan, local church leaders are appealing for help in the face of a potential humanitarian crisis.

(Update: The Church of England plans to vote again on women bishops next year.)

Today, conservative lay leaders in the Church of England narrowly succeeded (by a six-vote margin) in defeating a historic measure that would have allowed women clergy to serve as bishops.

An Oklahoma county judge denied a motion to dismiss charges against two Victory Christian Center (VCC) youth pastors after staff at the Tulsa megachurch failed to report child abuse for two weeks.

(Update: Hobby Lobby has appealed to the Tenth Circuit for emergency relief.)

A federal judge denied Hobby Lobby's request for an injunction against the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) contraceptive mandate on Monday, ruling that the arts-and-crafts giant must cover emergency contraceptives in its insurance policies even though it believes the pills cause abortions.

U.S. district judge Joe Heaton rejected both First Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) claims by Hobby Lobby and its well-known evangelical owners, the Green family. Heaton ruled that "secular, for-profit corporations do not have free exercise rights."

(Update: Bishop Nolbert Kunonga has launched a legal counterattack in a bid to retain the churches. Background on his "rise and fall.")

Zimbabwe's highest court has ruled in favor of the country's mainstream Anglican Church, ordering bishop Nolbert Kunonga to return Anglican worship sites he seized after being excommunicated in 2007.

On Oct. 24, a shooting attack at Atlanta megachurch World Changers Church International killed a volunteer leader as he led prayer during a service.

Now, that attack has many pastors—from Washington D.C. to Knoxville—reviewing their churches' safety measures in order to prevent similar violence from occurring closer to home as church violence continues to soar.

Jamaica's government-run public transit system is banning evangelism to bus passengers because they are a "captive audience."

Following complaints from some passengers, Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) issued a directive to its bus drivers "to 'politely' tell preachers that they could no longer trumpet their divine messages on the state-owned buses," the Jamaica Gleaner reports.

(Update: Ireland has pledged to decide on a new abortion law this month.)

Pro-choice activists from Ireland to India are protesting the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian woman who was denied an abortion at a hospital in Galway, Ireland, in late October.

In Dublin, an estimated 6,000 protesters rallied to legalize abortion in heavily Catholic Ireland, which has stringent anti-abortion laws. Similar marches in Galway, where Halappanavar died, and at the Irish embassy in the Indian capital Delhi called for the Dublin government to amend the abortion law or abolish it entirely.

Irish prime minister Enda Kenny says he will not rush into a decision on the right to abortion. He called any connection between Halappanavar's death and Irish abortion law a "tragic coincidence."

Doctors are still investigating Halappanavar's death to determine whether an abortion would have made a difference or not. Meanwhile, pro-life groups are protesting the spin being put on her death before all the facts are known.

(Update: The New York Times has examined the ongoing debate over the constitutionality of the parole terms set by the judge.)

After pleading guilty to vehicular manslaughter this summer, an Oklahoma teenager received an unusual sentence: He can avoid prison time if he meets all conditions of his probation—including 10 years of Sunday church attendance.

Updated Jan. 11: The Star reports on persecution of Chin Christians in Burma's state-run Buddhist schools.

(Updated: President Obama's speech in Rangoon included this statement on religious freedom.)

On Monday, President Obama will become the first U.S. president to visit the long-isolated nation of Burma (Myanmar)—home to some of the world's longest-running persecuted Christians.

In response, leaders from the American Baptist Church, The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) urged the President to advocate for religious freedom in the Buddhist nation.

Doug Birdsall, executive chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, announced today that he will leave the global evangelical missions movement next year to become president of the American Bible Society (ABS), beginning March 1. (Full text of announcement below.)

The largest chain of Christian retail stores in America, Family Christian Stores (FCS), has bought itself from its private equity owners, reports Publisher's Weekly. (Full press release below.)

As violence flares anew between Hamas and Israel, which is preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza in response to Hamas rocket attacks reaching as far as Tel Aviv, CT checked in with Jerusalem-based reconciliation ministry Musalaha for an update on reconciliation efforts between Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews.

In 2009, CT reported how three weeks of Israel-Hamas fighting—which killed 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis—left Gaza's beleaguered Christians beginning 2009 in their worst situation since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. However, reconciliation work between Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews continued.

Salim Munayer, executive director Musalaha, offered CT the following update on what, if anything, has changed since 2009:

Update (January 14): The Mor Gabriel case is still pending, but last week Turkey made its largest return of seized Christian property in giving 470 acres back to a Greek Orthodox foundation whose Istanbul monastery trained current Patriarch Bartholomew.

The future of one of the world's oldest, functioning Christian monasteries may be in jeopardy.

The Supreme Court of Appeals in Ankara, Turkey, has ruled that the state treasury can repossess nearly 60 percent of the land belonging to Mor Gabriel. The legal controversy comes as Syriac Christians, who worship in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, return to revitalize their homeland in eastern Turkey after fleeing violence decades ago between Turkey and Kurdish separatists.

Update (April 10): Baptist Press reports that trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, have unanimously voted to revise the school's tenure program—in order to "cease future extension of tenure."

The debate over whether or not seminary professors should be granted tenure has been ongoing, and CT offered experts the chance to weigh in on the issue last November.
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Religious studies experts seeking tenure-track positions need not apply—at least, not for many of the new jobs posted online at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL).

According to Florida state law, residential children's homes that claim religious exemptions are not subject to state oversight.

And this leads to religiously affiliated children's home subjecting children to "punishment and isolation that verge on torture — so long as they quote chapter and verse to justify it," according to an investigative report by the Tampa Bay Times. The three-part report details allegations of abuse and neglect at "nearly a dozen" of more than 30 religious homes reporters investigated.

(Update: More details of the prayer group founded by Tyler Deaton have emerged.)

When Kansas City police first found Bethany Deaton's body on Oct. 30, they initially called her death a suicide. But following a confession by Micah Moore, who said he killed Deaton at the request of her husband to cover up group sexual assaults, authorities are investigating the group's religious connections—which include International House of Prayer University (IHOPU).

In a recent ruling, the highest court of the United Methodist Church (UMC) ruled against a plan to end tenure for the denomination's 31,000 ordained clergy.

Update (Mar. 12): The New York Times offers a more in-depth look at the implications of Bulgaria's new pope.

Update (February 26): Associated Press reports that Bulgaria's Orthodox Church has selected its new pope, more than two months after the death of the church's previous leader. The 14 bishops comprising the church's Holy Synod elected Metropolitan Neofit of Ruse Sunday.

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Logging in with Jesus—literally—might not be such a good idea.

According to SplashData, the word Jesus is now one of the web's worst passwords, ranking among the top 25 most frequently used and easily guessable log-in phrases. SplashData, which releases its list annually, says this is the first year that Jesus has appeared on the list.

Update (April 8): According to the Economist, China's only government-approved Bible publisher, Amity Printing Company, is one of the largest Bible publishers in the world—but it exports about two-thirds of the Bibles it prints. As a result, unofficial house churches still don't have access to Scriptures, says ChinaAid founder Bob Fu.
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Only one company is authorized to print Bibles in China—and it appears to be taking full advantage of the opportunity.

When Westmont College student Seth Gruber began displaying signs with graphic images of aborted fetuses on campus, most students walked by without saying anything. But then, the Christian college tried to shut him down, according to a World magazine report.

The Kenyan government recently approved a law that will recognize cohabitations of more than six months as legal marriages, and the new policy on "come-we-stay" unions has Christians up in arms over the controversial clause in a larger marriage bill.

Nairobi's Capitol FM reports that "'Come-we-stay' unions usually arise where a man and a woman commence living together as husband and wife and even have children without formalising of their union." But now those unions will be formalized, if the living arrangement lasts more than six months.

The reign of Brazil's military government from 1964 to 1985 split Catholic and evangelical churches along pro- and anti-dictatorship lines.

Now, more than 25 years later, Brazil's newly established Truth Commission is investigating churches that supported the dictatorship for potentially having committed "human rights abuses or supported members of the military responsible for such abuses."

The new president and CEO of the New York Times (NYT) is surprisingly open about his Catholic religious views and ethics.

Mark Thompson, who begins his new role today, describes himself as "a critical realist in religious matters"—and now some are anxious to see how those beliefs will play out in his new role at the Times. Thompson's role focuses on business decisions, not editorial ones, for the NYT.

A controversial Ugandan bill that strengthens criminal penalties against homosexuality—and originally, in some cases, invoked the death penalty—will soon be put to a vote and is expected to pass.

The bill, first proposed in 2009, has been widely attributed to the influence of American evangelicals; however, CT has reported how American evangelical leaders condemned the bill but Ugandan Christian leaders dismissed this as cultural imperialism.

Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel movement—which faced a day of reckoning and uncertain future in 2007 over concerns about lax moral standards among its leaders—is making headlines once again.

It's not often that a father will sue his own son. But Bob Grenier, pastor of Visalia Calvary Church, says he is tired of his estranged son Alex Grenier's "cyberbullying campaign" against his parents and their church—so the elder Grenier is pressing charges to make his son stop.

Editor's note: This article has been corrected to reflect that shari'ah law will not apply to Christians living in Bangsamoro.)

A major turning point in tense Muslim-Christian relations in the southern Philippines may be at hand following a recent announcement from President Benigno S. Aquino III.

Cadbury recently won a legal battle to prevent chocolate competitor Nestle from using a trademarked shade of purple on its candy wrappers. Now, though, the U.S.-based confectionery giant is under fire from an unexpected source: the Church of England.

Bishop Stephen Cotterell warned Cadbury that it should stop being "so precious over purple" after Meaningful Chocolate Company, a small Christian fair trade producer, redesigned its special Advent wrappers under legal counsel. The specific advice? "Advent purple belongs to Cadbury."

Churches in the Czech Republic will receive billions of dollars worth of seized property in return for finally becoming independent from the secular state's payroll.

Restrictions on religious conversion have "become a human rights problem of great concern," according to the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.

The famous/infamous cross that long adorned a controversial World War I memorial in the Mojave Desert—seven feet of welded steel that became the focus of a U.S. Supreme Court battle before being stolen in 2010—has likely been found by deputy sheriffs in northern California. The news comes days before the dedication of its replacement.

Broadway Federal Bank has been serving Los Angeles's African American community since the 1940s. But recent economic pressures have forced the small bank to foreclose on black church properties in an effort to stay afloat.

Now, the pastors of those churches are protesting the foreclosures. According to a statement from the Greater Open Door Church of God in Christ, a group of pastors will hold a Saturday press conference "about Broadway Federal Bank and Bank of America predatory lending practices. This time they picked the wrong churches. They have foreclosed on over 60 Churches."

Blasphemy cases—long common to Muslim nations such as Pakistan and Egypt—are now popping up in unexpected places. The latest: heavily Catholic Poland.

Poland's Supreme Court recently ruled that a blasphemy charge against Adam Darski, a member of the Polish rock band Behemoth, can proceed—nearly five years after Darski ripped a copy of the Bible during an on-stage performance.

(Update: UMC.org has a report on how seminaries are scrambling to figure out how students will access resources once the bookstores close.)

For Nashville-based United Methodist Publishing House (UMPH), the future of book sales will be wholly digital.

UMPH announced this week that it will shut down all of its Cokesbury retail bookstores across the country in order to focus on online and phone sales. Citing increased sales on those channels—coupled with declining sales in "brick-and-mortar" stores—UMPH also announced that it will launch a new "transition initiative," called CokesburyNext, to expand its services.

Update (Mar. 1): The D.C. district court has denied a preliminary injunction to non-liturgical Protestant Navy chaplains in their lawsuit alleging discrimination and favoritism in promotions for Catholic and liturgical Protestant chaplains.
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In the 16th century, Switzerland's Geneva played host to reformed theologian John Calvin, whose strong following helped the city earn a reputation as the "Protestant Rome." But that was then; this is now—and now Reformed Christians may be abandoning the city due to high operational costs.

The Executive Committee of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) announced its decision to relocate from Geneva to Hanover, Germany, by December 2013, citing the high value of the Swiss franc.

After a decision-making delay that lasted several weeks, the 77 million-member Anglican Communion is prepared to enthrone the next Archbishop of Canterbury: Bishop of Durham Justin Welby, according to early media reports.

(UPDATE: Last night's data was apparently early and incomplete exit poll results. It would have been nice had CNN labeled it as such. We're reworking the map to reflect the more recent data.)

It's a bad year for trying to watch how evangelicals voted, at least compared to the last few election cycles. The National Election Pool, which conducts exit polls for major media outlets, decided to exclude 19 states from its polling this election. But in the remaining states, few surveys are asking voters whether they identify as evangelicals (or born-again Protestants).

So the "Evangelical Electoral Map" for 2012, posted below, looks a lot emptier than it did four years ago. (We've grayed out the states where there's exit poll data available, but not about evangelicals per se. And I've cleared out the states that didn't have any exit poll data.)

View Larger Map

A recent survey by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) indicates that nearly two-thirds of evangelical leaders do not give financial contributions to political candidates.

According to the NAE, many of its board members "prefer donating to churches and other ministries," while some "expressed realism about the limited impact of their contributions."

Others do give money because, in the words of one, "rendering to Caesar in a democratic republic means that Caesar has invited us to participate in the political process. If we do not, we lose our influence..."

As election watchers prepare to parse tonight's exit polls and election results, CNN's Dan Gilgoff has put together six ways that religious demographics—including churchgoers, Catholics, and "nones"—could determine whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney win the presidency.

Meanwhile, RNS offers a religious breakdown of 12 battleground states.

CT has posted our own cheat sheet of what to watch for on election night.

According to a new study published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, church attendance is likely to boost educational advancement among high school students.

Update (April 15): As part of the Supreme Court ruling last winter, a South Carolina federal district court has found that a Columbia Christians for Life member who won the right to display images of aborted fetuses is not entitled to an award of attorney's fees in his case.
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In its first decision of the 2012-2013 term, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that anti-abortion protesters who won the right to "carry pictures of aborted fetuses" may also be entitled to attorneys' fees.

When you live on an island, there's only so much available space to bury bodies. And as cemeteries start to fill up in the Philippines, many Filipinos are turning to cremation as a "convenient" and "viable alternative," according to Lingayen-Dagupan archbishop emeritus Oscar Cruz.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to dictate whom a church can "consider a lay liturgical minister under canon law," dropping its previous three-fold test.

In its first case to address the ministerial exception doctrine in light of the Supreme Court's Hosanna-Tabor ruling, the court held that plaintiff Philip Cannata, a music director, was a "minister" for purposes of the ministerial exception doctrine. The ruling affirmed a lower court's ruling to dismiss Cannata's claim for violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Egypt's Christian community has been celebrating their newest leader since Sunday, when a blindfolded child selected Bishop Tawadros as pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Chosen by holy lot, Tawadros will serve as spiritual leader for Egypt's Coptic Orthodox, who comprise between 6 and 10 percent of the country's population of 83 million. Tawadros, a 60-year-old bishop of the Nile Delta province of Beheira, succeeds the much-beloved Pope Shenouda III, who died in March.

Update (April 9): Reuters reports that two top Chinese political officials are lobbying the government on its one-child policy—with two very different aims, "exposing divisions that have impeded progress in a crucial area of reform."
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Update (Mar. 20): According to new data from the Chinese health ministry, Chinese physicians have performed 336 million abortions since the one-child policy was instituted 40 years ago.
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Update (Mar. 12): Following the meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, All Girls Allowed has reported that the Chinese government will maintain its one-child policy in spite of calls for change.

"China will not change its basic state policy on family planning, Wang Feng, deputy head of the State Commission Office for Public Sector Reform, told a press conference in response to a question regarding the possibility of a change in the policy," Chinese newspaper Xinhua confirms.
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Even as religious affiliation declines in America, 55 percent of Americans now say they are "certain" that miracles occur—a 22 percent increase over the past two decades.

Billy Graham has thrown his hat into the political arena once again, endorsing Minnesota's proposed constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. (The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was long headquartered in Minneapolis.)

CT recently examined whether the famed evangelist has suddenly turned political, given debate over a series of public statements by Graham this year (including a current "Vote Biblical Values" national ad campaign and support for presidential candidate Mitt Romney, former governor Mike Huckabee's "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day", and a North Carolina ban on same-sex marriage).

Short answer? A biographer and a historian say yes, while Graham's longtime spokesman says no.

CT also queried experts on whether the BGEA should have removed Mormons from a list of "cults."

(Update: Bloomberg News reports that Israeli authorities reached a deal to end eight years of disagreement between the government the Church of the Holy Sepulchre over the church's US$2.3 million water bill debt. The Israeli government has agreed to cancel the outstanding debt, but the church will pay water bills from 2012 forward.)