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Jeremy Vine, the BBC presenter, has claimed that it is becoming "socially unacceptable" to be a Christian in Britain The Radio 2 host said that he feels unable to talk about his faith on his show because he fears how people would react. He argues that society has become increasingly intolerant of the freedom to express religious views. "You can't express views that were common currency 30 or 40 years ago," he said. "Arguably, the parameters of what you might call 'right thinking' are probably closing. "Sadly, along with that has come the fact that it's almost socially unacceptable to...

The Radio 2 host said that he feels unable to talk about his faith on his show because he fears how people would react. He argues that society has become increasingly intolerant of the freedom to express religious views. "You can't express views that were common currency 30 or 40 years ago," he said. "Arguably, the parameters of what you might call 'right thinking' are probably closing. "Sadly, along with that has come the fact that it's almost socially unacceptable to say you believe in God." His comments follow the claim from Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Catholic...

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline)-All of the nation's state attorneys general have signed onto a brief to include references to God in President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration this month. Authored by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the amicus brief was filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the case of atheist Michael Newdow v. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Newdow, a Sacramento physician, seeks to eliminate prayer from the ceremony and prevent Obama from being able to say "so help me God" in the presidential oath of office.

American taxpayers have spent more than $600 million on a new visitors' center at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and it will have acres of marble floors and walls, photographs of Earth Day, information about an AIDS rally and details about the nation's industrial sector. What it will not include is America's Christian heritage, raising objections from members of Congress and drawing an inquiry from Chuck Norris about whether he can help fix it. The new 580,000-square-foot center, mostly built underneath the grounds just east of the U.S. Capitol to protect the scenic views of the historic building, is about...

Are there more atheists and agnostics in this country than is commonly supposed? Two studies -- last week's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum and one published two years ago -- suggest so. The 2006 study from the University of Minnesota does not examine the question of how many non- believers there are but rather makes clear the troubling depth of Americans' distrust of them. Asked whether they would disapprove of a child's wish to marry an atheist, 47.6% of the 2,000 randomly selected people interviewed said yes. When asked the same question about Muslims and African Americans,...

Pope Benedict XVI will use his trip to America next month to present Catholic educators with a powerful challenge, one whose effects could ripple from Notre Dame, Ind., to Tarrytown, N.Y., prominent Vatican watchers are predicting. The expected message: Become more Catholic, or else.In one of just a few major addresses planned for his six-day visit to America, Pope Benedict is scheduled to speak about education at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., before an audience that should include the president of every Catholic college and university in the country, plus representatives from every archdiocese, which oversee Catholic...

» 03/08/2008 14:51 VATICANPope: secularisation is invading all cultures, and even the ChurchBenedict XVI reveals that an increasing number of people live "making do without God", and he exhorts the Church to carry forward dialogue with cultures, in order to bring back to them the "lofty values of existence". Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Secularisation - living without God - is invading every aspect of human life, and for some time has stricken the Church itself.  It is a tendency fostered by the consumerist mentality, with its tendency to superficiality and egocentrism.  This is the cry of alarm raised today by...

Education ministers in the United Kingdom evaluating sex education programs have produced a new booklet for school children that warns Christian values should not be taught in schools, and sex education classes should teach only "how to," not "whether to." Now it's coming under criticism from those who say the material borders on propaganda and is completely inappropriate for schools to provide, according to a report in the Daily Mail. One such comment came from Norman Wells, the chief of Family and Youth Concern. He told the newspaper the booklet is being used to manipulate impressionable youngsters. "It's verging on...

Fewer People Claim Religious Affiliation Survey Of 35,000 Finds Religious Landscape Changing POSTED: 1:10 pm EST February 25, 2008 UPDATED: 2:29 pm EST February 25, 2008 The U.S. religious marketplace is extremely volatile, with nearly half of American adults leaving the faith tradition of their upbringing to either switch allegiances or abandon religious affiliation altogether, a new survey finds. The study released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is unusual for it sheer scope, relying on interviews with more than 35,000 adults to document a diverse and dynamic U.S. religious population. While much of the study...

In an age of cynicism, nothing is sacred and everything is for sale. Religious artifacts are being auctioned off to private collectors in the United States and Europe, writes Jennifer Green. The trend has some asking, 'If this religious heritage is valuable for the Americans, why not us?' CREDIT: Bruno Schlumberger, the ottawa citizen Ron McDermid is a warden at Gatineau's St. Thomas church. In 1993, thieves stripped the building of its contents, including the church's stained-glass windows. Priests' robes used as paint rags. Magnificent church carvings tossed out for garbage collection. Gold and silver altarware melted down. Chalices for...

Vatican, Dec. 19, 2007 (CWNews.com) - At his weekly public audience on December 19, Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) said that a secular Christmas celebration is impossible. "If we do not recognize that God was made man, what sense does it have to celebrate Christmas?" the Holy Father asked. "We Christians must reaffirm with profound and heartfelt conviction the truth of Christ's Nativity." Speaking to about 5,000 people in the Paul VI auditorium, the Pope acknowledged that many people make the effort to separate the Christmas celebration from the message of the Incarnation. He added that the Christian joy...

Mike Huckabee doesn't wish you happy holidays. He wants you to have a Merry Christmas. And keep the Christ in it, please. That's the subtext - as well as the text - of Huckabee's latest TV ad, which began airing this week in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Wearing a red sweater, the surging Republican presidential hopeful looks into the camera, acknowledges America's fatigue with political spots, then declares that, this time of year, "what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ." "God bless," he says at the end, "and Merry Christmas."

In 1961, only one half of 1% of Canadians told census takers they were not attached to any religious body. The figure rose to 4.3 % in 1971 and 16.2% in 2001. After the Second World War, 67% of Canadians told Gallup they had been in a church or synagogue over the previous seven days. By 1990 this figure had fallen by nearly two thirds to 23%. Gallup says it's now less than 20%. In 1961, 90% of Quebecers said they had been to church in the last seven days, and the Catholic church had one priest for every 500-700...

The Wisconsin Department of Justice has removed religious content from a memorial service for murder victims planned for next week after a watchdog group complained. A religious hymn called "This Too Shall Pass" and a closing prayer by a Lutheran pastor will not be included in the ceremony as initially planned, department spokesman Kevin St. John said Friday. The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation complained Tuesday that the hymn and the prayer at the state-sponsored event would violate the separation of church and state guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. After a review, St. John said the department agreed the content...

"A priest in Stockholm has come under fire for not allowing a bride to be walked down the aisle by her father. But church authorities have defended the decision, saying that the tradition is foreign and sexist. The row started when a bride due to marry on Saturday in a church in the Stockholm archipelago asked to be given away by her father. The priest conducting the ceremony refused the bride's request. "These are two equal people, and being given away has never been a Swedish tradition," said Rev Yvonne Hallin, priest in charge of the Church of Sweden parish...

We are now living in what some scholars call the "post-Christian West."By this they mean that Christianity no longer influences culture in Europe or in North America in a way that it once did. Of course there are many inherited influences still evident in the law, but for the past 50 years Europe, then the United States, has jettisoned Christian influences in arts and entertainment, politic, and education.It is becoming, some scholars say, an "ABC moment" -- "Anything But Christian."While well over 90 percent of Americans still say they believe in God, and many still identify as "Christian," the values...

Alarming Trend: Broken Homes will be One in Four by 2011 in Spain Since election of Socialists Spain has become a leading anti-family EU country By Elizabeth O?Brien MADRID, August 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Calling for Spanish policy makers to commit to providing greater support for families, the Institute for Family Policy (IFP) reported an alarming trend than one in four homes will be single-parent by 2011, Catholic News Agency (CNA) reports. Mariano Martinez-Aedo, Vice President of the IFP, pointed out that recent trends in Spanish families have caused increased "fragmentation" that has weakened the structure of society. He said,...

The release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the final book in the series, has momentarily diverted the public's attention from certain realities: The weather, which normally depresses during winter months when there is less sunlight, has been crying unmercifully on Britain, bringing what the Daily Telegraph calls "chaos and misery" as homes are flooded, flights are canceled or delayed, and train and subway service is disrupted. A government document obtained by the media reveals Britain has nearly "run out of troops" to defend the country or fight abroad. The Conservative Party, under leader David Cameron, failed to win...

[snip] In a country where barely 3% of the population goes to church each week, the affair seemed just another step in Christian Europe's long march toward secularism. Then something odd happened: A national furor erupted. A conservative bishop announced a boycott. A leftist radical who became a devout Christian and talk-show host denounced the biblical purge in newspaper columns and on television. A young evangelical Christian organized an electronic letter-writing campaign, asking Scandic: Why are you removing Bibles but not pay-porn on your TVs? Scandic, which had started keeping its Bibles behind the front desk, put the New Testament...

For well over a century now, the idea that something about modernity will ultimately cause religion to wither away has been practically axiomatic among modern, sophisticated Westerners.1 Known in philosophy as Friedrich Nietzsche's famous story of the madman who runs into the marketplace declaring that "Gott ist tot," and in sociology as the "secularization thesis," it is an idea that many urbane men and women no longer even think to question, so self-evident does it appear.2 As people become more educated and more prosperous, the secularist story line goes, they find themselves both more skeptical of religion's premises and less...