At a recent interfaith prayer breakfast in Jacksonville, Fla., Bishop T.D. Jakes, lead pastor of The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas, encouraged religious and city leaders to acknowledge their "daunting job" of helping at-risk youth by uniting on a private, public, and spiritual front to improve graduation rates and decrease crime and unemployment rates in the city.

Jakes served as the keynote speaker at Mayor Alvin Brown's annual Interfaith Breakfast on Monday. along with speakers from Faith Temple Assembly of God, Evangel Temple, Alachua-Central African Methodist Episcopal Church, Celebration Church, and Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church.

"We need to fight the good fight of faith," Jakes told those in attendance, as reported by The Florida-Times Union. more >>

President Barack Obama delivered a heartfelt address at an interfaith prayer service for the Boston bomb victims at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Thursday, focusing his speech on the redeeming power of grace in the face of tragedy.

Citing a poet who said Boston "is the perfect state of grace," Obama remarked: "And so we come together to pray and mourn and measure our loss. But we also come together today to reclaim that state of grace. To reaffirm that the spirit of this city is undaunted and the spirit of the country shall remain undimmed."

"The grace this tragedy exposed is the best of who we are," he added. more >>

The White House announced Tuesday afternoon that President Barack Obama will be attending an interfaith vigil to honor the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings on Thursday in Boston, Mass.

The president will reportedly cancel his scheduled Thursday meetings in Washington, D.C., as well as his scheduled talk at the University of Kansas on Friday morning, in order to speak to the family members of those killed in Monday's bombings, as well as the survivors at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross at 11 a.m. on Thursday.

Obama's plans to speak at the interfaith service were confirmed Tuesday by the White House and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick during a press conference in Boston. more >>

The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) congratulated Pope Francis for being elected the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church and said it hopes to continue positive dialogue together.

The Rev. Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, secretary general of WEA, which represents more than 600 million evangelical Christians, extended his "warmest congratulations" to the newly elected Pope and affirmed his prayers for the new leader, who will head the Catholic Church "at a time filled with great challenges but also a time of great possibilities...," in a statement released Thursday.

"We look forward to building on some of the good work we have done together in the past, such as the collaboration for the document Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct," said Tunnicliffe. more >>

An official at a Florida academic institution garnering controversy over shutting down a Bible study at a residential hall's commons area has stated that the issue is not about religious freedom.

Recently, the Rollins College of Winter Park chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship was stopped from holding Bible studies at a commons area in a student dormitory.

Lauren H. Bradley, Public Affairs director at the Office of Marketing & Communications for Rollins, told The Christian Post that the incident had to do with an equally enforced campus policy. more >>

Popular Christian singer and actor Pat Boone announced last week that he will be selling small plots of land that he owns in Galilee, Israel, to Christian Zionists from America.

Boone, 78, who was a pop-chart topper in the late 50s and 60s, considered second in popularity only to Elvis Presley at the time, is currently in Israel as part of a delegation led by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The inspiration for the idea came from the biblical passage in which God tells the prophet Jeremiah to buy a plot of land in Israel despite the Israeli people's exile from Babylon. more >>