Interfaith

Malaysian authorities have released about 5,000 “defaced” Bibles to the country’s Christian leaders.

On Thursday, the Bible Society of Malaysia’s general secretary, the Rev. Simon Wong, said that the organization plans to preserve as “museum pieces” the Bibles that were “defaced” by stamps and many government seals, according to The Associated Press.

The Bible Society of Malaysia said the Bibles, which have been detained since March 2009, cannot be sold because of the marks on them. more >>

Pastor Rick Warren and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair shared an evening conversation Sunday in front of more than 2,600 people about faith, the Middle East, globalization, and 9/11.

Speaking at the seventh Saddleback Civil Forum, Blair told Warren that he believes the most important issue in the long term is centered on faith. As diverse people are forced to live together, he said at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., the key question is, “How do we find common understanding?”

“Faith teaches you to understand there is something more important than yourself, which is an important principle in working toward a better world. If individuals can see people of faith in action, helping in support of others, it makes this process of globalization easier,” Blair said. more >>

WASHINGTON – As the Department of Defense transitions to an open military, active duty chaplains reported that they have long been counseling homosexual soldiers.

Army Chaplain Lt. Col. Carleton Birch said Wednesday that chaplains already have experience in counseling homosexual soldiers and will likely be able to adjust easily to an openly homosexual military.

“I’ve counseled homosexual soldiers when if I told anyone else that, they would get kicked out,” shared Birch, an evangelical. more >>

The heads of the National Association of Evangelicals and The Episcopal Church are among those newly named to President Barack Obama's faith advisory council.

Obama announced on Friday his intent to appoint a dozen religious and secular leaders, including NAE president Leith Anderson and Episcopal Presiding Bishop the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori.

"I am grateful for the opportunity to be of service to the larger community in this way," Jefferts Schori said in a statement. "The ability to build partnerships between civic and religious bodies can only expand our capacity to heal a broken world." more >>

The Muslim population in the United States is projected to more than double by 2030, according to a new Pew Forum report.

There are about 2.6 million Muslim adults and children in the United States (0.8 percent of the U.S. population) in 2010. That figure is expected to rise to 6.2 million (1.7 percent) in 2030, predicted the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life report released Thursday.

Most of the growth will be due to immigration and higher birth rates among Muslims. Christians are, however, expected to still make up by far the majority of the population. But by 2030, Muslims are predicted to be as numerous as Jews or Episcopalians are in the United States today. more >>

An influential Southern Baptist withdrew from an interfaith coalition that assists in protecting Muslims against discrimination with regard to building mosques in the U.S.

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, made the announcement Friday after fellow Southern Baptists had expressed concerns with his involvement in the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, established by the Anti-Defamation League.

"While many Southern Baptists share my deep commitment to religious freedom and the right of Muslims to have places of worship, they also feel that a Southern Baptist denominational leader filing suit to allow individual mosques to be built is ‘a bridge too far," Land wrote in a letter to the ADL, according to Baptist Press. more >>