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 >>

More than 680 young people from different religions applied for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s Faiths Act Fellowship this year, the Foundation reported.

Forty-one percent of the applicants to the interfaith youth leadership program were Christians. Muslims and Hindus made up the second and third highest faith groups that applied, accounting for 17 percent and 18 percent of the total applicants, respectively.

“The idea that young people are not motivated by faith to help others – or that faith only inspires conflict – is simply wrong,” said Tony Blair, founder and patron of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, in a statement Thursday. more >>

WASHINGTON – Faith leaders and supporters of the DREAM Act participated in a “Jericho march” around the U.S. Senate building on Tuesday in hopes that opponents to the bill will fall in favor of the immigration reform.

A coalition of interfaith leaders converged in Washington, D.C., for an emergency prayer summit and a "Jericho march" aimed at Senators poised to vote on the DREAM legislation before the Christmas break.

“The churches are united from Pentecostals to Evangelicals, Catholics, [and] mainline Protestants … this is a clear biblical issue, a moral issue,” said Jim Wallis, an evangelical author and founder of social policy group Sojourners. more >>

Partnerships between the Washington, D.C., faith community and the city government, mired by scandals and neglect, will be restored in the New Year, Mayor-elect Vincent Gray promises.

During a Sunday forum at the Washington National Cathedral in the District of Columbia, Gray announced plans to resurrect interfaith partnerships after he takes office in January.

“One of the things I want to do through the mayor’s office is build a closer relationship with the religious community in the city,” he shared with attendees. more >>

Interfaith justice groups are joining with U.S. Senators to lobby against unemployment as millions of jobless claims are scheduled to expire just before Christmas.

Sens. Robert Casey (D-PA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are meeting today with members of the Interfaith Worker Justice, the National Catholic Social Justice Lobby and the National Council of Churches to address the ongoing jobs crisis.

Unemployment has become a sore issue among Americans. Labor statistics show that some 2 million unemployed people in the United States have lost their unemployment benefits. The federal provision expired at the end of November. Partisan debates by Congressional Republicans and Democrats halted efforts to extend benefits by an additional year. more >>

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and Open Doors are just some of the people and groups that have publicly denounced the proposed U.N. anti-blasphemy resolution that is expected to be voted on next week.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, which sponsored the draft resolution, recently changed the term from “defamation of religions” to “vilification of religions.” But USCIRF chair Leonard Leo said the change is minor and “a distinction without a difference.”

“Having lost support on this issue over the past few years, the OIC is now trying to fool delegations into believing that the resolution has improved when it has not,” said Leo in a statement Thursday. “It … still erroneously conflates blasphemy or criticism of religious ideas with incitement to acts of discrimination or violence against individuals.” more >>