The University of Missouri's release of a "Guide to Religions: Major Holidays and Suggested Accommodations" has created controversy over whether schools should take into account non-traditional holidays celebrated by groups such as Wiccans and Pagans when scheduling exams and other student activities.

Media outlets and personalities who have called out the college for putting Wiccan and Pagan holidays on par with Christmas, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah are now being criticized by a group of Salem witches, according to NoBo Magazine, a local news publication for "North of Boston."

The coven of witches are upset over the comments made by Fox News guest Tucker Carlson last Sunday in which he said that Wiccans are a very small minority and shouldn't be included in the University of Missouri's policy that recently added Wiccans and Pagans to the guide's list. more >>

Attorneys for a former New York 8th-grade student have asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to weigh in on a three-judge panel's ruling against a New York 8th-grade student who wanted to include a religious blessing at the end of her graduation speech.

The Alliance Defending Freedom legal group announced Monday that it had filed the "petition for rehearing en banc" last week that seeks to overturn the Second Circuit panel's ruling, which approved the censorship of the student. Co-counsel David Gibbs originally filed the case, A.M. v. Taconic Hills Central School District, in 2010.

"Public schools should encourage, not shut down, the free exchange of ideas. The personal well-wishes of a student are no different just because they mention God," said Senior Counsel David Cortman. "Public school officials have no legitimate basis to shut down personal speech just because it has a religious reference." more >>

The hunger relief organization World Vision begins its annual 30 Hour Famine (30HF) youth-orientated program to raise funds and awareness this weekend. The Christian-based group plans to leverage the source where most young people get their information nowadays – social media.

"When it comes to where teens are getting the majority of their information, they are on the peer-to-peer platforms so much that they are hearing about social justice and causes through Facebook and through Twitter much more than they are hearing from other sources, even their parents," Leah Swindon, national director of World Vision's 30HF, told The Christian Post.

"It's not that the parents don't care it's that they are hearing about it more [through social media]," Swindon said. more >>

In an effort to equip children with answers to questions about God and solidify their faith as they grow older, Christian theologian Dr. William Lane Craig has a series of children's books titled, "What is God Like?"

Brian Auten, who is the director of Reasonable Faith Belfast and founder of Apologetics 315, announced on his blog recently that Craig's books in the series "are quite amazing in their simple presentation of deep truths about God. (My own 5-year-old girl loves them and can explain what it means for God to be spirit and even what self-sufficient means, among other things.)"

The series of ten illustrated booklets are being released two at a time about every month. Publishers say the books are designed to help parents teach Christian truth to their children and answer some of their deepest questions about God. more >>

College campus ministry leader and "Reasons for God" founder Carson Weitnauer wants to make it clear that having answers to questions from skeptics about God is an important component of the Christian community's broader evangelistic responsibility.

Weitnauer said that Christian apologetics, the discipline of defending a faith in Jesus, is a part of so many people's stories on the receiving end of getting answers about God before they became Christians that he wants to collect such stories in order to share. He's setting up an "apologetics testimonies" page on his website that will offer a continually growing list of people who have come to faith in part through the study of apologetics.

"I've been doing campus ministry for 10 years and throughout the course of my ministry, by God's grace and through the work of the Holy Spirit, I've seen God use apologetics to lead many people to faith," Weitnauer, who serves students at Harvard University, Boston College Law School, and other campuses around Boston with Telos Ministries, told The Christian Post. more >>

Move over Dr. Oz, it looks like Dr. Benjamin Carson is America's favorite new physician and the people are loving his political incorrectness, too.

After throwing political caution to the wind in his candid speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday, renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson of Johns Hopkins Hospital is riding his popularity with high sales of his books and being flooded with donations to his Carson Scholars Fund celebrating "intellectual superstars" in America's schools.

"The Prayer Breakfast speech has caused a lot of people to go to the Carson Scholars Fund website and many became excited about what we are doing. It is a gratifying response, the gist of which is still being assessed," said Sheila Butler, expansion coordinator at the Carson Scholars Fund, in an interview with The Christian Post on Thursday. more >>