Nation

A federal judge signaled that he believes there's a good chance that Kansas is violating religious freedom and free speech rights with a coronavirus-inspired 10-person limit on in-person attendance at religious services or activities and he blocked its enforcement against two churches that sued over it.

On a somber Sunday 25 years ago, the late Rev. Billy Graham shook off the flu to try and explain how a loving God could have allowed the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building to occur. But Graham — America’s pastor-in-chief — had no answer.

The Justice Department took the rare step on Tuesday of weighing in on the side of an independent Baptist church in Mississippi where local officials had tried to stop Holy Week services broadcast to congregants sitting in their cars in the parking lot.

Already heavy-laden with the turmoil of a global COVID-19 pandemic, residents in several Southern states suffered the added burden of a string of tornadoes Easter Sunday that killed at least 27 people, destroyed hundreds of homes and left more than a million in the dark.

As state and local officials across the country ban churches — like other groups — from holding gatherings of more than 10 people, and church services already sparking numerous coronavirus hotspots across the country, some politicians in Kansas have invoked Easter in a partisan fight over gubernatorial power.

Throughout polling history, Democrats have been more likely than Republicans to hold a positive view of the U.N., but the approval gap between parties has narrowed significantly in recent years. Currently more than half of all U.S. adults poll feel the U.N. is doing a poor job.

Some Kentucky churches held Palm Sunday services in defiance of Gov. Andy Beshear’s warning against in-person worship.

GuideStone's legal team, led by Chief Legal Officer Harold R. Loftin, has created a Q&A document to provide general information on the March 27 stimulus package law and how it relates to churches and ministers.

All 2.9 million Kansas residents were under a stay-at-home order Monday imposed by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. It helped her case with the Republican-controlled Legislature that the exceptions for "essential" outside-the-home activities include religious worship and buying, selling, and manufacturing guns and ammunition.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights leader who worked closely with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and prayed at President Obama’s first inauguration, died on Friday (March 27).