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(RNS) — You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen.

You know Martin Luther invented the Christmas tree, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert popularized it.

You know the Christmas holiday has strayed from its religious roots and observances. But, author Judith Flanders says, “Anything you think you know about Christmas is wrong.

FRANKLIN, Tenn. (BP) -- The simplicity of a single homemade cookie. Could it be a source of sustenance for those mourning the death of a loved one?

Six and a half years and more than 50,000 cookies later, the answer is most definitely yes.

WASHINGTON (RNS) — If there ever was a “war on Christmas” in America, Santa may have won.

Nine in 10 U.S. adults celebrate the holiday, according to the Pew Research Center. However, that celebration is shifting in a secular direction

WASHINGTON (RNS) – National Religious Broadcasters, a group of Christian media outlets, has unveiled a new initiative to counter what it sees as the suppression of Christian and conservative views online.

(RNS) — Paul Pressler, who was instrumental in the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in the late 1970s and early '80s, is fighting a lawsuit by a former office assistant who alleges the onetime Texas appeals court judge sexually abused him over the course of several decades.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- About one in four Americans say they are evangelical Christians. Most of them are white, live in the South and identify as Republican. Many go to church every week.

But they're not always sure what they believe.

Two Missouri Baptist institutions filed appeals after a judge ruled in favor of the Missouri Baptist Convention in the MBC’s 15-year litigation.

While Dickens’s "A Christmas Carol" is not an overtly Christian story, the theme of starting over is. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he calls those in Christ “a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

NASHVILLE (BP) -- As worship pastor Andrew Lucius selects songs for Christmas worship, he is considering specific needs in the Georgia congregation he serves. Among his conclusions: singing only the first verse of familiar carols could leave worshipers spiritually malnourished.

WASHINGTON (RNS) — At the Supreme Court Tuesday (Dec. 5), the justices lobbed hypothetical after hypothetical at the lawyers representing each side of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a free speech case rooted in the religious convictions of the plaintiff — and one of the most publicized cases of the year.