A recent decision by the Pickens County School District prohibits prayers from being a part of local graduations after the district received several complaints about the practice from atheist groups. In response, the valedictorian of South Carolina’s Liberty High School tore up a copy of his written, pre-approved speech, and instead recited the Lord’s Prayer from the podium. A spokesperson for the school district said that the graduating student would receive no disciplinary action. He told Christian News, “The bottom line is, we’re not going to punish students for expressing their religious faiths” … Discuss

A group of atheists and secularists have created the Recovering From Religion campaign, and are seeking to raise enough money to start a 1-800 hotline for religious doubters. Their goal is to offer ‘round the clock support for people fleeing religion or that are in the midst of a spiritual crisis of doubt. They hope to launch “The Hotline Project" by June 30 … Discuss

In this interview with spiritual anthropologist Jim Henderson, This American Life host and professed atheist Ira Glass says he thinks Christians get a really bad rap in the media. The NPR star said the way Christians are often portrayed in pop-culture is totally different from the way the Christians he knows personally actually are in real life. “The Christians in my life were all incredibly wonderful and thoughtful and had very ambiguous, complicated feelings in their beliefs. And seemed to be totally generous-hearted, and totally open to a lot of different kinds of people in their lives.”

The maker of the radio documentary series said his show tries to capture “the way people are living their faith,” not embody stereotypes. Glass says while working at NPR over the years, he has become friends with numerous Christians who kept Bibles on their desks and would even invite him to see “rapture movies.” Because of how differently his friends acted compared to how they were often portrayed in the media, he says This American Life presents a more realistic look at real people and real faith … Discuss

This Sunday, Pope Francis led the first ever “Holy Hour” in which he asked Catholics around the globe to pray together from 5-6 p.m. Rome time. The Pope asked believers to focus on two prayers: One for those “who still suffer slavery and who are victims of war, human trafficking, drug running and slave labor … [the] unemployed, the elderly, migrants, the homeless, prisoners and those who experience marginalization" and one for the Church and its leaders. A Vatican official told Reuters it was "the first time in the history of the Church" that an organized global prayer hour has ever taken place … Discuss