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Crisis pregnancy centers create appreciation, controversy

AUSTIN, TEXAS – When graduate student Mariel Lindsay returned from a summer study program in Paris, she discovered not only that she was pregnant but that the Frenchman she’d fallen for had no interest in maintaining the relationship.

It hit the 25-year-old hard.

“I had a big meltdown and my mom found me, so obviously my parents found out right away,” she said in a recent interview.

After a quick computer search, her mother located a crisis pregnancy center not far from the family home in Austin.

Human rights group calls for the release of detained Sudanese pastors

c. 2016 Religion News Service

(RNS) Sudanese Christians and human rights groups are urging the government to produce two clerics, whose location has been unknown since their arrest in December.

Hassan Kodi, 49, secretary general of the Sudanese Church of Christ, and another pastor, Telal Ngosi, 44, were detained after attending a Christian conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in October.

With new pastor in place, Emanuel AME continues on its 'mission of hope'

Emanuel African Methodist Epis­copal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, has welcomed a new pastor as the congregation’s work for justice continues.

Betty Deas Clark, a close colleague of the previous pastor, Clementa Pinckney, became the pastor at Emanuel in late January. Pinckney was among the nine people killed by a white supremacist shooter during a Bible study on June 17.

Frederick Reese accepts congressional medal for civil rights marchers

Frederick D. Reese, a Baptist minister who took part in the 1965 marches in Sel­ma, Alabama, received the Con­gres­sional Gold Medal on behalf of all of those who worked for the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Speaking at the U.S. Capitol ceremony on February 24, Reese said that God enabled the civil rights leaders to endure the beatings they faced.

“Had it not been for the Lord on our side, we would have perished by the way,” said Reese, 86, who has served as a longtime pastor and leader of the Dallas County Voters League, which invited Martin Luther King Jr. to Selma.

Southern Baptists' number of overseas missionaries drops by nearly 1,000

One out of five Southern Baptist missionaries overseas—or nearly 1,000 total—have volunteered to leave their posts to help the denomination’s mission board deal with its financial straits. That’s in addition to the departure of a third of the staff of the International Mission Board, also mostly through a voluntary program.

“This number exceeds what we needed,” said IMB president David Platt at a trustee meeting February 24. But he said the departure of 983 missionaries means the mission board will be in improved financial health.

Archaeologists find King David era fabric

Israeli archaeologists have discovered fragments of “remarkably preserved” 3,000-year-old fabrics, leather, and seeds dating to the era of the biblical kings David and Solomon.

This is the first discovery of textiles dating from the tenth century BC “and therefore provides the first physical evidence” of what residents of the Holy Land wore, said Erez Ben-Yosef, the lead archaeologist with the Tel Aviv Univer­sity excavation team that did the dig.

South Africa's Anglican bishops take first step toward LGBT inclusion

South Africa’s Anglican bishops have taken an initial step toward allowing partnered lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in their congregations to be full members.

The bishops passed a resolution when they met recently in the Grahams­town Diocese. That resolution now goes to the Provincial Synod, the church’s top decision-making body, which meets later this year, said Archbishop Thabo Mak­goba of Cape Town.

In Mexico, pope’s visit underscores perilous life of priests

(The Christian Science Monitor) Pope Francis’s message against orga­nized crime was potent in a country where more than 100,000 people have been killed in drug wars since 2006 and where some 80 percent of the population identifies as Catholic.

But his mid-February visit also highlighted a lesser known challenge for Mexico: its status as the most dangerous place in Latin America to be a Catholic priest.