A Twitter feed photo of Kevin Durant’s tattooed back.

A man thought to be a British soldier was killed by two men in a frenzied attack on a London street. After being run over by a car, the man was hacked with cleavers by men who claimed to be Muslim. One of them told a TV reporter, “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.”

Perhaps they should take a lesson from the pope.

In remarks at a Mass on Wednesday, Pope Francis said building walls against non-Catholics leads to “killing in the name of God.”

“To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy,” the pope said.

In other Vatican news, a financial watchdog group said it had detected six possible attempts to use the Holy See to launder money last year.

An atheist lawmaker’s decision to give the daily prayer at the Arizona House of Representatives triggered a do-over from a Christian lawmaker who said the previous day’s prayer didn’t pass muster.

WaPo posted the text of the “prayer,” by Democratic Rep. Juan Mendez of Tempe:

“In this room, let us cherish and celebrate our shared humanness, our shared capacity for reason and compassion, our shared love for the people of our state, for our Constitution and for our democracy.”

Mild-mannered and respectful, I say.

The Anti-Defamation League is going after Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan for making anti-Semitic statements at a Detroit church appearance. Farrakhan denounced “Satanic Jews” and the “synagogue of Satan” that he said controls major U.S. institutions.

Who says New Yorkers are godless? The city council passed a resolution calling on state lawmakers to protect their right to rent worship space on Sundays.

Of course, everyone knows Brooklyn is mecca for hipsters. Right?

Trying to outdo the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn’s “Jesus was the original hipster” ad campaign, Chabad of North Brooklyn recently released a “Unite the Beards” video with the theme, “Hasid and hipster, not as different as you think.” But no bearded hipsters turned out for a forum on the subject of facial hair. Just bearded Hasidim.

Not quite hipster, more dermal art aficionado: Check out basketball player Kevin Durant tattooed back. It includes a portrait of Jesus and a quote from James 1: 2:4.

A prominent American Jewish leader was warned about a serious Holocaust compensation scam more than eight years before the fraud became public.

Julius Berman, chairman of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, failed to act on the fraud taking place, The Forward is reporting.

The Boy Scouts of America’s national leadership will vote today on whether to allow openly gay Scouts in its ranks. Stay tuned for more coverage.

Kellie Kotraba looks at the growing role of gay Mormon characters in theater and literature.

An American missionary priest entangled in a dispute over the ownership of two mission hospitals in Kenya has been suspended from the priesthood by his order. He sued a cardinal and a nun.

Chelsea Clinton, a Methodist who married a Jew, is stumping for interfaith relations. She is the co-founder and co-chairwoman of New York University’s Of Many Institute, a program for “multifaith” education.

Our own Jonathan Merritt interviewed Shane Claiborne, one of the leaders of the New Monasticism movement, which is made up of Protestants, mostly. Claiborne is pretty rad. He’s also pretty practical:

“One of my closest friends and mentors is an 80-year-old nun who’s as wild as they come. We’ve gone to jail together many times for protesting bad laws. (It’s always a good idea to have a nun next to you when you get arrested!)”

And finally, who knew? The New York Times gushes about Brigham Young University’s computer animation program. “Out of nowhere, B.Y.U. — a Mormon university owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — has become a farm team for the country’s top animation studios and effects companies. Unlikely as it sounds, young Mormons are being sucked out of the middle of Utah and into the very centers of American pop-culture manufacturing.”

We won’t suck you out of anywhere for subscribing to the Roundup. But you might become part of a farm team knowledgeable about religion news.

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A Bible in a hotel room image courtesy Shutterstock.com (http://shutr.bz/16E1fdx)

If you’re into the culture wars, today’s your day:

An atheist who complained that he found Bibles in a state-owned cabin got his way. Georgia officials removed the Bibles from all state park resorts. But now, the state attorney general issued a ruling saying the Bibles are OK because the state hadn’t paid for the books. On Wednesday, Gov. Nathan Deal ordered the Bibles returned

Also in Georgia, Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta writes that the president of the LaGrange, Ga., Humanists is running to become the city’s first atheist mayor.

The American Family Association is going after the AARP for contributing money to the “homosexual agenda.”

“If you are a Christian and believe in biblical values, you can pretty much count on the fact that everything that you are in favor of, the AARP is opposing,” said AFA Executive Vice President Buddy Smith.

The head pastor of one of America’s “10 healthiest churches” has resigned after confessing that he committed adultery three years ago. David Loveless, pastor of Discovery Church, resigned the Orlando megachurch this month.

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says Franklin Graham is not a victim of IRS overreach but of something else: “His lust for the media spotlight and his disgust with President Obama.” (If you missed the backstory, our own Adelle Banks reported that Graham wrote to Obama to complain after the IRS audited Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.)

Going to hell? The head of Saudi Arabia’s religious police has warned citizens against using Twitter, saying anyone using social media sites — and especially Twitter — “has lost this world and his afterlife.”

In other news:

Pope Francis has denounced the global financial system, blasting the “cult of money” that he says is tyrannizing the poor and turning humans into expendable consumer goods.

The anti-Shariah movement is changing, reports our own Omar Sacirbey. While older legislative bills singled out Islam and Shariah, newer bills mention only foreign laws, with no references to Shariah or Islam.

Some Catholics say they will quit the Boy Scouts of America if it allows openly gay boys into its program.

The Catholic diocese in Missouri will pay a $600,000 settlement to the family of a girl who was photographed by a priest in pornographic poses.

Two Minnesota women convicted of conspiring to send money to al-Shabab in Somalia were given prison sentences in federal court Thursday.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews protested in Jerusalem on Thursday against plans to enlist men from their community into the military.

NPR says Buddhist monks in Myanmar may not be the meditating pacifists people in the West take them to be. Some Muslims say Buddhist monks have been inciting followers during recent violence in Myanmar.

Geza Vermes, a scholar who argued that Jesus could be understood only through the Jewish tradition from which he emerged, and who expanded that understanding through his widely read English translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls, died last week in Oxford, England. Read the obituary of his fascinating life as the son of Hungarian Jewish converts to Catholicism who became a priest and later returned to Judaism.

There is no universal legal command for all Muslims to support each other at all times, says Hussein Rashid in a CNN commentary. Rashid is referring to the comment by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bomb suspects, that “an attack against one Muslim is an attack against all.”

In art news (it’s Friday), a new documentary about the Jews of Nigeria (yes, there are a few) suggests the Ibo people may be the lost tribe of Israel.

The rooftop terrace at the Metropolitan Museum in New York has been splattered with paint the color of dried blood. At first glance it looks like a crime scene or the site of a ritual slaughter. In fact, Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi has worked into the mess a pattern of leafy shrubbery, bird feathers and angels’ wings. It’s an odd juxtaposition and apparently suggestive of the Boston Marathon after the bombing.

Our feminist Mormon blogger Jana Riess gives the new Star Trek movie, Into Darkness, four stars.

And finally, we end on a sad note. The RNS staff was sorry to hear that UMR Communications, publishers of the United Methodist Reporter, will cease publishing at the end of the month. Some 26 employees will lose their jobs, including ace religion reporters Sam Hodges and Mary Jacobs. We thank them for their fine reporting and we wish them all well.

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Detail on the Dublin Spire, on O’Connell street photo courtesy Shutterstock (http://shutr.bz/10A9i8o)

The silver spire topping One World Trade Center in New York City has been fully installed. If spires once crowned buildings with symbols of religious faith, this one will serve as a world-class broadcast antenna. Welcome to the 21st century.

A wide majority of Americans support the Boy Scouts of America’s proposal to admit gay scouts for the first time, and most oppose the organization’s plans to continue to bar gay adults from serving as scout leaders, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

An Arkansas school district cancelled sixth-grade graduation ceremonies after receiving a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation notifying officials that a parent had complained about prayer at the graduation.

An 82-year-old nun and two other peace activists will be sentenced in September on their convictions of damaging a Tennessee defense facility where enriched uranium for nuclear bombs is stored, a federal judge said.

Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of slain civil rights leader Malcolm X, was killed in Mexico, USA Today is reporting.

The number of people attending Sunday services at Britain’s Anglican churches continues to drop, but church officials say there are signs that the decline is starting to stabilize. (Among the findings: Christmas churchgoing is up; weddings down.)

For nearly two centuries, St. Louis University has been led by the Roman Catholic order, the Jesuits. But with only about 2,500 American Jesuits left, it’s next president may well come from outside the order.

France’s Muslim leaders have agreed to end almost 1,400 years of Islamic tradition and use modern astronomy to determine the start of the holy month of Ramadan and other Islamic holidays.

As the Irish parliament prepares to vote on legislation that would allow abortion in cases where the mother is deemed at risk of suicide, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley said that changing the law would “encourage” and “condone” abortion.

A Pew Research Center poll found that 61 percent of Israelis “express confidence that President Barack Obama will “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” as opposed to 15 percent of Palestinians.

Pakistanis go to the polls tomorrow, but members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community will probably sit it out. That’s because Muslim voters must sign a declaration on the reverse side of the ballot form rejecting the founder of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as a false prophet.

Are psychics in trouble? Celebrity psychic Sylvia Browne is doing damage control over a prediction made nearly 10 years ago claiming Ohio kidnapping victim Amanda Berry was dead. She was, of course, found alive on Monday. (Meanwhile, the Skeptical Inquirer published a survey showing that Browne’s predictions about missing persons and murder cases have been wrong in every single case.)

Going to the movies this weekend? A Catholic Herald review of the new Baz Lurhmann flick “The Great Gatsby” concludes, “It may not tell us anything about religion or the life of the spirit, but it makes one thing clear. The world is an empty place, and we need some spiritual truths to make life bearable.”

Here’s another spiritual truth. I cannot top the boss’s appeal in yesterday’s Roundup. For those who missed it, Editor-in-Chief Kevin Eckstrom posted a photo of his cherubic boy, Gus, in a plea to get you to donate to our Roundup campaign. (My geriatric black cat doesn’t quite make the cut.)

I will say this. Our campaign will end sometime next week and you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in RNS’s first-ever online fundraiser. Make history. Contribute to something you care about: the sharing of information and the surprising, infuriating, ridiculous, awesome, inspiring and just plain funny ways religion news unfolds.

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Today retired Pope Benedict XVI helicopters back to the Vatican. It will be the first time a reigning pope and a retired pope live a short distance from each other, our own Alessandro Speciale reports.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has equated the wages paid to Bangladeshi workers who died in last week’s building collapse to “slave labor.”

Back on these shores: The “Nuns on the Bus” are revving up their engines for another national campaign. This time they will rally in support of immigration reform. RNS resident expert David Gibson says this time the nuns and the bishops may be on the same page.

In Detroit, Catholic families with gay kids are planning a prayer vigil after Archbishop Allen Vigneron said Catholics who support gay unions or marriage should abstain from receiving communion.

Fred Phelps and company now have a new protest target: NBA games. See under Jason Collins.

The Obama administration moved Wednesday to keep girls under 15 from having over-the-counter access to morning-after pills. The move follows a judge’s order to make the drug available without a prescription for girls and women of all ages.

Students with deep religious convictions are fast turning public schools into the newest battleground over abortion, says Charles Haynes. To wit: A sixth grade student in Minnesota, who was prohibited from sharing pro-life literature with her classmates, filed suit against her school for violating her First Amendment rights.

Today is National Day of Prayer.

T. M. Luhrmann, a professor of anthropology at Stanford, writes in The New York Times that people who hear God talking are not suffering from schizophrenia. They may simply be having an intense prayer practice.

Opposition to gay marriage in France may be a remnant of a Catholic mentality despite the withering of religious practice there. Robert Zaretsky calls it “zombie Catholicism.”

Britons had more faith in big supermarkets — 19 percent — than in either Google, Facebook or religion. That’s according to the “Future of Britain” report.

The government of Ireland recently apologized for its role in sending girls to Roman Catholic Magdalene laundries for hard work and no pay. Now victims of the workhouses in Northern Ireland want their government to apologize too.

And finally, Do not try this at your local school: An Arizona high school organized a school wide “Redneck Day” and encouraged classmates to dress — and spoof accordingly. Instead, it angered African-Americans and civil-rights leaders and touched off a debate about free speech, social stereotypes and good taste.

We know you have good taste. That’s why we’re launching a short campaign to help us raise money to deliver this condensed compilation of religion news to you Monday through Friday. If you like the Roundup and find it useful, please contribute. The Roundup is free, but it costs money to produce. As always, thank you for reading the Roundup. Stay tuned for the Friday edition.

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The Washington Post reports that the CIA pushed to have Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder Boston Marathon bombing suspect, placed on a U.S. counterterrorism watch list more than a year before the attacks.

People in Watertown, Mass., a heavily Armenian community, are casting doubt on claims by relatives that Tsarnaev was influenced by an Armenian convert to Islam named Misha. Most Armenians are Christians.

The 14 people who lost limbs in the Boston Marathon bombing will likely struggle with spiritual questions about the nature of life and their role in it, says an RNS contributor.

Two guest columnists writing in The New York Times say U.S. mosques are not breeding grounds for young Muslim radicals, as Rep. Peter King suggested. Quite the opposite: They are mediating institutions committed to cooperation and activism.

Our own David Gibson says Pope Francis is sending an important signal about his priorities by clearing the way for the long-stalled canonization of martyred Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero.

The Rhode Island Senate approved a bill to allow same-sex couples to marry. The heavily Roman Catholic state is poised to be the 10th to permit gay marriage.

A new poll from PRRI and RNS shows 45 percent of Americans favor making marijuana legal, while 49 percent are opposed. The religious divisions on this one are stark: While evangelical Christians, mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics are divided on the issue; the unaffiliated (aka “nones”) have pretty much made up their minds. They’re for it.

A federal grand jury indicted a Catholic priest in St. Louis on child pornography charges.

Our own Adelle Banks reports that black clergy have launched a new coalition to fight gun violence.

France is beset by violent protests after its lower house of parliament to legalize gay marriage.

In Scotland, the first Sikh temple will open in Glasgow this weekend.

A 12th century minaret in Aleppo, Syria, was destroyed as rebels and government troops fought pitched battles.

You thought feminism was old news? Au contraire:

Seattle megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll told women that God wanted them to submit to their husbands and that they shouldn’t be a “nag,” likening them to Chinese water torture. (Yes, this is the same Driscoll who earlier this year tweeted that President Barack Obama did not know God or believe in the Bible.)

RE: chauvinism, Jamie Manson at National Catholic Reporter suggests Pope Francis is one.

By contrast, the Dalai Lama says he would be pleased if a woman were to succeed him.

And finally: A victory for women in Israel. A judge ruled that there was no justification for the detention of five women who tried to pray at the Western Wall, and that the police’s request for restraining orders to keep them away from the Wall can’t be granted.

Worth reading: Diana Butler Bass says the church does not need to convert the world. Rather, the world needs to convert the church. Live out its teachings and love your neighbor may be the way forward, she says. We strive to love our neighbors by offering a free Roundup subscription. Sign up by clicking on the blue button below.

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Richard Lischer’s memoir “Stations of the Heart” deals with his son’s battle with cancer. Lischer is pictured here in Goodson Chapel at Duke Divinity School. Photo by Les Todd, Duke Photography

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This image available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

It was his grown son, a successful lawyer, telling him his cancer had returned.

The ensuing 95 days in which Lischer — a man used to offering pastoral advice to others — stood by his son, Adam Ewers Lischer, as he lost his battle to cancer is now the subject of an eloquent memoir, “Stations of the Heart.”

Grief as the subject of memoir is now commonplace. But this volume, written by a professor of preaching at Duke Divinity School, conveys not only the anguish of grieving families, but also offers testimony to a faith that is tested but survives.

The journey, Lischer writes, took him from “the bitter gall” of feeling his son’s death was a “robbery” to a “settled sorrow” that proclaims: “He was my son, and I give thanks for him.”

Lischer, a gifted writer who has chronicled his earlier life as a Lutheran minister in “Open Secrets,” is among a new crop of theologians writing about faith in a different way.

These writers aren’t interested in the formality of doctrine or in abstract theological argument. Instead, they write about how faith is lived day to day and in times of crisis.

“Because this felt so terribly significant to me, I wanted to write it down,” Lischer said, speaking from his office overlooking the Gothic gray Duke Chapel. “Silence was never an option. I felt as if I needed to make a testimony.”

At its core, “Stations of the Heart” is a love story of a father and son. That son was a onetime assistant district attorney in eastern North Carolina, a husband, a recent Roman Catholic convert and an expectant father when a three-month checkup revealed a recurrence of melanoma, this time in the form of multiple, inoperable lesions. He was 33.

Richard Lischer’s memoir “Stations of the Heart” deals with his son’s battle with cancer. Photo courtesy Richard Lischer

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This image available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

The father, a longtime professor at the divinity school and an expert on the preaching of Martin Luther King Jr., was supposed to be the guardian of the faith. And yet, the book recounts, as Adam’s disease progressed, their roles reversed. In his final three months, Adam and his wife attended daily Mass, read the Bible, recited the Psalms. His father, meanwhile, replaced the prayer book in his cabinet with an unabridged dictionary.

It’s not that he lost his faith, he said; but “the lights went down for a while.”

“I can’t use the familiar platitudes certain religious people use,” Lischer said. “‘God will take care of him,’ and ‘God’s plans are always the wisest.’ It sounds like hollow speech. But that doesn’t mean you don’t trust in the love of God.”

At a time when believers and nonbelievers are locked in extreme polarities, Lischer offers an alternative: A faith that permits doubt.

“He’s willing to be publicly vulnerable, and that’s what makes the book powerful,” said the Rev. Heidi Neumark, pastor of Manhattan’s Trinity Lutheran Church and the author of “Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx.”

The ability to put words on paper helped Lischer cope with the grief. Within eight months of Adam’s death in 2005, Lischer was writing about those harrowing days following the diagnosis.

During that awful time, he scribbled notes at the end of a long day, usually after he returned home from the hospital. “I simply felt that what I was writing was representative of what so many people must feel in similar situations,” Lischer said.

Much later, he began to fill in the gaps. He researched Adam’s disease and interviewed friends and colleagues to round out his portrayal of his son.

Lischer avoids the cheap sentimentality that often accompanies depictions of the dearly departed. Adam’s quirks, his wry sense of humor, and practical jokes are realistically drawn.

But the book is not intended to be a biography or a definitive account of what happened to the Lischer family. It’s a personal account of a father’s grief.

After their son’s death, Lischer and his wife, Tracy, read the letters of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in which the theologian who died in Nazi Germany writes about the gap that separates grieving people from others. God keeps the gap open despite the pain, Lischer wrote, because God is not supposed to be the guarantor of happiness and security.

Lischer’s God, manifest in Jesus, is found in the homeless shelters, prison cells, and cancer wards. God lives not “in the restored flesh we hoped for,” he wrote, referring to prayers for his son’s healing, “but in the flesh of those who suffer.”

L. Gregory Jones, professor of theology at Duke and dean of the school when Lischer’s son was dying, said the memoir’s strength is that it is able to deliver haunting prose alongside deep wisdom.

“I learned as much about the grief of God as I did the poignancy of the suffering,” said Jones. “It’s narrated in a beautiful way.”

Nearly eight years hence, Lischer still rejects pat truisms. The fact that Adam will never be able to brush his daughter’s hair or read her “Goodnight Moon” will always feel wrong.

But, he adds, “When you get perspective, your faith tells you there is a basic goodness in the gifts God has given. It’s a terrible thing what happened. But that he was here in the world — that was good.”

KRE/AMB END SHIMRON

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God as therapist, courtesy Shutterstock

Tenth-grade students at Albany (N.Y.) High School were given an alarming writing assignment last week: How do I convince my teacher that I think Jews are evil? The superintendent of the school system has apologized and the unnamed teacher has been placed on leave.

Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero defends the teacher and says he too gave out a similar assignment as a way of teaching about the dangers of Nazi propaganda.

Can’t help but wonder how Jews in the classroom might have felt.

The Wall Street Journal has a new e-book, “Pope Francis: From the End of the Earth to Rome” that chronicles the unlikely ascension of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papacy. An excerpt appeared in Saturday’s paper. What Bergoglio offered was new narrative, the story says.

“He was telling a story of modern Catholicism that focused less on its complex inner workings and more on its outreach to those most in need.”

Our own Alessandro Speciale reports that the pope has set up a working group of eight cardinals from all over the world to advise him on running the church and reforming the scandal-ridden administration, known as the curia. Boston Archbishop Sean Patrick O’Malley is one of the eight.

Meanwhile, the world’s tallest statue of former pontiff Pope John Paul II has been unveiled today in Poland.

Culture warrior Richard Land has a new job: president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, N.C.

The provisional bishop of The Episcopal Church in South Carolina has sent out letters to an estimated 140 clergy seeking clarification as to whether they will be departing the denomination.

Fifty years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged white church leaders to confront racism, an ecumenical network has responded to his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

In weirder news, teen pop star Justin Bieber visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and wrote in the guest book that he hoped the young Holocaust victim would have been a “belieber,” aka a fan.

Overseas, an Irish constitutional convention has voted in favor of a referendum on civil marriage for same-sex couples. The government will now decide whether to accept the recommendation.

The leader of Cairo’s small Jewish community and the driving force behind the restoration monuments of Egyptian Jewish history has died. The New York Times has a nice tribute.

Concert pianist Fazil Say was given a suspended jail sentence in Turkey on Monday for insulting religious values on Twitter, a case that has become a cause celebre for Turks alarmed about creeping Islamic conservatism

And finally, some interesting reflections this weekend.: Jana Reiss wrote a loving tribute to Brennan Manning, former priest and author of “All is Grace.”

Anthropologist T. M. Luhrmann said many evangelicals treat God like a therapist, someone who will listen to their concerns and help them to handle them.

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Speaking of guns, Rick Warren’s son, Matthew, was “probably not” the owner of the weapon he used to shoot himself, the Los Angeles Times reports.

You might expect Seventh-day Adventists to celebrate their success while marking their church’s 150th anniversary this May. There’s just one problem, reports our own Dan Burke: The church wasn’t supposed to last this long.

A White House advisory council of religious leaders called for a global fund to address human trafficking and urged a new labeling system to help identify consumer goods that were not created with slave labor.

Is Pope Francis the first Protestant pope? Jonathan Merritt wonders.

Remember Jeremiah Wright, President Obama’s controversial former pastor? His daughter was indicted on Wednesday on charges of money laundering and lying to federal authorities, a U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman said.

More clergy contretemps: Lutheran Bishop Bruce Burnside of the South-Central Synod of Wisconsinn (ELCA) was driving drunk Sunday when he struck and killed a jogger, then fled the scene and was corralled by citizens at a nearby gas station.

The latest Time Magazine cover story on Hispanic evangelicals.

Time Magazine features a cover story on Latino evangelicals with the provocative headline: The Latino Reformation.

North Carolina (full disclosure: my home state) is making news again. Last week it was GOP lawmakers attempts to create a state religion. Now a N.C. lawmaker is equating any prayer to the Islamic God with terrorism.

Legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson broke the game’s color barrier. The Forward reports he also fought bigotry in other forms, including anti-Semitism.

Private religious schools perform better than public schools, and public charter schools performed no better than regular public schools, according to a new study.

The lone survivor of a 1963 Alabama church bombing that killed four black girls said Wednesday she wants millions in compensation for her injuries and won’t accept a top congressional award proposed to honor the victims. Sarah Collins Rudolph lost an eye in the Sept. 16, 1963 bombing at Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

Professor Peter Higgs said recently that there is no God and so people should stop referring to the theoretical partial that bears his name as the “God particle.” Higgs was referring, of course, to the Higgs boson, a particle he theorized holds the universe together.

Watch that IP address: The Huffington Post says someone at the Vatican is watching porn.

Two in every three white evangelicals (63 percent) now agree that women should be eligible for ordination, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll.

The Orthodox rabbi of the Western Wall said he would not oppose a proposal to create a new area of prayer for Jews wishing to worship in a less traditional, more egalitarian style.The proposal comes after a spate of arrests of women who had sought to pray wearing shawls customarily limited to men.

Speaking of women, in Syria they are taking an increasingly active role in the bloody uprising there. The New York Times says women are guarding checkpoints and running security operations in support of the army. On the rebel side, they are smuggling weapons, sometimes fighting alongside the men, and even forming their own brigades.

Not only in Syria. At RNS, women take active roles in bringing you the latest religion news. Keep up with us. Sign up for the daily roundup. It’s free.

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A demonic figure with horns, courtesy Shutterstock.

This image available for Web publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

Thirteen percent of Americans believe President Obama is the anti-Christ. Another 28 percent think the planet is secretly ruled by the New World Order, according to Public Policy Polling. It gets wackier. Check here.

This is not a conspiracy: Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town who rose to international fame as he helped lead the fight against apartheid in South Africa, was named the 2013 Templeton Prize winner.

A Jesus portrait that has hung in a southern Ohio school district since 1947 was taken down Wednesday because of concerns about the potential costs of a federal lawsuit against its display.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee said it would release thousands of pages of documents tied to sexual abuse lawsuits, including depositions with some former top officials. That would be New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who previously led the Milwaukee archdiocese.

That same Dolan who talked of how the church needs to do a better job welcoming gays may need to have a chat with Bishop William Murphy. The Rockville Centre bishop, whose diocese includes Long Island, gave the nod to boot a married gay parishioner from his church posts as religious education teacher, lector, altar server and visitation minister for shut-ins.

Forty years after Oregon became the first state in the nation to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, lawmakers are considering a bill that would regulate its production, processing and sale.

Joe Klein, over at Time, thinks decriminalizing marijuana may be the next big culture war.

Back to old culture wars: Liberty University, aka Falwell Central, has been silent recently about same-sex marriage. Kevin Roose, who wrote a book about his time at Liberty, says the university is changing and increasingly focused on ideological unity.

Herb Silverman says atheists can learn a lesson from the successful gay rights movement: Come out of the closet. “Attitudes toward gays changed rapidly when people learned that their friends, neighbors, and even family members were gay,” says the atheist activist.

Pope Francis stopped far short of calling for women’s ordination or giving women more decision-making power in the church, but he did say women play a “fundamental role” in the Catholic Church.

Not yet one month out, 84 percent of U.S. Catholics say they have a favorable impression of Pope Francis, including 43 percent who express a very favorable view, according to a new Pew Forum poll.

To North Carolina Republicans who want to establish an official state religion, RNS blogger and proud North Carolina resident Omid Safi has two choice words: Screw you.

Further south, Mark Sanford’s primary run-off victory brings him yet another step closer to professional redemption, says Brad Hirschfield.

Claims that America is persecuting Christians are an insult to the faithful languishing in other parts of the world where persecution actually exists—places like the Middle East, RNS blogger and evangelical Jonathan Merritt says.

Remember him? Roger Waters, frontman for the British rock group Pink Floyd, was due to speak at the 92Y on April 30. But the event— with tickets starting at $73 — raised hackles among some members of the Jewish community because of Waters’ bitter criticism of Israel. It was cancelled.

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Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus says the party’s platform leaves no doubt about its opposition to same-sex marriage. Still, it needs to welcome those with other views, he said.

Same-sex couples should not be denied the right to civil marriage, says Marc D. Stern, general counsel of the American Jewish Committee. But they should not be allowed to force dissenting religious organizations to recognize or facilitate their marriages.

Southern Baptist Seminary prez Al Mohler agrees.

And Georgetown law professor David Cole says it would be unwise for the Supreme Court to impose a uniform federal solution on the constitutional right to marriage.

As reporters converge on the court this morning, it’s fitting to pay tribute to former New York Times Supreme Court reporter and  press freedom champion: Anthony Lewis, who died Monday.

For the first time in history, Mormon women will offer an invocation or benediction at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ church’s worldwide General Conference, April 6–7. In a church run by men, this really matters, says lawyer and blogger Steve Evans of Wisconsin.

Passover began last night. Now it’s onto Easter. Our own Dan Burke answers reader’s questions about the holiest Christian day. What was the ancient Christian view of resurrection, and does Easter borrow from pre-Christian pagan practices?

An Arizona woman has designed a workshop to help Americans heal from spiritual abuse, which she describes as when authoritarian religious groups use power and control to instill fear and guilt into worshippers.

Beware the serial convert. A high-profile Italian Muslim who converted to Catholicism and was baptized by Pope Benedict XVI announced he would leave the church to protest its soft stance against Islam.

RNS blogger Jonathan Merritt points to 10 inaccuracies in the History Channel’s Bible miniseries. Among them, a ram, not a lamb, was offered as a substitute in the Genesis story about the sacrifice of Isaac.

Michael J. O’Loughlin writes about Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and her decision to support gay marriage.

Syrian dignitaries have buried a divisive pro-government cleric at the capital’s ancient Ummayyad Mosque, sparking outrage among Syrian opposition activists.

The Chinese government plans to eradicate all unofficial, Protestant house churches across the country.

Alligator meat is considered fish.

Back home, the Southern Baptist Convention is likely to get its next spokesman on ethics and political issues today. That would be Richard Land’s replacement. No word yet who it might be.

Is it OK to eat alligator on Fridays during Lent? NPR asks that question after a Louisiana man wrote to Roman Catholic Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond. Aymond said yes, the alligator’s considered in the fish family.

And finally, after the obligatory four glasses of wine at last night’s Passover Seder, your Roundup scribe is ready for a nap. If you too are  heading out for the second Seder tonight, sign up for tomorrow’s Roundup today.

The post Tuesday’s Religion News Roundup: Marriage rights * Easter questions * Alligator meat appeared first on Religion News Service.