Christian

Almost 16 hours after Martha Freeman's husband was strangled and beaten to death in the couple's upscale south Nashville home, she finally reported his death to police. If her decision to wait was puzzling, so was the explanation she gave police. Freeman claimed her lover, an illegal Mexican immigrant who was living in her closet, killed her husband. She said Jeffrey Freeman had discovered him. But prosecutors dispute Martha Freeman's version of the events that led to her husband's April 2005 slaying.

I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views. As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan. I did not always embrace these perspectives.

The minister has the number 666 tattooed on his arm. But Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is not your typical minister. De Jesus, or "Daddy" as his thousands of followers call him, does not merely pray to God: He says he is God. "The spirit that is in me is the same spirit that was in Jesus of Nazareth," de Jesus says. De Jesus' claims of divinity have angered Christian leaders, who say he is a fake. Religious experts say he may be something much more dangerous, a cult leader who really believes he is God. "He's in their heads, he's inside the heads of those people," says Prof.

Gangs of machete-wielding Muslims have been blamed for the weekend slaughter of hundreds of Christian villagers in Nigeria, but analysts say it would be wrong to assume the conflict was rooted in religion. Men armed with guns, knives and machetes launched a pre-dawn attack on the villages of Dogo Nahawa, Zot, and Ratsat, south of the city of Jos, on Sunday, setting fire to homes and killing at least 200 people. The government, led by acting President Goodluck Jonathan, has issued a red alert for the region amid fears of revenge attacks and calls for justice by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch.

Nine people federal prosecutors say belong to a "Christian warrior" militia were accused Monday of plotting to kill a Michigan law enforcement officer and then attack other police at the funeral. Six Michigan residents, two residents of Ohio and an Indiana resident were indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit, Michigan, on charges of seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the use of explosive materials and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence, U.S. Attorney Barbara L. McQuade and FBI Special Agent in Charge Andrew Arena announced.

Six people were killed in Pakistan on Saturday when Muslim demonstrators set fire to houses in a Christian enclave and fighting broke out, local police said. Police said Muslims were enraged over an alleged desecration of pages in the Quran at a Christian wedding last Saturday, and held a rally to protest. The Quran is the Muslim sacred text. The Muslims went to the Christian community in Gojra City, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Lahore, and burned 40 to 50 houses.

The parents of an Ohio teenager who claims her father threatened to kill her because she converted from Islam to Christianity denied Thursday all allegations against them. Rifqa Bary, 17, ran away from her family in Columbus, Ohio, in July and took refuge in the home of the Rev. Blake Lorenz with the Global Revolution Church in Orlando, Florida. The teen heard of the pastor and his church through a prayer group on Facebook. The girl's parents reported her missing to Columbus police, who found her two weeks later in Florida through cell phone records.

Security forces patrolled the streets of the eastern Pakistan city of Gojra on Sunday, one day after seven people were killed and 20 injured when Muslim demonstrators set fire to houses in a Christian enclave and fighting broke out, authorities said. Police said Muslims were enraged over an alleged desecration of pages in the Quran at a Christian wedding last Saturday, and held a rally to protest such an act. The Quran is the Muslim sacred text. Shehbaz Bhatti, federal minister for minorities, told CNN that four women, two men and a child, all Christians, were either killed when their houses were burned or were shot to death.

A runaway teen who said her father threatened to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity has been returned from Florida to Ohio, but not yet to her family, her mother's lawyer said Tuesday. Rifqa Bary, 17, is in the custody of Franklin County Children Services while other issues in the case are settled, attorney Roger Weeden said. "We're very happy that Rifqa is back where she should be, close to her parents," Weeden said. "The allegations of abuse and neglect were unfounded.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez revealed a deeply personal side in an interview Thursday night, saying he loves Jesus Christ and would have liked to play Major League baseball in Yankee Stadium. He also expressed a fondness for American people and culture, saying he likes the movie actor Charles Bronson and the poet Walt Whitman. He loves to sing, he said, though he does not do it well. And Chavez had kind words for the U.S. security detail protecting him during his visit to New York, saying he chatted with them while out walking and that they "have been very gracious, very efficient and very attentive, very kind."

A recent Oral Roberts University graduate was the only one of five people en route to a Christian youth conference to survive a plane crash in southeastern Kansas, officials said Saturday. The twin-engine Cessna 401 went down Friday afternoon about nine miles west of Chanute, the Kansas Highway Patrol said on their website. The small aircraft landed in a field and skidded about 200 feet before hitting a treeline. A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board on Saturday said the pilot had been in contact with air traffic controllers, but there was no distress call.

Activists presented a petition Tuesday to the United Nations Human Rights Council calling on Pakistan to free a Christian mother of five from being put to death on the charge of blasphemy. A Pakistani court Asia Bibi guilty of defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed during a 2009 argument with Muslim fellow field workers. The offense is punishable by death or life imprisonment, according to Pakistan's penal code, and Bibi was sentenced to hang. But an investigation by a Pakistani government ministry found the charges stemmed from religious and personal enmity and recommended Bibi's release.

A northeastern Nigerian state was under a 24-hour curfew Saturday following three days of violence that left more than 30 Christians dead. The curfew was placed in effect as fears rose that Christian youths could launch reprisal attacks, said Tomborokai Gajere, chaplain to the Adamawa state government. On Friday, 11 men and one woman were killed in the city of Yola. The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has claimed or been blamed for a recent spate of sectarian attacks.

There are two Rick Santorums: The first one I might not agree with, but the second one truly scares me. "Santorum One" pushes for less government regulation for corporations and shrinking the federal government. You may or may not agree with these positions, but they are both mainstream conservative fare. Then there's "Santorum Two. " This Santorum wants to impose conservative Christian law upon America. Am I being hyperbolic or overly dramatic with this statement? I wish I were, but I'm not. Plainly put, Rick Santorum wants to convert our current legal system into one that requires our laws to be in agreement with religious law, not unlike what the Taliban want to do in Afghanistan.

The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has issued an ultimatum giving Christians living in northern Nigeria three days to leave the area amid a rising tide of violence there. A Boko Haram spokesman, Abul Qaqa, also said late Sunday that Boko Haram fighters are ready to confront soldiers sent to the area under a state of emergency declared in parts of four states by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday. "We will confront them squarely to protect our brothers," Abul Qaqa said during a telephone call with local media.

There are ominous signs in Nigeria that the campaign of violence by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram is leading to wider and more explosive sectarian tensions -- in a country where Christian-Muslim relations are often tense and sometimes bloody. The last two months have seen widespread bloodshed in northern Nigeria, with churches and police stations among the targets. Boko Haram (which according to the group means "Western civilization is forbidden") has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on churches in central and northern Nigeria on Christmas Day, including one near the capital, Abuja, which killed nearly 30 people.

A Christian publisher is withdrawing copies of the "Cancer Awareness Bible," from stores because the Bible helped raised money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which in turn contributed to Planned Parenthood.Many conservative Christian groups oppose Planned Parenthood because of its role as an abortion provider, though many of the group's services are not abortion-related.The "Cancer Awareness Bible" is described "as a way to place God's Word into...

In the Carpenter home, every meal begins with a prayer. Robin and his wife, Emily, are devout Christians. But they part ways with many other Christians over a measure that would expand the legal definition of human life. Their son, Luke, now 4 years old, was born through in vitro fertilization. The anti-abortion amendment being voted on this week in the state could restrict in vitro procedures, and the Carpenters are worried that if they wait too long to add to their family, they may end up breaking the law. "I don't really want or need anybody else getting involved in trying to limit how that works for us, or stopping it," said Robin Carpenter.

Less than a week after the arson of a mosque in northern Israel, dozens of Christian and Muslim graves were vandalized in an Arab section of the Israeli city of Jaffa. More thahan 100 graves were vandalized in the Muslim cemetery of al-Kazakhana and at a nearby Christian cemetery in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, according to residents and a CNN producer who visited the locations. Some of the graves were spray painted with graffiti while others were smashed. Residents say the vandalism took place Friday evening as the Yom Kippur holiday was beginning in Israel, but police suggested it might have taken place a day or two prior.

If anyone knows how to win the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, it's trainer Christiane Head. The 62-year-old explained to CNN how she did it in only her first full season as a trainer. Chantilly is the heart of the French horseracing industry. At 6.45am on a hazy September morning the sun is threatening to rise over Les Aigles, a 500 acre warren of trails and tracks that serves as a training ground for the 1,800 racehorses that are exercised here daily. A woman -- in her 60's, bespectacled, unassuming -- peers into the soupy mist.