Rejection of Judaism for another faith. Once Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire, many *Jews were baptized either from fear or from genuine conviction. The Jewish community maintained the distinction between those who became...

APOSTASY is derived from the Greek apostasia, a secondary form of apostasis, originally denoting insurrection or secession (Acts 5:37). In the sense of "rebellion against God" it had already been used in the Septuagint (Jos. 22:22). The...

Apostasy (from Greek αποστασία, meaning a defection or revolt, from απο, apo, "away, apart", στασις, stasis, "standing") is a term generally employed to describe the formal abandonment or renunciation of one's religion, especially if...

Much as the UMNO government was keen to attribute the over-zealousness of Islamization to PAS's so-called extremism, it was not able to prevent contests over what should constitute legitimate Islam, even within the milieu of the party itself. In April, the state government of...

An Afghan citizen named Abdul Rahman, you may recall, made international news last spring when his conversion from Islam to Christianity led to his arrest, with the intention of putting him on trial for apostasy. At that time he was spirited away to safety...

BBC News last night featured an interview about Iran with a highly-presentable young specialist at Hopkins, Trita Parsi. The interview was startling to me for a word that Parsi used. Now that the neocon moment seems at last to be over, and the U.S. is...

Lina Joy has been disowned by her family, shunned by friends and forced into hiding _ all because she renounced Islam and embraced Christianity in Muslim-majority Malaysia.Now, after a seven-year legal struggle, Malaysia's highest court will decide on Wednesday whether her constitutional right to choose...