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“We encourage people to have conversations,” says Reverend Rosa Lee Harden, producer of the Wild Goose Festival. She finds that sometimes people “who weren’t raised in Christian families, who follow other faiths more deeply understand the message of Jesus than sometimes we do.” More
Organizations fight human trafficking on Vietnam-China border; neglected houses of worship in Philadelphia save their historic buildings through creative partnerships. More
Vietnamese women and children from rural villages are regularly targeted for labor and sex trafficking. They are often lured with opportunities for work in China, and then sold as wives, prostitutes, or forced labor. “We were told that if we didn’t agree to be wives, we would be sold into brothels,” says one victim who managed to escape. More
“It’s almost like a version of ‘This Old House’ where you look at a house that’s been in a state of deterioration and we need a lot of people and a lot of resources to come and try to help and get this house of worship back on its feet again,” says Rev. Wilbur Winborne, pastor of 19th Street Baptist Church in South Philadelphia, built in 1874. More
Faith groups help soldiers with moral wounds; the world’s largest Buddhist temple; a Hindu boy’s rite of passage. More
“You may come home feeling good, you did your duty, you helped people, you helped keep your unit alive. Then at some point you may start to think,” observes Rita Nakashima Brock of the Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinty School, “who am I that I could do those things? That’s when moral injury kicks in.” More
“It is not that you ever forget what happened to you in war, it is part of your life story. There are no other institutions in our society that I know of except religious institutions that support people over their entire life course.” More
Leaders of the largest Buddhist temple in the world want it “to be like Mecca is in Islam, a global center,” says Rachelle Scott, an expert on the group and assistant director of religious studies at the University of Tennessee. “Critics question the intentions of the temple. They think that the primary intention is to make money.” More
Religious objections inspire surgery without blood transfusions; a poet shares the importance of faith and modern poetry; Jews celebrate receiving the Torah from God at Mount Sinai. More
“If there’s any way to avoid getting a blood transfusion, one is better off in general if they can avoid it,” says Dr. Abe Steinberger, a neurosurgeon at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey. More