“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 →

June 20, 2014

  Editor’s note: On August 24, 2011, Rabbi Menachem Youlus was arrested in Manhattan on fraud charges. Prosecutors accused him of selling fake Torahs and pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars through the nonprofit organization Save a Torah. His lawyer … More →

August 1, 2008

Deep in the West African nation of Mali, where the savannah grasslands meet the Sahara, lies Timbuktu. It’s an impoverished town of about 30,000, most of them nomadic traders or subsistence farmers. But Timbuktu is rich in history — long ago, it was a place of high Islamic scholarship, and it still has a million manuscripts to prove it. More →

March 12, 2004

The federal government recently reversed a longstanding policy, saying that churches which are historic landmarks can receive government money for historic preservation. The move provoked sharp church-state debate. More →

May 30, 2003