Christians and Muslims share a meal together in an effort to overcome hate speech; scientists and theologians ponder the meaning of life on other planets; and a survivor shares her life story with a group of young Jewish girls.    

“The usual notion is that Christianity would have a special problem dealing with intelligence out there, because it would take us away from being the center of the universe. For some people that’s very threatening, because somehow we won’t be as special as we have been,” says astronomer and ...

“Isn’t it amazing?” says Holocaust survivor Lola Byron, who grew up understanding that “no one was supposed to know I was Jewish.” “So many Jewish young women feeling completely comfortable with where they are and what they’re doing and not having to hide and not having to do it on the ...

We seem to be hopelessly hooked on our digital devices;  the husband of a well-known NPR host, after experiencing a long battle with Parkinson’s disease, asks his doctor to help him die; preparing for Passover includes getting rid of yeast or leaven … More →

“People need to talk about this issue,” says Diane Rehm, author of On My Own. “Doctors need to be taught about this issue. The whole idea of doctors being taught about helping to keep people alive but not being taught how to listen to those who are ready to die—that seems to me sad and ...

When the festival of Passover approaches, observant Jews search their homes for any yeast or leaven and then give it away, donate it to charity, burn it, or authorize a rabbi to sell it for them to a non-Jewish buyer. “People who don’t share our faith are helping Jewish people in the observance ...

The debate over deportation and immigration reform gets played out from the border to the Supreme Court; and an Episcopal church in Richmond, Virginia offers a more open, more mystical experience of God.    

“One of our great strengths is to make visible in appropriate ways the migrant men, women, and children we serve,” says Rev. Sean Carroll, SJ, executive director of the Kino Border Initiative, a Catholic ministry in Mexico and the US. “The more visible they become, even to our political ...

“It wasn’t that there was a failure on the part of the church at all,” says Millie Cain, a parishioner at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. “It was just that I was hungry for a more visceral experience of the divine. And it’s such a gift to experience that together in ...

“People want to be their own theologians. People don’t just want to receive truth from an institution. They want to participate with a tradition and make a truth that is meaningful for their own lives.”

“The thing that’s dying is a kind of old allegiance to particular institutions or institutional manifestations of the divine. There’s just not much interest in that. The thing that seems to be coming alive is this awareness of God, a … More →

A new papal exhortation called “The Joy of Love” tries to “see the grace in people’s lives”; Religious leaders are working to foster empathy and forgiveness among the survivors of shooting victims; The ushers at Hemingway Memorial AME Church in … More →

“There’s no abstract family. There’s no ideal family,” says Father Tom Reese, SJ, senior analyst at National Catholic Reporter. The pope, he adds, “is tired of the church being judgmental and laying down rules. Instead, he wants us to walk with these couples with compassion. Treat them as ...

“I look at crime or violence as a violation of relationships. Some people are harmed, some people do that harm. So the role of restorative justice is to repair, as best we can, those relationships” says Father Dave Kelly. He directs the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation on Chicago’s ...

Faith groups and religious leaders try to defeat the city’s gun violence crisis; a former US senator questions whether religion has any place in politics.    

“Sometimes the pain that’s resident in the community—it can be overwhelming,” says Rev. David Watkins III, pastor of Greater Bethesda Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago’s Washington Park neighborhood. “However, part of the hope of the gospel is that even in the midst of despair, you ...

In The Relevance of Religion: How Faithful People Can Change Politics, former Missouri senator John Danforth, an Episcopal priest, explores how an over-emphasis on religion has changed the tone of American politics and whether religious values can help to mend a badly fractured political system.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is always a key stop for presidential candidates; does the Affordable Care Act burden the free exercise of religion; and they represent rebirth and the gladness of the resurrection.    

Amidst the clashes over Jewish values that took place during this week’s annual meeting of AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, one rabbi tried to find common ground: “America and Israel are built upon values: B’tzelem Elohim, everyone is created in the image of God; kavod ...

“We Little Sisters of the Poor are a group of women who made religious vows to God. Now we find ourselves in a situation where the government is requiring us to make changes in our religious health care plan to include services that really violate our deepest held religious beliefs as Little ...