Holy Week is a time that millions of Christians pay tribute to the period in life of Jesus from Palm Sunday through Good Friday and Easter. The practices of Holy Week weave together a remembrance of the last events in the life of Jesus and a recognition of the continuing spiritual significance of those events.

The eight-day Jewish festival of Passover commemorates their ancestors exodus from Egypt. To celebrate, Jews will gather for a Seder, Hebrew for "order," to retell the story of the ancient Israelites' deliverance from slavery. Many of us know about the Seder, but few know about the extensive preparations for Passover, preparations which are supposed to cleanse the home and the spirit.

For many Christians, Easter is the most important celebration of the year. It is also a time when many Christians ask: What really happened on the first Easter morning? Did Jesus, in fact, rise bodily from the dead? Two eminent Christian historians, N.T. Wright and Marcus Borg, have been debating that and other issues of Jesus' life in a new book and in joint appearances around the country.

Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn live an 18th-century way of life. Hasidism, Hebrew for both "pious" and "saintly," began in the 1700s in Eastern Europe and was brought to the U.S. during the 1880s. There are numerous Hasidic groups in the U.S., the best known being the Lubavitchers, headquartered in Brooklyn. The Hasidic way of life is strictly defined by religious commandments, particularly for women.

In 1999, as the Senate searched for dignity, fairness, and bipartisanship in its trial of President Clinton, we wondered about the role of religion at the Capitol. One way religion can be influential is through pastoral counseling, and Religion and Ethics has often covered the spiritual advisers to the president, but who counsels the Senate, now the president's jury? What influence do they have?

Stanley Hauerwas is a blunt, controversial, and profane teacher whose Christianity is as unvarnished as his speech. The professor charges that the Christian Church in America has compromised so much with the modern world it is in mortal peril. As he tells his students, Hauerwas believes that the Church is losing its soul and it's up to them to restore it by becoming like modern saints.

The late C. S. Lewis was one of the most influential and beloved Christian writers in this century. Our critic, Martha Bayles, recently traveled to England to examine Lewis's legacy.

While most 80-year-olds have long retired from their chosen line of work, Billy Graham continues with his ministry. But his organization is thinking about the future.

South Africa's retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his nonviolent opposition to apartheid. He remains a charismatic leader and South Africa's premier symbol of moral authority. Tutu later chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the official body that brought to light the atrocities of apartheid on both sides, hoping truth would heal bitterness.

Can gays become straight? For years, experts have said no, that homosexual orientation cannot be cured by therapy. But first quietly, now with national publicity, some Christians are saying yes, gays can change with religious counseling. The claims are controversial, the data elusive, but as Mary ...

For Jews around the world, sundown on Sunday begins Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish year 5759 and the first of 10 days of awe, a solemn time of prayer, reflection, and repentance. We celebrate these High Holy Days here with a special interview with the renowned scholar and teacher David Hartman in Jerusalem. Our correspondent is Herbert Kaplow.

The House is preparing to vote on a bill that could severely curb a doctor's ability to prescribe lethal drugs for the purpose of suicide. That ability is at the heart of the Oregon law that went into effect last fall. At age 35, Brian Lovell was diagnosed with colon cancer and was given six months ...

Christian music, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, is now more popular than jazz or classical, and still growing in popularity. Yet Christian musicians are under vigilant scrutiny from their fans over what they write, where they perform, and how they live their lives.

The Jewish holiday of Tisha b'Av is one of the saddest days of the Jewish year. On this day, Jews fast and grieve, sometimes sitting on the synagogue floor, remembering the destruction of ancient Israel's first and second temples in Jerusalem and the 2,000 years of exile and suffering that followed.

An estimated 4 percent of Americans, according to the Princeton Religious Research Center, call themselves atheist, or nonbelievers in God or a universal spirit. We know what they do not believe in, but what does inform their beliefs, and how do their communities regard them?

"Home from the Hajj," is the last chapter in our story of one man's journal of faith. In April, almost two million Muslims converged on Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage. One of this year's pilgrims is Abdul Alim Mubarak from Maplewood, New Jersey. We first met him as he ...

As we cover the abuse of relationships between pastoral counselors and those who came to them seeking guidance and comfort, we hear personal tales of the sexual relationship that can develop between some clergymen and women in their congregations. This is a complex world in which the male pastor is ...