“Music has been, in a sense, my religion, and it is what brings me closest to God or truth or whatever you want to call it.”

Yom Kippur “was thinking, sitting, and praying,” says Rabbi James Michaels of the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington. “Sukkot is just the opposite.” It is, he observes, “something that really gives us a very nice feeling of being alive.”

The Catholic Church debates the pastoral challenges of family life; an American Muslim convict argues for the religious freedom to grow a beard; the humanitarianism of Doctors Without Borders dedicates itself to medical care and bearing witness.

We set the stage for the October 5 opening of the Vatican’s two-week discussion and debate, called by Pope Francis, on the church and the pastoral challenges of contemporary family life, including topics such as marriage, divorce, remarriage, annulments, and cohabitation.

According to lawyer Douglas Laycock, this religious freedom case is not just about Gregory Holt, the American Muslim convict who now goes by the name of Abdul Maalik Muhammad and who is the plaintiff in Holt v Hobbs. “It’s about all those other prisoners that were not getting their scriptures, ...

For decades now, the mission of this Nobel-Prize-winning humanitarian group has been “medical care and bearing witness.” But bearing witness has had to be tempered by real-life considerations, observes medical sociologist Renee Fox. “When they were young, they thought witnessing was an ...

A historic Protestant church in New York City calls its first female senior pastor; two spiritual leaders celebrate opportunities for grateful living.

"There are several prominent pulpits in which women are now coming into those jobs, and it's an indication society is shifting in many different ways," says the Reverend Amy Butler, first female senior pastor of the Riverside Church in Manhattan. "Women are increasingly moving into leadership roles ...

"We are at the point in institutional church where we don't know what the future is going to look like. I hope at the Riverside Church we can create a community of people who allow for innovation and for exploration."

"The three pulpits that are historically important in mainline Protestantism have women senior pastors now is a very big deal," observes scholar and author Diana Butler Bass. "It is hard to imagine as recently as even 20 years ago that women would have achieved that level of leadership. It signals ...

"Gratefulness happens to you. Two things have to come together: something has to be valuable to you, and you have to become aware that it’s given to you," says Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk. "Then spontaneously in everybody’s heart, gratefulness arises."

“This is an issue about protecting the incredible gift of life God has given us,” says Rev. Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith, which led an interfaith delegation at the People’s Climate March in New York.

Forensics help loved ones find the remains of missing desert border crossers; what Jesus looked like; reflection and repentance permeate the Jewish High Holidays.

Finding out for the families of the missing what happened to border crossers who disappeared is "the sacred baseline” for her work, says anthropologist Robin Reineke, cofounder of the Missing Migrant Project at the Colibri Center for Human Rights in Tucson, Arizona. "Care of the dead is such a key ...

"Jesus matters so much because of the incarnation," says Edward Blum, a history professor at San Diego State University and co-author of "The Color of Christ." "If God takes a particular body with particular hair length and particular eye color, then perhaps that says something about the value of ...

"T’Shuvah is repentance, return, and new response. T’Shuvah is change," explains Rabbi Mark Borovitz of Beit T’Shuvah, the House of Return, in Los Angeles and author of the memoir The Holy Thief. "T’Shuvah says that change is possible, and change is mandatory."

"What have I done this year? Am I facing God? Am I facing myself?...T'Shuvah says each day we can improve one grain of sand. We just don’t have to be perfect.”

Haris Tarin of the Muslim Public Affairs Council on confronting ISIS and their radical ideology; the lessons from Boston’s experience dealing with violence and ministering to its communities; a Stonehenge-era archaeological discovery in the U.S. and the spiritual meaning it … More →

"What we have to do is make sure that we approach this in a comprehensive manner: socially, economically and with partners on the ground," says Haris Tarin, Washington office director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

When there was violent unrest in Boston, members of the clergy learned to work both with the police and with potentially violent youth. They achieved much-publicized changes, but they also may have claimed success too soon.