"Ramadan is that really intense, focused way of fasting and working on our own selves," says Rahima Ullah, "and then working on our relationships to others and ultimately to God."

"There's a lot of pressure we put on ourselves as clergy because of what we're doing, and we don't want to let God down," says Rev. Lynda Ferguson, a Methodist pastor in rural North Carolina.

"We ought to pray here every day until Congress proves worthy of the calling of the nation to govern," said Rev. Michael Livingston, director of the National Council of Churches poverty initiative, at a gathering of religious leaders on Capitol Hill.

At a meeting in London’s historic Lambeth Palace, top Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders launched a new effort to support Christians in the Holy Land. “Have these people a future in their ancestral home? We hope and pray that they do,” says Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Watch more from participants in this week’s conference at London’s Lambeth Palace about the situation of Christians in the Holy Land and how people of faith around the world can help work for Middle East peace.

"If Utah is enacting some draconian restrictive immigration law, you can sort of imagine the reaction and then the blame that might be placed on the church for allowing it to happen," says BYU professor Quin Monson.

As the debate over the federal budget continues in Washington, religious leaders like Rev. Jim Wallis are urging members of both parties to protect the poor. "A budget is a moral document," he says. "And the common good has to outweigh ideological, political battles in this town."

Church attendance in Ireland has been dropping precipitously, and the number of priests being ordained from the country's only Catholic seminary is at an all time low. "The young people, the under 40’s, have largely deserted the church in Ireland now," says Rev. Tony Flannery of the Association ...

“I believe that marriage education is the best anti-poverty program the federal government has ever invested in, “ says Dennis Stoica, president of the California Healthy Marriages Coalition.

Monks from the Dalai Lama's private monastery in India spent five days building a sand mandala at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. The mandala is a symbolic structure that represents a Buddha's dwelling. It is said to bring peace and harmony to the area where it is being made. Karen ...

With debt, deficits, and budgets dominating our politics, more questions are being raised about underlying moral issues. “This should be an argument about outcomes,” says former Bush White House speech writer Michael Gerson, “what is best for the justice and decency of a society.”

What is the common denominator when it comes to the melodies of Jewish klezmer music and African-American gospel music? Soul.

“Secularism is indispensable. It’s a protection so everyone has peace, believers and non-believers,” according to one French citizen.

“For most of the French, religion was an enemy of democracy, liberalization, freedom,” says this political scientist who specializes in Islamic studies, and “a synonym for public disorder.”

“When they ask for public monies to fund putting out their particular point of view, that’s where we have a problem,” says Rev. Joseph Phelps of the Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Southern Baptists try to broaden their appeal, the Catholic Bishops maintain their sex abuse policy, and the White House defends the US military mission in Libya.

Since Congress repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell last December, more than on million US troops have taken instruction in the new policy. But some military chaplains are raising concerns.

“It’s a spectacular opportunity for cross-culture associations that are peace-based, that are based in the holiness of this land,” says Steve Lozar, a council leader of the Salish Tribe in Montana.

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot, says Rabbi Shira Stutman, it is a time of “rejoicing in the harvest, rejoicing in this gift of Torah that God has given us, and rejoicing in the ability to learn from Torah in each and every generation.”

“We are focusing on regime change, not just protecting the Libyan civilians, and that will likely prolong the war and increase the risk to the very civilians we’re purportedly there to protect,” says Gerard Powers, director of Catholic Peacebuilding Studies at the University of Notre Dame’s ...