Mandeans share some rituals, symbols, and variations of stories found in Jewish and Christian scriptures but their belief system sets them fundamentally apart.

As 2007 comes to a close, we convened a panel of journalists to discuss what we can anticipate in religion news for the year ahead. Bob Abernethy sat down with our guests. "We take our annual look ahead today at the stories we think will be worth watching for in 2008."

Read excerpts from an interview with Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and author of The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith With Our Values in a Dangerous World (Basic Books, 2007).

One important element of the Christmas story is the Star of Bethlehem, which guided the Wise Men to Jesus. Over the years, many have wondered just what that star was. Now, modern technology may be providing new answers.

Two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed 475 homes and damaged many more in D'Iberville, Mississippi, people are rebuilding. From all over the country, 6,500 volunteer builders have come in to help, and displaced families have a place to call home again.

There is no known cure for Alzheimer's disease, and children of people who have the disease face a moral dilemma: If they could know that they are likely to get the disease themselves would they want to take a test if there were one that could predict that? And if the results were positive, what ...

"Kennedy talked more about separation of church and state, because that was the attack that was launched against him. Romney’s problem is different in the sense that people see his Mormonism as exotic or esoteric, and he has to knock that down without being too explicit about what Mormon doctrine ...

In Chicago, a dynamic young Muslim is working to help solve a problem many religious believers have — how to relate to people of another faith tradition. Eboo Patel is an Indian-American, a Muslim, a sociologist, and the founder and leader of the Interfaith Youth Core, active now on some 50 ...

Folk singer Judy Collins has recorded 44 albums. She's won two Grammys and been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Collins is internationally known as a performer, but now, she's speaking more openly about her personal life. Kim Lawton visited Collins in her New York City home to talk about ...

Last week, the US government said more than 35 million Americans went without food at some point during 2006. This week, the non-profit group Bread for the World issued its own report recommending strategies for the US to combat hunger. Bob Abernethy sat down with David Beckmann, Bread for the World ...

The war in Iraq has forced millions to leave the country. Most refugees have stayed in the Middle East, but the country outside the region that's taken in more Iraqis than any other is not the United States. It is Sweden, and as Fred de Sam Lazaro reports, the influx of refugees there is causing ...

There is no generally agreed figure on the human cost of the crackdown in Myanmar on Buddhist monks and others protesting dictatorial rule. The mass exodus from the country, formally and more widely known as Burma, continues.

There has been a new development in the Reform movement of Judaism, the largest and most liberal branch of Judaism in the U.S. There's a new prayer book out, and it has been designed to be useful to everyone, with more Hebrew for those who want that, and also more sensitivity to women and to ...

As the presidential candidates step up their campaigns in the states with the first primaries and caucuses, a group called Faith in America is trying to make gay rights an election issue. Faith in America founder Jimmy Creech speaks of trying to end what he calls religion-based bigotry. This past ...

The conference of bishops overwhelmingly approved a statement on faithful citizenship, urging Catholics to rely on church teachings as they shape their political conscience. The document lists a host of issues Catholics should care about, including poverty, healthcare, immigration, and housing. But ...

Several studies recently have addressed the religious interest, or lack of it, of young adults. We wondered how religion is faring on college campuses. Lucky Severson visited Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island to find out.

The 280 U.S. Catholic bishops meet this coming week (November 12-15) in Baltimore, with a sharp debate likely over religion and politics, specifically on how much weight the issue of abortion should have in Catholic decisions on how to vote. Joining us to explore the arguments is Father Tom Reese, ...

Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize for peace. She is a conservationist whose movement has caused the planting of 30 million trees in Kenya and also helped lead to free elections. Recently, Maathai visited Chicago, as Judy Valente reports.

To mark Veterans Day weekend, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly senior associate producer Patti Jette Hanley took pictures at Arlington National Cemetery and at St. James Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill in Washington, where on All Souls Day members of the parish read the names of Americans who died ...

President Bush admits he's not always the most articulate man in Washington. Over the years, he has had a lot of help from a speechwriter named Michael Gerson. Gerson has written a new book, HEROIC CONSERVATISM, which recalls his time at the White House. He urges conservatives to broaden their ...