As the stand off between workers and Governor Scott Walker continues in Wisconsin, religious leaders have weighed in on the dispute. Roman Catholic bishops came out on the side of the unions, urging the governor to protect worker's rights. Many mainline pastors, including Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists,...

"Gabby opened her eyes."

When President Obama uttered these simple words, the crowd at the Tucson memorial service cheered wildly. "Gabby opened her eyes."

Four simple words. Four very spiritual words.

Congresswoman Giffords was shot at the beginning of the Christian season called Epiphany. This year, Epiphany lasts until March...

As a working mother who lives in the Washington-metro area, I admit that I'm dreading Bravo's new program The Real Housewives of D.C. (begins August 5). I took some comfort in the Washington Post's scathing advance review of it:

Every word of the title is wrong,...

A survey released today in California reveals change in voters' attitudes toward marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Less than two years after Proposition 8 restricted marriage to heterosexual couples, only one person in five now says that Proposition 8 was a "good thing" for California,...

One of the most significant trends in American religion is switching: people who grew up in one religion and changed to another. Another important but often ignored trend is the decline of conservative churches. So, I'm curious: How many of you have switched out of a conservative church into another...

My mother died on June 30.

It is hard to write those words, even harder to post them. But part of dying is the practice of the public memorial, spoken words in eulogies and written ones in obituaries. After death, words communicate joy and grief, appreciation and...

This week, what is surely one of the most bizarre religion stories of the year came across my email. No, it wasn't the story about lightening hitting the giant Jesus statue in Ohio. Instead, it is the "Mitregate" scandal, part of the continuing saga of Anglican travail.

Both...

With the World Cup in South Africa, it is appropriate to take note of African religion -- for not only are Africans sports-mad, but they are the most religious people in the world.

In 1912, geographer George Kimball quipped, "The darkest thing about Africa has been our ignorance of...

Like most Christians, I don't pay attention to missives from church leaders. This week, however, dueling pastoral letters issued for Pentecost from Rowan Williams, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, and Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, caught my attention -- because one...

This week, my daughter's sixth-grade class visited a mosque. In advance, the teacher prepared instructions about how to dress and behave. At home, we talked about respecting others' faith (even when we find things difficult to understand), expectations of religious modesty, and differing roles for men and women in Christianity...

With most of the online world buzzing about Lost, another tale of loss caught my attention in this morning's Washington Post. It began by posing the question: "If 2008 was the year Democrats finally got religion, will 2010 be the year the party loses it again?"

The story...

This blog originally appeared on Beliefnet.

Although I grew up in a Methodist church in Baltimore, my grandfather had rejected religion and was quite vocal about his freethinker (that's what we used to call atheist) views. One day, when I was about eight, I asked him why he...

This blog post originally appeared on Beliefnet:

President Obama has picked Elena Kagan, former dean of Harvard Law School and Solicitor General, to fill the next vacancy on the Supreme Court. Much will be said of Ms. Kagan over the coming weeks -- praise and criticism of all...

In the weeks leading up to National Day of Prayer 2010, the news has reported several controversies surrounding prayer -- including the "disinvitation" of Franklin Graham from one prayer event. The stories peddle a common tale: a new sort of religious pluralism has somehow undermined the...

In the 1990s, I taught history and theology at an evangelical college, a place where the students were serious young Christians. One day, lecturing on the medieval church and the Crusades, I explained how in 1095 Pope Urban II launched a holy war against Muslims. Most of the students took...

The creators of the cartoon South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have been all over the news this week. On the show's 200th episode, they sort of depicted the Prophet Muhammad thus attracting the attention of a radical website called Revolutionmuslim (since taken down) that, in return, sort of...

Last April 15, when I handed my tax payment to the post office clerk, she said, "I hate tax day." I replied, "Not me. I don't love parting with the money, but I kinda like it. That check is a bargain -- roads, schools, medical care, social security, and the...

I'm not much of a sports person, but I have to admit that April 5 was a remarkable day for sports -- especially sports and religion. With baseball's opening day, Tiger Woods' spiritual transformation, and the miraculous NCAA championship game, one only needed to watch American sports to see that...

When Congressman Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) shouted "baby-killer" during Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-MI) speech during the health insurance reform vote last Sunday, American political debate reached a new low. Neugebauer has apologized to Stupak, insisting that the remark wasn't personal -- that he was not calling Rep. Stupak a...

This week, sixty leaders of Catholic religious orders representing 59,000 nuns sent a letter to Washington leaders urging them to vote for the health care reform bill. Unlike many of the Catholic bishops, who have worked against the current bill on the basis of abortion policy, the...