At first glance, Mother's Day appears a quaint and conservative holiday, a sort of greeting card moment, honoring 1950s values, a historical throw back to old-fashioned notions of hearth and home.

Let's correct that impression by saying: Happy Radical Mother's Day.

In May 1907, Anna Jarvis, a member of...

May 2 was the National Day of Prayer. Since 1952, Congress has set aside the first Thursday in May as an annual observance for Americans to pray for the nation.

May 2 was also the National Day of Reason, a competing celebration of philosophy, reason...

On April 25, the Washington Post ran side-by-side obituaries of Howard Phillips and Robert Edgar in its print edition. The two men, one 72 and the other 69, died within three days of each other.

Those obituary notices, however, are the only time the two were on the same...

Not long after I earned my doctorate in the history of Christianity, someone asked me, "What do you think will be the future of faith?"

I replied, echoing Dr. McCoy from the original Star Trek, "I don't know. I'm a historian, not a soothsayer."

Strangely enough, people think that historians...

Around Good Friday 1373, an English woman laid a-bed, stricken by the plague, and facing what she thought would be her own death. Much of her life is a mystery. We know not if she was single or married, but if she had been married before that fateful season, the...

Since the Newtown killings, much public conversation -- between friends, in sermons, through social networks and blogs, and even in the mainstream media -- has centered on God.

Although the murders prompted many questions regarding the existence of God, why God allows such things and the problem of evil,...

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! Joyful Whatever!

With FOX News seeking to expose those who refuse to say "Merry Christmas" as secular collaborators to the War on Christmas, I confess that I am confused. FOX holds itself up as the network that stands by traditional values defending America and faith from...

"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations caused by the roaring of the sea and the waves," proclaims Jesus in the Gospel of Luke.

People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the...

In recent days, conservatives have attacked the Episcopal Church. The reason? The church has just concluded its once every three-year national meeting, and in this gathering the denomination affirmed a liturgy to bless same-sex unions. Conservatives assert that the Episcopal Church's ever-increasing social and political progressivism has led to a...

In his Newsweek cover story, "Forget the Church, Follow Jesus," Andrew Sullivan dissects the crisis of American Christianity--it has become hypocritical and irrelevant to millions. Organized religion is collapsing; atheism is rising. The wounded, lapsed, and doubting seek shelter in spirituality, away from the buildings and traditions that...

Something startling is happening in American religion: We are witnessing the end of church or, at the very least, the end of conventional church. The United States is fast-becoming a society where Christianity is being reorganized after religion.

In recent decades, untold numbers of people have left the Roman...

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...