In the United States there are five primary titles people use in referring to the clergy or minister or leader of their particular church or synagogue, depending upon the denomination or the geographic location of the congregation. Each is a legitimate title.

Gun violence is personal. It can kill people. It can make people grieve. It can cause an enduring sense of loss. But it is not a loss that we need to endure alone or without a voice. As Rabbi Mosbacher modeled for me, it can rally and sustain our efforts.

Pastors are meant to do funerals for old people who have passed. But when pastors have to bury so many children from the deaths of gun violence, the moral sequence of the world has been turned around.

Keep me honest. Don't let me fall into the temptation of distancing myself from the people I serve and the people I love. Guard me from trials I cannot pass. Push me towards the ones that I can.

It sounds cliche to say that being a pastor is the hardest thing I've ever done, but it's true. And yet, I can't imagine doing anything else.

As pundits and politicians have courted conservative evangelical leaders, they have forgotten that evangelicals tend to be on the wrong side of history.

Months of suffering traumatic and demeaning psychological and emotional abuse as they are slowly being forced out of their pulpits due to congregational conflict, Tanner said, "is a really, really horrible process."

For Christians, this is one of the most important weeks of our liturgical calendar. This is the week that we should be contemplating what we never want to contemplate: death.

To me, the most comforting part of Holy Week is not the waving of triumphal palms on one Sunday morning, or the flowers and joyous hymns on the next. It's what happens in between.

This weekend, thousands of houses of worship will gather to sing to, pray to, read about and preach about God. And yet, mention of Trayvon, of gun violence, racism and profiling, will often be absent.

Ever wonder which religious leaders make the most money? Among the leaders of the world's major religions, rabbis tend to have higher annual salari...

As a testament to the far-reaching effects of the Occupy Seattle movement, the daily religious presence at the sanctuary tent includes ministers, rabbis, priests, yoga practitioners and more. When police unleashed pepper spray during earlier protest marches in November, those indiscriminately sprayed included peaceful members of the clergy wearing identifiable religious clothing.

I don't expect every church to parade a golden calf into the park, nor every clergy member to attend a march. But ultimately, the mainline church should be integral to supporting this change.

Today, the religious community faces a renewed challenge in a continuing recession to meet the needs of older clergy while making room for younger leaders.

By Lauren Markoe Religion News Service (RNS) Standing in the pulpit on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, what do you say? For clergy called upon...

When surveyed, almost all Americans say they believe in God, a majority say they pray and more than a third say they go to religious services every we...

As an African American clergywoman, I see gay rights as a civil rights issue. This summer, I will marry my congregants, Alex and Jeremy, just as I have other gay couples in the past.

Clergy aren't known for being in the new wave of cultural change, to put it mildly. But for the sake of couples who mostly likely want to stay faithful to their partner, it's an increasingly important subject to discuss.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to be part of a press conference at the Human Rights Campaign's 2011 Clergy Call in Washington, DC. Every two years HR...

By Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service (RNS) Religious leaders are hoping to hit a home run in a campaign to get Major League Baseball players t...