Depending on what happens at the Boy Scouts' national meeting this month, gay Scouts might soon be accepted into the venerable organization. Even then, there will remain a large and growing group of Americans still barred by the Boy Scouts.

When will the Boy Scouts accept the non-religious?

The Boy...

Many of my fellow progressives and seculars will wonder what possessed me to journey to Focus on the Family as part of the legwork for my new book -- not just with a bundle of questions but an olive branch as well.

Those four words -- "Focus on...

In what could go down as one of its most notable reckonings of the era, the Supreme Court heard arguments this week in two major gay marriage cases. While the advocates and justices sparred over California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, some important constitutional principles had...

The Obama administration has now gone a step farther to address religious freedom objections to contraceptive provisions under the health-care reform law, creating, through new rules issued last week, a way for employees of religiously affiliated organizations to access birth control without their employers getting their hands dirty.

Given the...

If you've ever been hounded by debt collectors about an impossibly large bill saddling you through no fault of your own, as many Americans have, imagine receiving a letter that goes like this:

"We write with good news: You no longer owe the balance of this debt. It is gone,...

Who wants to be in "the middle"? Not many. Or so you might think after a quick tour through cable news, talk radio and the Internet, or after a look at one of those red-state, blue-state maps. Political analyst Michael Barone writes for many when he observes that we have...

Published originally on USAToday.com, Aug. 24.

Thank you, Family Research Council, for now conceding what conservative groups have been loath to acknowledge in recent years: the truth that incendiary rhetoric indeed does contribute to a climate conducive...

Real-life scenario No. 1: A man with a weapon strides into a military medical office in Texas and opens fire, killing 13 people and wounding 29 before he is stopped and taken into custody. In the ensuing news media coverage and public discussion, the incident is widely viewed as an...

Tim Tebow's riveting ride to the Super Bowl is over now, two steps short of pay dirt. What a ride it was: a faith-fueling story that instigated and renewed many a fan's interest in...

"The poor will NOT always be with us!"

Thus proclaims a freshly launched Christian campaign to end extreme poverty in this generation. Scott Todd's "58:" project declares that eradicating poverty is not only possible but probable, if the people of the church put their backs into it.

Such...

A person cannot worship both the Almighty and the Almighty Dollar, the prophets teach. It is easier for a camel to squeeze through a needle's eye, says Jesus, than for a rich man to get to heaven. Obsession with money? Nothing less than the root of all evil.

It's not...

Does the religious freedom of a small, separatist faith-healing church trump the rights of its members' children to live to adulthood?

The Oregon Legislature is finally saying "no" after the headline-grabbing deaths of three children whose parents belong to the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City. These were children...

You get the sense, observing the shifting cultural landscape, that we've reached a point on gay rights that is similar to that moment in a football game, or an election, or a relationship, when you know it's over even though it's not over.

It appears increasingly obvious that social acceptance...

Judging from much-hyped story lines around this just-concluded Super Bowl, "Super Sunday" seems to have morphed into "Redemption Sunday."

Ben Roethlisberger's return to the pinnacle after the much-publicized sexual assault allegations and resulting suspension. Michael Vick's just-announced Comeback Player of the Year Award following his incarceration for dog-fighting crimes. The...

When Tyler Wigg-Stevenson contemplates the times ahead -- something this young Baptist preacher and Swarthmore College graduate tends to do a lot -- he sees two futures. In one, the world has rid itself of nuclear weapons. In the other, the world has been destroyed by them.

"Because...

This piece first ran in USA Today.

Jim Henderson is a recovering evangelist. Back in his soul-chasing, church-starting days, he began hearing a grating dissonance between his faith in Jesus and the way he went about winning new converts. Henderson realized he was doing unto others what he...

American Christianity is beginning to look a whole lot different.

Picture hundreds of jeans-clad 20- and 30-somethings filling the floor of a vintage opera hall in Chicago, armed with laptops, smart phones, and iPads. Picture a stage backed by a large screen, dark but for a large white image in...

Pro football superstar Ben Roethlisberger -- the Christian quarterback who used to take the field with the words "Playing for Jesus" scrawled on his cleats -- is almost making it too easy for the cynics and snark-mongers.

If you spend any time consuming sports media, you know that Roethlisberger in...