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During the Bush Administration, Rabbi Melissa Weintraub wrote a definitive condemnation of torture according to Talmudic teaching and Jewish collective memory. With the release of the CIA “torture memos,” these essays are worth revisiting. And, as Israel celebrates the 61st anniversary of its independence how does the Jewish nation itself stack up to these ideals?

From an anonymous teacher with an inside view of the Prosperity Gospel. What happens when a theology of giving all you’ve got for a God who will enrich you meets the poorest and least educated?

At the largely symbolic “Durban II” conference, some Islamic states and their allies are busy equating faith with race, conflating religious criticism with bigotry, and fashioning new political cudgels with which to pummel the West.

When representatives of many Arab and Muslim nations publicly applaud Ahmadinejad’s racist rant, the real losers are the Palestinians.

As politicians argue, and our pragmatist-in-chief tries to find an angle, we can agree that not all moral dilemmas can be reduced to a cost-benefit analysis of pleasure and pain. There are some kinds of pain a morally serious person ought never to inflict.

What does it mean when a country that likes to proclaim itself a defender of freedom plays a song about liberation to people it is torturing?

A young, lesbian, Catholic progressive responds to Frances Kissling on the question of old-school ideas and strategies versus the brave new world of boundary-busting and online activism.

A Massachusetts nurse loses her job after talking to a dying patient about religion. What does this case reveal about the place of sprituality in American hospitals?

Japan, in the throes of political and financial turmoil, is still dealing with the long-running controversy over a national shrine for WWII dead.

During a profoundly symbolic trip to Turkey the president assured the Muslim nation that America is not a Christian nation, sparking right wing cries that he’s “thrown Christianity under the bus.” The real problem here is the absence of religious literacy among the critics currently speaking in alleged defense of the Christian faith.