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Because women aren’t permitted to be rabbis in the Orthodox Jewish tradition, Sara Hurwitz was given the made-up title Mahara”t upon her ordination. A little while later, after she was quietly given the title rabba, the Orthodox Jewish world responded with condemnations.

In 2002, Catholic theologian Christine Gudorf predicted that “within a generation or two,” Catholic hierarchical teaching will change to encourage contraception in marriage and to allow some abortions.

Can government use religious language while remaining neutral in matters of religion? This question, and others, were addressed at a lively panel discussion at Netroots last month. Bruce Ledewitz reports on the event, and sets the stage for further conversation.

David Sloan Wilson is a biologist who claims that the so-called “selfish” gene is a myth. What if we have evolved to do what’s best not for ourselves, but for the groups we live in? The implications for religion, the ultimate social organism, are huge.

What inspired you to write Through the Door of Life? Early in my gender transition process, my therapist urged me to write an autobiography. “How can I do that?” I responded. “To write an…

Younger people are surrounded by vivid and accessible myths, like Avatar, that have taken the place of the Bible’s traditional role in providing the framework and role models for our lives.

18th-century visionary financier John Law and 21st-century crook Bernie Madoff both had compatriots with a ravenous desire for free money—the vice that drove the systems in which these kindred spirits operated.

Among the first generation of women rabbis and among the first generation of lesbian rabbis is Rebecca Alpert. Shaped by her own teachers, including Mordecai Kaplan, who founded Reconstructionist Judaism, Alpert is currently a faculty member in religious studies at Temple University. She is also the author of books on Reconstructionist and progressive Judaism, on the place of lesbians within Judaism, and, most recently, on Jews in black baseball.

Lost in (and sullied by) the sexual scandals is the Church’s investigation into an apparition of Mary.

At the same time as we learn of a new depth to the pedophilia crisis in the Church, we hear from a Vatican official that Pope Paul II had a regular practice of flagellation: chastising the body for the sake of the soul. What can we learn from this irony?