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Time magazine’s religion top ten list had Mormonism in the spotlight. The Religion Newswriters Association voted Osama bin Laden’s death (and the faith response to it) their number one story in a list that included Harold Camping, Rob Bell, and Mississippi ’ s Personhood initiative. Oh, and the top religion author of 2011? Tim Tebow, whose life story is a runaway bestseller for our friends at HarperOne. But what about the stories that shoulda been, but weren ’t ? We ’ re thinking this list, drawn up Peter Laarman, might provide a template for 2012 coverage. — The Eds.

After Lowe’s bowed to pressure from a regional conservative Christian group and pulled its advertising from TLC’s All American Muslim, a satirical video began to circulate. RD interviews the masterminds behind it all.

Mary Magdalene has been the object of endless projection, one fantasy after another luridly tattooed on the screen of her flesh. That some of these projections are in fact feminist projections only confirms her status as a saint for our times. Mary of Magdala is Mary of Irony, too.

So-called “workplace spirituality” teaches people that the anxieties associated with global capital are inevitable, even part of the natural order of things. Under the highly deregulated conditions that prevail in the twenty-first century, individuals struggle against constant job insecurity. In this socioeconomic stew, workplace spirituality offers the individual a stable community where ultimate meaning and purpose become anchored to his or her place of employment. Workers feel more fulfilled and empowered on the job, and, therefore, will freely work harder and more productively, the theory goes, while ignoring more material concerns such as declining wages and diminishing benefits. Workplace spirituality neatly legitimates globalization while muffling its psychological effects.

To the chagrin of Britain’s Secular Society, which has protested, as the Guardian reports this week, that schools are “awash in Bibles,” every state school in England is going to get a new copy of the 1611 King James Version by the spring.

Some relationships are so bad that the only thing you can do to save your life is leave. And that takes tremendous courage.

Just as the Arab spring has upended conventional understanding of Arab and Muslim societies, so a new report on the issues faced by LGBT Muslims challenges the stereotype of Muslim communities in the U.S. and abroad as monolithically closed to conversations about sexuality.

“We are constituted, in every moment, by our relations. Some of them we compose, but they comprise the conditions in which we are composed. Theological entanglement is a form of what’s called ‘relational theology.’ Entanglement is meant to give a more physical, and spooky edge to our interconnectedness. This isn’t just about the apophasis of an infinite God, but about the element of unknowability in all of us—as creatures made in the image of the unknowable.”

The history of Christianity, as atheists are fond of reminding us, is one that has been drenched in blood. Whether religious war, inquisition, or colonial violence, there’s been great evil committed in the name of God. What role has the idea of Satan played in the development of this culture?

India’s “Arab Spring” has been more like a summer of discontent, complete with hunger strikes and arrests, all in support of an epic fight against government corruption: “ India’s second freedom struggle.” Indian activists are not household names in America—unless you count Gandhi. But former “top cop” Kiran Bedi is a huge figure in her own country, and has lent her considerable status to the grassroots India Against Corruption campaign as the movement unfolds.