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A new documentary delves into the Mormon involvement in the passage of California’s Proposition 8, but it misses a chance to see the big picture. It wasn’t just run-of-the-mill theological homophobia that galvanized the LDS church, but a fear that the spectre of Mormon polygamy would arise if LGBT people were allowed to marry. And what do some polygamists think? Gay marriage or plural marriage: it’s a question of civil rights.

Perhaps it is time to stop asking whether religion or science offers a better explanation of natural phenomena, and instead ask whether we find a certain religious vision compelling…

On a teleconference last month with a loose coalition of white and Latino evangelical leaders, Sen. Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who had recently unveiled a legislative proposal for comprehensive immigration reform, pleaded with participants to bring Republican senators to the table to…

Panama’s Muslim converts work to carve out space for themselves, in a country that doesn’t seem to know they exist. In this report, Aliyya Swaby meets two black Muslim women who have founded a mosque in Panama City and describes the unique mix of religion, race, class and gender at play in the growth of their community.

The popular term “spiritual but not religious” only goes so far in describing an event like this. I think Burning Man shows us the enduring importance of ritual as a vehicle through which humans connect with one another and as well as with a mysterious “more,” while also showing us how these expressions are increasingly displaced outside the bounds of the dominant Western cultural concepts of “religion.”

Episode 7: “Amy’s Choice”

The political vision of Generation Joshua and iGovern rests on the historical narrative of America as a chosen nation; one not only founded on Christian principles but desperately needing to return to those roots today. Like the conservative Christians striving to influence the content of public school textbooks in Texas, GenJ presents a competing vision of what America should be, and exhorts its students to recognize the pivotal role they can play in making that vision a reality.

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.

The Daily Alert newsletter sent by the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations is quite predictable: the news sources it quotes are either the official statements of Israeli officials or media articles supportive of…

Both in the first wave of press in 2002 about abuse in the Catholic Church and now during this second wave, we’ve talked very little about girls, and even less about stalking and the other kinds of abuse that people in power, in particular religious authorities, enact on the unsuspecting and the young. While we have a lot of journalists covering the scandal and talking to victims, we have very little in the way of “personal narrative” of what this experience is like. I hope my novel, This Gorgeous Game, and its protagonist’s first-person voice will offer a new perspective on the conversation.