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Since the fall of Secularization Theory, which claimed that belief in God would slowly recede in the face of science and technology, we still must ask: Is there a future for formal, organized, institutionalized religion as we presently recognize it in rapidly globalizing, postindustrial and postmodern world? Here’s what religion will have to do for humans to survive and flourish.

Musandam is Arabic for ‘the Hamptons.’

As they muster their forces against health care reform, Republican culture warriors and conservative media outlets stir fear of “deadly doctors” and “government-encouraged euthanasia”.

So long as the health care battle is focused on the model of market competition—the very notion that health care is best conceived as a for-profit industry—the whole debate is a non-starter. If a meaningful health care reform is to pass, Democrats and liberals will have to return to their social justice roots.

Euthanasia, end-of-life, death with dignity, assisted suicide: these mean entirely different things depending on whom you consult. The health care debates have enormously high stakes, and yet we don’t even agree on the terms.

Reflecting with mixed emotions his decision to leave the church of his childhood over its inability to accept gays, the author recalls his own words, that “Scripture calls us to look beyond Scripture, to God and to our neighbor,” and wonders whether he should return to the church; indeed, whether such a thing is possible.

The face of modern global feminism is wearing hijab. The director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement talks to us about the new “Jihad Against Violence” and other developments in the worldwide Muslim women’s movement.

Myths of good versus evil have long sustained conservatism, but these narratives, with their shining heroes, and dastardly evildoers, are irrelevant to the civil debates at hand, and threaten to undermine the reforms that would help us all the most.

Religious values shift with every era, often limiting moral discourse to only one religious tradition; and new research shows that the secular Swedes are happier than the rest of us. Isn’t it time to try to imagine a purely secular ethics?

Texas is the second largest purchaser of textbooks in the country. If conservative Christians on the Texas Board of Ed panel prevail in their wish to leave Ann Hutchinson (trouble maker!), Cesar Chavez, and Thurgood Marshall out of the social studies curriculum, all US schools could be affected.