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One of the things that I pride myself on as a pastor and parent is that I take the time to prepare my son for worship—pointing out to him changes or additions in the sanctuary that indicate something new or different will be happening in worship, making sure that he has his own bulletin and hymnal so that he can fully participate in worship with his father and me, even pointing out to him things that I think are strange or weird in worship, helping him recognize our worship habits or notice when we stray from them.

Did Moses influence the founding of the United States? This historical question has generated controversy in Texas, where politicians, historians, and educators have recently debated whether Moses should be listed as an American founder in new social studies textbooks.  It all began in 2010, when the Texas State Board of Education said that students needed to "identify the individuals whose principles of laws and government institutions informed the American founding documents, including those of Moses.”

(The Christian Science Monitor) Amid a dramatic uptick in violence, the conflict in Yemen is sinking deeper into sectarianism, scholar...

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

In Café Elfenbein, which opened last year in a trendy Berlin neighborhood, two businessmen wear­ing yar­mulkes—Jewish skullcaps—chat away....

If it hadn't been for the snakes, I might have let the reader continue. Instead I went to the lectern and quietly said, "we are stopping at verse 8 today."

(RNS) At a church workshop last week, I set aside my carefully planned teaching and just let people talk....

The past year of my life has contained more than its fair share of sorrow. Like most lives, happiness and joy were there too, but those were not the dominant flavors....

Secularists from Voltaire to Richard Dawkins have attacked religion for its connection to violence. Karen Armstrong flatly rejects the idea.

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

(The Christian Science Monitor) Few were surprised when America’s largest denomination of “mainline” Presbyterian Christians voted to ...

When Sloan Meek sings, it's not like any singing you've ever heard. It's more like a moan that roughly captures the melody's dynamic movement.

When she knew she was dying, my grandmother took me to see the cornerstone of a small brick church in my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. I didn’t recognize the sign outside. It was a Baptist church, I think. It was pretty rundown, but still in better shape than the neighborhood. Overgrown vacant lots were everywhere; it was like visiting an abandoned church in the jungle.

I recently spent a couple of hours at the DMV; it was time to renew my driver’s license. The place was crowded with, in the words of the old prayerbook, “all sorts and conditions” of people. It was a multiracial and multigenerational melting pot. Around me, people were speaking in a variety of languages, including that version of English I associate with New Jersey. (It really is a different language, I think!) Every imaginable style of dress and undress was on display. People had done things with their hair I didn’t know could be done. Almost all of us were talking or texting or e-mailing on our smartphones.

Samuel Adams's book is important on two counts: he focuses on the once-neglected period of the Second Temple, and he asks economic questions rather than theological-spiritual ones.

Perhaps it's only when we let go of who and what our loved one was that we can receive who they are now.

This month in 1980, the Salvadoran archbishop was assassinated—shortly after preaching on John 12.

WASHINGTON (RNS) St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco is getting bad press this week over a sprinkler system it installed to keep homeless people from sleeping on church grounds. People are outraged that a church would treat the poor so callously. But St. Mary’s isn’t alone.

It was a reflection that came to me, as things often do, as I was walking. I was musing on the seeming insanity of my devoting so much time to studying small faith communities, on what possible relevance that might have to the great wild churn of faith.