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Anyone who has watched children play knows the spectacularly creative and subversive ways in which they can use playthings, even "safe" religious ones.

Get Low is a redemption story that doesn't feel hollow or fake. That's mostly because the protagonist, a Depression-era small-town Ten­nessee recluse named Felix Bush, is played by Robert Duvall in a wildly imaginative performance that may be the finest he's ever turned in.

Somalia is a "prime example" of an emergency the world has forgotten, says the ACT Alliance of churches and humanitarian agencies....

(RNS) Southern Baptist executive Richard Land was pleased at how religious Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally turned out to be. Bishop Harry Jackson, a black evangelical leader, was pleasantly surprised that the Fox News talk show host said things "some of my close friends could have written." And Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. was among the faith leaders to enlist in Beck's new "Black Robe Regiment."

According to a Quinnipiac University poll, 54 percent of New York State voters agree "that because of American freedom of religion, Muslims have the right to build the mosque near Ground Zero." That strikes me as a shockingly small majority—almost half don’t feel that “religious freedom” by definition applies to all religions, even when the question’s put that way?—but hey, glad to hear of majority support for basic American principles, right?

(RNS) Since 1985, scholars affiliated with the Jesus Seminar have been casting doubt on the authenticity of sayings attributed to Jesus and...

A fascinating legal question has emerged in the aftermath of Judge Vaughn Walker’s overturning of Proposition 8 in California: Who has standing to appeal the decision?

France's main Protestant grouping has added its voice to criticism of a government program aimed at repatriating Roma (Gypsy) immigrants and demolishing un­authorized Roma camps.

Six months before she was scheduled to be released on drug charges, Marilyn Shirley was raped in 2000 by a guard at the Texas prison where she was serving time....

World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, can fire em­ployees who disagree with its theological tenets, a federal appeals court has ruled. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S....

“War is not healthy for children and other living things.” That consciously obvious claim—a favored bumper sticker in the 1960s—came to mind while reading a report in USA Today saying that one in four soldiers at the nation’s largest army post have been in counseling during the past year.

When we complain about how busy we are, are we actually boasting of our importance?

The steward's only failing may be that he's replaceable, and the lesson he learns is that money talks.

I have never felt comfortable praying. I almost feel I should put the word in quotes, as I'm never quite sure that what I do deserves the name.

Against a background of mounting anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence, Baptist and other religious leaders spoke out Aug. 30 against...

The political-moral spin from online bloggers and television opinion-makers is enough to make citizens dizzy, if not profoundly unsure of where U.S. public opinion is headed....

Conservative Christian groups won a major victory recently when a Wash­ington judge halted federal funding of embryonic stem cell research to allow a suit challenging the practice as illegal to...

Clark Pinnock, 73, an influential theologian whose spiritual pilgrimage led him from a fiery fundamentalism as a young professor to an openness that caused some to brand him a heretic, died August 15 of a heart attack.

Here in Tidewater, Virginia, we make our way from city to city via a series of tunnels. As we approach each tunnel a series of signs warn us: “No HAZMATS” and “HAZMATS must exit here.” Trucks carrying hazardous materials of one sort or another provide a danger anywhere, but in tunnels the risk is magnified.

The call to make the world a better place is inherent in Christianity. But why have so many efforts by Christians gone so tragically wrong?