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Despite stern warnings and threats of discipline, a Lutheran church north of Toronto has ordained an openly gay man who is legally married to another man under Canadian law....

Dramatic increases in food and gas prices are leaving some religious hunger-relief groups praying for relief....

A federal immigration raid with arrests of about 390 people at a meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa, has brought “devastation” to the community, said a Lutheran bishop at an ecumenical prayer...

In letters sent on successive days, the Internal Revenue Service said it concluded that neither the United Church of Christ, whose national convention heard Barack Obama speak, nor a Southern Bapti...

Sixteen Protestant denominations and regional districts have joined a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in contesting a Reconstruction-era state law that govern...

Little noted in the history behind the California Supreme Court decision that gives the “right to marry” to same-sex couples are the bold steps taken over four decades by onetime Pentecostal minist...

I have been increasingly concerned that much evangelical Christianity on both sides of the Atlantic has based itself on the epistles rather than the Gospels, though often misunderstanding the epistles themselves. In this respect, evangelicalism mirrors a much larger problem: the entire Western church, both Catholic and Protestant, evangelical and liberal, charismatic and social activist, has not actually known what the Gospels are there for.

I teach a variety of courses at Piedmont College, but “Introduction to World Religions” is my favorite. I have taught it more than 20 times now, to more than 500 students. One of them tells me how different the news from Iraq sounds now that she knows the difference between Shi‘as and Sunnis. Another brings me pictures of a new Hindu temple going up in his old neighborhood, which he is able to interpret for his alarmed parents. Students who complete the class say they feel more at home in the world. They are less easily frightened by religious difference. They are more informed neighbors, better equipped to wage peace instead of war.The only place the course backfires is in the unit on Christianity. Students who have spent every Sunday of their lives in church may be able to name the books of the Bible in order, but they rarely have any idea how those books were assembled. They know they belong to Victory Baptist Church, but they do not know that this makes them Protestants.

In my earlier years, my mother would often say to me, “Someday when I am old and gray . . .” I later used the phrase with my children in what they rightly described as guilt peddling....

Ronald Autry has always been called Ronald, never Ron or Ronnie, during the years that we have known him....

When Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed an open letter to George W. Bush in May 2006, he invoked Judgment Day, the day when the deeds of all political leaders will be examined....

The only rewards that matter can’t be earned.

Remembering our baptism enables us to step out of our old life, at least for a moment.

1. The U.S. government’s National Intelligence Estimate reported in November 2007 that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003....

Early in my visit to Iran I was introduced to Nesa, 24, who was eager for contact with Americans....

These are difficult times for defenders of liberty....

When I carried this book into a gas-station diner I saw the waitress look at the title and roll her eyes....

In their debates over homosexuality, denominations tend to assume that the “orthodo...

This collection, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, opens with “Theories of Time and Space,” a poem that alerts the reader to the territory under artistic...

On modern day Iran, its history and struggles, faith and culture, some relatively recent titles worth reading are:...