Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

"This case is about Christians aggressively imposing themselves upon their fellow citizens with the power of government," says plaintiff lawyer Douglas Laycock. But defense attorney Tom Hungar warned that the case could lead to "government regulating the theological content of prayers, prescribing what is orthodox and what is not in religion."

“One of my goals is to get pastors and congregations to feel emboldened to ask questions about the economy,” says Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

“You had people watching synagogues burn. You had people looting business that had been plundered. You had people joining in on the violence."

Kristallnacht, says this historian who directs the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust, was a pogrom, an escalation of violence against the Jewish population at a time when America was heavily isolationist: “There were a variety of factors that made people turn away from actively helping the Jews just as they really needed the help the most.”

Out of the ashes and rubble of World War II a ministry of forgiveness, peace and reconciliation was born “to heal the wounds of history.”

Liberal Catholics who were hopeful that Pope Francis's papacy would usher in sweeping reforms are discovering that the Church "is an institution that takes its time with major decisions, and none of this is going to happen soon." 

A new book by religion scholar Reza Aslan portrays Jesus as a Jewish revolutionary and just one of many in a line of "failed messiahs." "It was a phenomenon that was quite widespread and that led to a number of rebellions and insurgencies throughout the first century,” says Aslan, “and the argument of the book is that those zealot ideals and principles are at the heart of Jesus’ teachings and actions.”

"On the one hand, knowing what it is to worship Jesus has given me a profound sense of respect for the faith of Christianity…But I also, as a historian and a scholar of religions, have been able to look at Jesus in a sense unburdened by dogma and doctrine."

We visited a Hindu religious coming-of-age ceremony for nine-year-old Rushil Ramakrishnan at the Hindu Temple in Adelphi, Maryland.

What does it mean for a school to be Catholic? "This is a university that’s founded on biblical truth, on scripture, and on the sacramental richness of the Catholic Church," says Ave Maria University president Jim Towey. But according to Rev. Kevin O’Brien, vice president for ministry and mission at Georgetown University, "What we did 50 years ago to promote our identity does not suffice today because the world is different and our students and faculty are different."

“I have a hard time conceiving of a God completely removed from suffering,” says Christian Wiman, a lecturer in religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. “Once I understand the notion of Christ participating in suffering, then it makes more sense to me.”

"Poetry had always been the place where I'd experienced God and it's still the place where I feel lifted out of myself and given something I could not understand in any other way."

A movie based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free man who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery, portrays the complex relationships between slaves, slaveowners, abolitionists, and religion.

"It's about remembering and never forgetting and understanding from the past and embracing your past in order to go forward into the future."

Watch excerpts from our interview with Yolanda Pierce, associate professor of African-American religion and literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, as she talks about the new movie "12 Years a Slave" and about Christianity and slavery in America.