“Being religious or spiritual has a very profound effect on our biology and our brain,” says neuroscientist Andrew Newberg. “It can change our brain and change ourselves over time.”

"What binds us together and what binds God to us is food," says Father Leo Patalinghug, a Roman Catholic priest who has his own cooking show.

Read more of Kim Lawton's interview with Father Leo and watch him talk about his television cook-off with celebrity chef and restaurateur Bobby Flay.

An interactive museum in Brooklyn teaches children and their families the universal values rooted in Jewish tradition.

Listen to this week's show.

Senate Democrats invited religion reporters to Capitol Hill on July 28 to talk about outreach to communities of faith, the role of values in governing, and religious involvement in domestic and foreign policy issues.

According to US government figures, more than 40,000 people have been brought in to help clean up the oil and deal with the crisis. But many in the fishing industry say they haven’t been able to get work, and they don’t know when they’ll be able to resume their livelihoods.

Watch more from New Orleans Roman Catholic Archbishop Gregory Aymond, Margaret Dubuisson of Catholic Charities of New Orleans, and Rev. John Dee Jeffries of the First Baptist Church of Chalmette on the spiritual toll of the Gulf Coast oil spill crisis.

At the time of Saddam Hussein's overthrow, about one million Christians lived in Iraq. Now a third of the Christian community has fled the country in order to escape growing violence and Muslim hostility.

Listen to this week's show.