MRI technology is currently used to gain insight into how behaviors and thoughts function biologically, and might one day lead to the ability to predict future behavior. However, the potential for such technology leads to troubling ethical questions. More →

June 18, 2003

An exhibit at Washington National Cathedral celebrates what can happen when people of different religions live together in peace. It displays treasures from the Middle Ages in Spain, when Spanish Jews, called Sephardim, lived peacefully alongside Christians and Muslims. More →

May 30, 2003

A Florida program called “Hospice of the Sun Coast” pairs high school volunteers with hospice patients, and in the process the teens say they “walk away with a lesson in life.” More →

February 21, 2003

Sometimes-controversial Archbishop Rowan Williams took over in December 2002 as head of the more than 70 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion. Williams will be formally enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury in February 2003. More →

February 21, 2003

As the crisis over Iraq intensified, the Vatican ratcheted up its diplomatic efforts to avert war. Pope John Paul II scheduled several high-level meetings, with officials including United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. More →

February 21, 2003

R & E takes a look at the life of a Trappist monk at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina. “It’s a life of transformation. It’s about a person becoming more like Christ,” says Father Aelred Hagen. More →

February 21, 2003

Ever since September 11, Americans have been trying to understand Islam. Is there something about the religion itself that drove the terrorists? Or had a small, violent minority that despised the modern West hijacked Islam to justify its politics? More →

December 20, 2002

Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played Spock in the original Star Trek television series, has a controversial new book called Shekhina, a photographic exploration of the presence of God. He says he was deeply influenced by the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah where the Shekhina, or the presence of God, took on a feminine form. More →

December 13, 2002

Health care in the United States is a big problem for the poor — not only because they often can’t afford it. Sometimes it just isn’t there. This is especially true in rural areas, which have a hard time attracting doctors. In rural Alabama, a Catholic nun has found a calling as a doctor, one of only three serving 14,000 people. More →

November 8, 2002

Fasting during the month of Ramadan is one of the five so-called pillars of Islam, an obligation of Muslims worldwide. Muslims use a lunar calendar, and Ramadan begins with the new moon. But for devout Muslims, it’s not enough to calculate mathematically when the crescent moon rises. It has to be seen. More →

November 8, 2002