In Washington and in cities across the U.S., followers of the Falun Gong meditation movement are turning out to express solidarity with besieged practitioners in China. Thousands have been detained since China’s Communist government began last week’s crackdown. This week, Falun Gong ...

The eight-day Jewish festival of Passover commemorates their ancestors exodus from Egypt. To celebrate, Jews will gather for a Seder, Hebrew for "order," to retell the story of the ancient Israelites' deliverance from slavery. Many of us know about the Seder, but few know about the extensive preparations for Passover, preparations which are supposed to cleanse the home and the spirit.

In 1999, as the Senate searched for dignity, fairness, and bipartisanship in its trial of President Clinton, we wondered about the role of religion at the Capitol. One way religion can be influential is through pastoral counseling, and Religion and Ethics has often covered the spiritual advisers to the president, but who counsels the Senate, now the president's jury? What influence do they have?

While most 80-year-olds have long retired from their chosen line of work, Billy Graham continues with his ministry. But his organization is thinking about the future.

South Africa's retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his nonviolent opposition to apartheid. He remains a charismatic leader and South Africa's premier symbol of moral authority. Tutu later chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the official body that brought to light the atrocities of apartheid on both sides, hoping truth would heal bitterness.

Can gays become straight? For years, experts have said no, that homosexual orientation cannot be cured by therapy. But first quietly, now with national publicity, some Christians are saying yes, gays can change with religious counseling. The claims are controversial, the data elusive, but as Mary ...

For Jews around the world, sundown on Sunday begins Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish year 5759 and the first of 10 days of awe, a solemn time of prayer, reflection, and repentance. We celebrate these High Holy Days here with a special interview with the renowned scholar and teacher David Hartman in Jerusalem. Our correspondent is Herbert Kaplow.

Christian music, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, is now more popular than jazz or classical, and still growing in popularity. Yet Christian musicians are under vigilant scrutiny from their fans over what they write, where they perform, and how they live their lives.

The Jewish holiday of Tisha b'Av is one of the saddest days of the Jewish year. On this day, Jews fast and grieve, sometimes sitting on the synagogue floor, remembering the destruction of ancient Israel's first and second temples in Jerusalem and the 2,000 years of exile and suffering that followed.

An estimated 4 percent of Americans, according to the Princeton Religious Research Center, call themselves atheist, or nonbelievers in God or a universal spirit. We know what they do not believe in, but what does inform their beliefs, and how do their communities regard them?

As we cover the abuse of relationships between pastoral counselors and those who came to them seeking guidance and comfort, we hear personal tales of the sexual relationship that can develop between some clergymen and women in their congregations. This is a complex world in which the male pastor is ...

At the Passover Seder table, Jews read from a guide called the Haggadah, which tells the story of the Jews' exodus from Egypt. Rabbi Judith Halevy of the Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue in California is our storyteller, updating the familiar tale with the story of Miriam, Moses' sister. LILITH magazine editor Susan Weidman Schneider invited us to her Seder to help tell the women's story.

Holy Week events begin with honoring the entry of Jesus Christ into the city of Jerusalem and end at his resurrection. R&E's story of Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday and is told by three narrators: Monsignor John Meier of Catholic University in Washington; Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest in Georgia; and Reverend Charles Adams of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit.

Church historian Martin Marty seems to be just about everywhere. He studies the impact of religion on health, travels around the country to explore religion where it's practiced, writes columns and reviews, and more. But perhaps Marty's greatest contribution has been as teacher, what he refers to as his true calling. The energetic pastor is booked two years ahead and scheduled to a minute, using every spare moment of his time.

Women are a mainstay in black churches, except in the pulpit. Will the "stained-glass ceiling" limit the careers of the record numbers of women entering divinity schools?

There's a 10-mile-long stretch of New Hampshire Avenue in Maryland lined with churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. Located just outside Washington D.C., it's literally a drive-by tour of America's new religious landscape, strikingly diverse.

Marianne Williamson blends Christian ideas and language with eastern philosophy and a hip attitude. She emphasizes direct, personal experiences of the sacred outside any organized religious tradition. Williamson's teachings about spirituality have touched millions of seekers and also caused many traditional believers to ask, "What is her appeal?"

In her popular lectures and in her book, THE HEALING OF AMERICA, Marianne Williamson discusses a spiritual reawakening taking place in America. According to Williamson, this is the result of the baby boomers emergence from a spiritual hibernation. As she sees it, many who were young in the 1960s are now ready to apply spirituality to politics.

The Church of the Savior was founded in 1947 by an ex-paratroop chaplain, Gordon Cosby, his wife Mary, and five others. It settled in a large house in Washington, D.C., and its members' first priority was total commitment to Christian life. Although it's never had more than 130 members, many church historians say it's become one of the most admired places of worship in the country.