“What’s wrong with us that we don’t have space for folks to transcend and expand our understanding of what it can be to be female and what it can be to be male?” asks Rev. Emily McGinley of the Urban Village Church in Chicago. Her ministry reaches out to and welcomes transgender people, ...

In a historic ruling in June, a divided Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in every state. “Christianity require you to push back against the world,” says Collin Hansen of the Gospel Coalition. But author Matthew Vines of the Reformation Project suggests that once even some evangelicals ...

“American culture is changing. We simply have to hold onto the truths we believe have been articulated to us, in a way that is loving and compassionate and is balancing both truth and grace.”

Faith communities, observes Howard University School of Divinity applied theology professor Harold Dean Trulear, are “founded on forgiveness.” Together the Charleston church shooting and the Confederate flag debate have “uncovered the depth of racism in our country and the ways our nation ...

Correspondent Tim O'Brien observes that the High Court's upholding of gay marriage nationwide “is for gays and lesbians what Brown v Board of Education was for African Americans."

"We want people to understand the history of this church," says Elder Marcus Nash, a leader of the LDS church who worked on a series of essays about questions of faith and contested church issues. But while this generation of Mormons may be “craving a more complicated narrative” about the ...

"Give people job opportunities, give children education, and then you bring them out of poverty. Just giving them condoms and contraceptives will not automatically draw them out of poverty," says Rev. Joel Jason of the Archdiocese of Manila. But some women say lack of access to family planning and ...

"All of the experiences that I have during Ramadan when we're on tour fasting have always been a blessing," says Native Deen group member Abdul-Malik Ahmad. "So during the month of Ramadan, I feel that it's my time to say thank you to God, basically, for all these opportunities."

Some seminary graduates are finding it increasingly difficult to secure paid, full-time jobs as pastors. Many turn to other ways to serve or to make ends meet while they look for work. "These students genuinely feel that existentially they have been challenged by God to serve people." says Greg ...

The Jordan River is the central location for many sacred stories of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Modern Christians in particular are known to journey to the site some consider to be the religion's actual starting point. Says Rustom Mkhjian, assistant director of the Jordan River baptism site: "We ...

"We have [Muslim] folks who worship here in Chapel Hill who refrain from publicizing and making it known where they worship, when they come together. They tell me it’s because they have concerns about their safety," says Mark Kleinschmidt, mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina where three Muslim ...

“There is something about the experience of a big group of people singing together, and really singing from the bottom of their hearts, and it does something to you that lifts us out of the intellectual pursuits we do all day long,” says Maggi Dawn, dean of Yale’s Marquand Chapel.

"It took many parts of very many communities to make peace in Baltimore," says Eugene Sutton, Episcopal Bishop of Maryland. "Religious leaders from all over the city—Christian mainly, Muslim and Jewish leaders—got out on the streets and congregations and really proclaimed a message of hope and ...

John Bursch, the main lawyer arguing why the states should not be required to license same-sex marriages, summed the issue up this way: "You can love your neighbor no matter what their sexual orientation is—what choices they make about their life—and still have a disagreement about what marriage ...

Watch excerpts from R&E’s recent interview with Matthew Vines, author of the book “God and the Gay Christian” and founder and president of the Reformation Project, an effort “to train Christians to support and affirm LGBT people.”

“People in the community get to value something they weren’t familiar with before and realize what we have that’s so worth preserving," says Margaret Dick, a member of Buffalo’s Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic Church. Only about 100 people attend morning mass, but when Buffalo Mass Mob ...

“This is their spiritual home,” says Rev. Patrick McCahill of St. Elizabeth’s of Hungary Parish on New York City’s Upper East Side. “They will use that term all the time. It’s where they belong. It’s where they feel comfortable. It’s where they can communicate easily, where they’re ...

"The story of the seder, the story of freedom and justice, is a universal story. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that just about everything we do stems from this story—this idea that we were slaves, and we were freed, and now it’s our responsibility to work for freedom for people ...

"We decided to interlace the scripture with the history of the times and how very dangerous it was to be an apostle. This is one of the most brutal times in history, and it’s a decade that completely changed the world,” says producer Mark Burnett.

“You have a generation that is saying we are tapping out of religion in many ways. But what they are not saying is that we are tapping out of a serious search for meaning in life,” says Erwin McManus, pastor and founder of MOSAIC church in Los Angeles. “In fact, if anything there is an ...