We have an analysis now of the Pew Forum survey on American religious beliefs. As other surveys have also found, including one done by this program in 2002, Pew reported that 70 percent of American religious believers said many religious traditions -- not just their own -- can lead to eternal life.

Clergy are being pressured to perform same-sex weddings and to perform them inside their houses of worship. This is generating new debates because many religious traditions explicitly define marriage as between a man and a woman.

For Western Christians, Sunday (March 16) is Palm Sunday, which begins Holy Week, leading up to Easter (March 23). But Eastern Orthodox Christians have just begun observing their time of Lent. Because of differing church calendars, Western and Eastern Christians usually celebrate the resurrection of ...

Jewish prayer shawls are called tallit. The elaborately braided fringes, the tzitzit, on the four corners of the shawls, represent God's 613 commandments to the Jews. We discovered a synagogue with a class in which boys and girls preparing for their coming of age ceremonies, bar mitzvahs and bat ...

The number of Hispanics in the U.S. Catholic Church is growing rapidly. Their devotional practices and fervent style of worship are giving the church a different look, and some observers expect Hispanics to make up half the U.S. church over the next few years.

At St. John's University and Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, Benedictine monks and nuns gathered to hear Dr. Ingrid Mattson share her Muslim faith.

Around the world, there are hundreds of classes to which children come to learn how shofars are made. We joined a group in Brooklyn, New York at a class called the Shofar Factory.

In Buddhism we believe that all beings are bound to samsara. Samsara is what non-Buddhists understand as reincarnation. So long as one doesn't achieve spiritual enlightenment, one's continually reborn in samsara, over and over again, and for Buddhist practitioners, the goal is to escape from this ...

Catholics of a certain age grew up hearing the Mass only in Latin. But since the 1960s, priests have been allowed to say the Mass in Latin only with the permission of their bishop. The Vatican is now loosening those restrictions, so the Latin Mass may soon become more widely available.

Observant Jews prepare for Passover by getting rid of everything in the house that is chametz, or leavened. We visited the Orthodox Jewish family of Ari and Shoshana Lerner to see how they were preparing.

The question of whether to ordain gay clergy has challenged and divided many denominations, including Conservative Jews. The Orthodox strongly oppose gay ordination, but reform Jews accept it. Now, the Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has recommended that Conservative seminaries should be allowed to admit gays.

By some estimates, the number of children in this country being taught at home is well over a million and may be approaching two million. Yet in some states there is very little or no government oversight of what the kids are learning, which is just the way most home school parents want it.

This year, almost three million Muslims are making the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. It’s considered one of the five fundamental obligations of Islam. An estimated 15,000 Muslims from the U.S. traveled last year, and considerably more were expected this year. Imam Shaker Elsayed of ...

During the month-long Muslim holiday of Ramadan, these two teenage boys led prayers and recited the entire Qur'an from memory.

In northern California, Rabbi Alan Lew encourages Jews to borrow from the Buddhist tradition of meditation to enhance their practice during the High Holidays and all year round. Says Lew, “what really makes Jewish prayer powerful is something inexpressible, and meditation really sensitizes you ...

Popular in poorer neighborhoods, storefront churches preach love and gratitude. Often set up wherever space is available, these houses of worship have the unique capability to meet their worshippers right where they are.

“Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, is by far the biggest festival during the year.” says Nguyen Ngoc Bich.

In some observant Jewish families, a little boy’s first haircut is more than just a haircut. It marks the beginning of not only his formal education but also his obligation to keep the commandments and perform mitzvoth — good deeds.

One of the numerous ways that people in this country try to get fit these days is through the practice of yoga. There are many different forms of this discipline, but the most commonly taught is called Iyengar. It’s named for the Indian guru B.K.S. Iyengar, who teaches that yoga has a deeply ...

When Christmas and the first night of Hanukkah fall on the same day, the growing number of interfaith families who observe both holidays face an unusual challenge. We visited the Miller family in Takoma Park, Maryland, to find out how they're handling this "December dilemma."