"We wanted to make it clear that this wasn’t going to be just another Hanukkah program," says Rabbi Burt Visotzky of the Jewish Theological Seminary. "We wanted it to be a mix. We wanted there to be music, we wanted there to be fun."

Reverend Toby Larson of Celebration Anglican Church felt like he failed as a pastor when a young man from his congregation suddenly died of a heroin overdose. "Unfortunately, we’re pretty good at pastoring families that have lost people. We’re pretty good at burying people. We’re pretty lousy ...

"Faith and faith leaders really play a pivotal role in not only preventing drug use, but supporting people with addiction in their recovery, in the process of really healing themselves from a tremendously stigmatized disease."

Depopulation in rural Canada means “we end up having buildings for which we have no future use,” says Rev. Ken Vaughan, rector of a local Anglican parish in Nova Scotia. “The primary concern was that it continue to be a church for others. Better that than simply being torn down and ...

"My goal is to be present,” says this writer and spiritual teacher, to the “emotional reality” of Native Americans and “put it in the voices and characters of real people. My job is to present a truth that you will embrace more fully if you believe it as you read it."

A delegation of top Yazidi spiritual leaders is seeking help for their ancient religious minority in Iraq, which has been particularly targeted by ISIS. “We became victims of one of the largest…atrocities of the modern world,” says Yazidi human rights advocate Murad Ismael.

"The question for our government" says Lenni Benson, executive director and founder of the nonprofit Safe Passage Project, "will be, even if they have deportation orders, is it ethical and legal to remove a child to a country of origin if we aren’t assured that child will be safe upon return?"

“Who will protect the environment? In the West and in China, it’s the government's responsibility," says Tashi Sange, a Tibetan Buddhist monk and conservationist. "This is not the Buddhist way. If you think that way you are not Buddhist. You are the protector. You have the responsibility."

The new St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, set to be rebuilt at the World Trade Center, will be a national shrine and will include a nondenominational bereavement center. "Next to the place where the most tragic thing that has ever happened on American soil," says Father Evagoras Constantinides of ...

“I love the Lutheran tradition, the Lutheran theology, the message of grace,” says Rev. Margaret Kelly, a Lutheran pastor in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her food-truck church offers meals, prayer services, and a feeling of community to the hungry and homeless.

“If we don’t in some concrete way help people to have a decent life here on earth, we are not fulfilling the gospel. It’s that simple,” say Pastor Dan Bryant, senior minister of the First Christian Church Disciples of Christ in Eugene, Oregon, and president of the board of Opportunity ...

“Music has been, in a sense, my religion, and it is what brings me closest to God or truth or whatever you want to call it.”

We set the stage for the October 5 opening of the Vatican’s two-week discussion and debate, called by Pope Francis, on the church and the pastoral challenges of contemporary family life, including topics such as marriage, divorce, remarriage, annulments, and cohabitation.

According to lawyer Douglas Laycock, this religious freedom case is not just about Gregory Holt, the American Muslim convict who now goes by the name of Abdul Maalik Muhammad and who is the plaintiff in Holt v Hobbs. “It’s about all those other prisoners that were not getting their scriptures, ...

"Gratefulness happens to you. Two things have to come together: something has to be valuable to you, and you have to become aware that it’s given to you," says Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk. "Then spontaneously in everybody’s heart, gratefulness arises."

“This is an issue about protecting the incredible gift of life God has given us,” says Rev. Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith, which led an interfaith delegation at the People’s Climate March in New York.

Chris "Comes with Clouds" White, of Cherokee descent, discovered a pre-historic stone circle near his home that carries a significant spiritual meaning for him. "We’re born, we have a youth, we get old, we die, but we believe that there’s something beyond that where our ancestors are, so ...

Reverend Toby Larson of Celebration Anglican Church felt like he failed as a pastor when a young man from his congregation suddenly died of a heroin overdose. "Unfortunately, we’re pretty good at pastoring families that have lost people. We’re pretty good at burying people. We’re pretty lousy ...

"Faith and faith leaders really play a pivotal role in not only preventing drug use, but supporting people with addiction in their recovery, in the process of really healing themselves from a tremendously stigmatized disease."

Days after 9/11, Rais Bhuiyan was shot in the head by Mark Stroman in a hate crime targeted at Arabs. Bhuiyan survived the attack, and Stroman was sentenced to death, but Bhuiyan felt compelled to not let the story end there. "I need to forgive him in public and do something to save the life," says ...