"The Catholic bishops had a really strong statement saying don't send the kids back; that would be morally wrong to send them back to dangerous situations. Others in the religious community are saying it's a matter of law and order."

"We encourage people to have conversations," says Reverend Rosa Lee Harden, producer of the Wild Goose Festival. She finds that sometimes people "who weren’t raised in Christian families, who follow other faiths more deeply understand the message of Jesus than sometimes we do."

"It's almost like a version of 'This Old House' where you look at a house that's been in a state of deterioration and we need a lot of people and a lot of resources to come and try to help and get this house of worship back on its feet again," says Rev. Wilbur Winborne, pastor of 19th Street Baptist ...

The number of people in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is going up steadily as a result of the lower age limits for both men and women who want to serve as missionaries.

"Yoga’s techniques and goals move in and through and outside of religion in very interesting and complex ways," says Debra Diamond, associate curator of south and southeastern Asian art for the Smithsonian Institution's Freer and Sackler galleries. Following its Washington debut, “Yoga: The Art ...

Of all the social issues facing our world, President Jimmy Carter says the abuse of women and girls is the greatest injustice of all, and that the pretext is often religion.

Watch Web-only excerpts from our recent conversation with the United Methodist pastor of the grandfather and grandson who were shot to death outside a Jewish community center in Kansas.

Millions of young Indian women make up a vast labor force of domestic workers that is largely unrecognized by their government. At a very young age, they leave – or are taken – from poor communities for work, only to receive less than the minimum wage. "It's one of the biggest incomes for most ...

"The message of the Gospel is not welfare, is not give my people a better madras or give them some more food. It's to set them free, and setting them free is this whole movement— right-based, dignity for them, their rights, and empowerment."

A new National Geographic film about Jerusalem attempts to transcend the city's reputation for conflict with sweeping imagery and personal stories of why the city is so loved. "Jerusalem to me is more than a city." says Farah Ammouri, a young Muslim woman featured in the film. "Its beauty, its ...

"There’s a fear among large segments of the Buddhist population in Myanmar," says Matthew Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights, an independent organization to protect and defend human rights, "that the country is at risk of being taken over by Muslims. It’s a very unreasonable, irrational ...

On Sundays, you’ll find Pastor Sam Livingston at his Baptist church in Hohenwald, Tennessee. But on the weekdays he's at his other very different job as a public utilities manager.

Historian Simon Schama explores 3,000 years of Jewish history and culture in a five-part documentary series and companion book. “The problem of the Jews,” Schama says, "was that they were a nation without a home."

"We are a very noisy, verbalizing, speechifying language animal, and I love that. But we walk around as so many millions of talking books."

"In the last couple of generations, we’ve seen a great increase in Jewish learning amongst women. Women have said, 'Well, we are also obliged in the commandment. We can take a leading role.'"

"God made us to be in contact with other human beings. And when we take that human contact away, it exacerbates whatever problems that may have been there before. So rather than rehabilitating people, it actually makes them worse," says Galen Carey of the National Association of Evangelicals.

"We cannot allow for our brothers and our sisters to be on the side of the road. Jesus tells the story about us caring about our neighbors. Politicians don’t care about us," says Rev. Charles Williams II of Historic King Solomon Baptist Church.

Emory University students in “Secular Ethics 101” learn compassion meditation and discuss the possibility of an ethic that will unite the world.

“Christianity and Buddhism both are trying to think about how we communicate our contemplative tradition in a way that isn’t restricted to the monastic community.”

“It doesn’t matter which ethical system you use, it can always be enhanced by a compassionate approach.”