Compelled by Faith: When Prayer is Not Good For You
Abby Sher collected thumbtacks and paper clips, traced the patterns on her wallpaper, and prayed fervidly to avert disaster. In another era she might have been just another pious eccentric; today she’s a recovering obsessive-compulsive who has renounced (most of) her faith.
The Senate bill could require insurers to cover Christian Science prayer treatments but not abortion?
A new campaign aims to change attitudes around mental illness.
Air Kissing the Mezuzah: Religion and Science Collide in Fight Against Virus
In both Israel and India, religious rituals governing purity and health are clashing with efforts to stop the “swine flu” virus from spreading and killing more citizens.
Does Prayer Work? Do Prayer Studies Work?
Can the efficacy of prayer be determined through a double-blind clinical trial? Do studies measure prayer in ways that even make sense? Perhaps we’re learning more about medical science than about the healing power of prayer.
On the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen square protests, we are watching another struggle for justice on the streets of Tehran. And we remember the words of Dr. King: “No lie can live forever.”
Listening and Supporting: The Spirituality of Nurses
A Massachusetts nurse loses her job after talking to a dying patient about religion. What does this case reveal about the place of sprituality in American hospitals?
RD10Q: Thinking About God Makes Your Brain Bigger
A new book argues that spiritual practices, be they secular or religious, are inherently good for you. Meditation and prayer—be it about God, or evolution, or peace, or the Big Bang—will actually change your brain.
Your Prayer is Spoken! For Just $3.95 Per Month
A new subscription service pays homage to the days of indulgences. Only now it's cheaper. Praise capitalism.
Twitter of Faith: Microblogging the Divine
Religious groups are discovering that Twitter can help to build a portable church, where believers can obey the timeworn injunction to “pray without ceasing”—or is it “tweet without ceasing”?
Obama and the Unbelievers: The Future of Secularism
The presidential inauguration showed that an enforceable wall of separation between church and state simply does not exist in America, at least at the level of expression in the public square. What is the future of secularism in our religious democracy?
Please Bless His Eyes: Praying At The Hospital
There's a surprising quality to the prayers left at the feet of a statue of Jesus at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital; they're not simple petitions or requests for an all-powerful God to fix their problems—they are snippets of ongoing conversations.
Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired
The Vatican’s Web site considers a patron saint of the internet, Muslims debate divorce by text, and Jews pray by email; How does the inevitable transition to the virtual realm affect religious experience across the world?
The brand new branch of the Living Liberally tree seeks to build a grassroots religious left. Can local, leaderless cells build any coherent momentum?
In some states the law protects parents who rely on faith healing even when the refusal of medical care leads to tragedy.
Dale and Leilani Neumann, whose daughter Madeline died due to the couple’s belief that illness comes from sin have, despite their trust in Divine intervention, acquired an attorney to protect themselves from the law.
The Biblical Circus of William Stringfellow
He was an Episcopal theologian, activist, openly gay man, and connoisseur of the circus...
A peek into the vexing obstacles to Muslim prayer in American life.
Pope Benedict’s revision of the controversial Good Friday prayer is...still controversial.