For years I felt a gap between my parents and me—a gap of time and geography. When they were young, their social lives revolved around church; few of my ...

Before I went to bed, I made sure I was clean. I purified the tub with all the soap in the tiny shampoo bottle. Immersed myself in ...

In the living room of my next-door neighbors' house is a wooden crate. It's nothing fancy, just pieces of plywood nailed together, but Kim and Matt keep the box in a place of honor by ...

For many Catholics, Marian apparition sites are tightly linked to the idea of healing. The places where Mary came to Earth are usually viewed as holy ground, charged with the promise of heavenly power and ...

We see Rabbi X. walking down the streets of our small Southern city, and we see others staring at him. He wears the outfit of a Jew from Eastern ...

Eight days after birth, a Jewish male infant is circumcised in a ceremony called the bris milah (bris means "covenant" in Hebrew). It's a party: relatives and friends ...

"You're not true Christians," shouts the barrel-chested 43-year-old Lonie Pursifull to a group of Mormons passing through Temple Square, the world headquarters for the Church of Jesus Christ ...

Bushy haired, scruffy and wild-eyed, a punk-rock singer bellows out the words to an irksome tune. Blaring throughout the campus, the singer's lyrics laud the virtues of environmentalism. ...

Catholic young adults place great importance on marriage but have turned away from church-based ideas of how to make it work, according to a study released last week by the Center for Applied Research in ...

For many people, prayer is a private matter. Most of us prefer to pray alone and often squirm uncomfortably when someone suggests saying grace in a public ...