Articles

Church had become a chore for me. I didn't feel any connection to the town my church is located in, which is about ten miles from where we live, and I was bothered by some differences in opinion among the membership.

In the Bible, the Hebrew and Greek words that are frequently translated as church or synagogue originally referred to a meeting rather than a building. In general, church signifies a meeting called for a purpose.

The tensions between churches' interest in people's moral and spiritual well-being and nations' efforts to govern their citizens are longstanding and ongoing. Jesus himself faced these tensions.

My parents and my family are all Muslims. In fact, my father was a Muslim imam and preacher.

It's an almost standard human trait to seek good, though most of us have our own notion of what good is. From a spiritual point of view, true, pure good equals God.

When we were children, all my sister and I ever wanted was to have long, flowing hair so that we could flick it aside the way movie stars did. We would walk around with our pillowcases tied to our heads, pretending we had long hair.

From the book God's Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics ©2000 by Stephen L. Carter.

This sentence appeared in a newspaper: "In our nation, freedom of religion and conscience are not only guaranteed in the constitution, they're exercised daily. " Most citizens living in an open, free, democratic society would agree.

The end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth made great demands on people's religious faith. Two world wars left devastating memories for many.

Missed Sunday School lately? It can be pretty tempting to stay home or go somewhere else on Sunday morning — free time seems hard to come by. So why does this hour on Sunday morning matter? Well, it's a time you can get help in feeling more of God's love for you, right in the middle of all the things you are involved in.