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Forget Right or Wrong

If the traditional practice of prayer in the context of traditional institutional religions is increasingly meaningless for a significant and growing proportion of American believers and seekers, one...

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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...

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National Day of Prayer for Gulf Communities

“Give us the wisdom to end this tragedy.”

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Does Hitchens Have a Prayer?

When I was told that Christopher Hitchens has been diagnosed with cancer and that this has sparked a discussion about whether people ought to pray for him, my first reaction was a stupefying...

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Who (or What) are Sarah Palin’s Prayer Warriors?

The perils of reporting on the faith of Sarah Barracuda.

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Prayer Group Runs Away From Home, Sparks Fear of Mass Suicide

Another California story? Or is there something here we can learn about Pentecostal, charismatic religion?

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Nuns Pray, Rangers Lose

So much for the efficacy of remote prayer. Or is there more to think about?

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Should Faith Healing ‘Do Business’ with Modern Medicine?

Although medicine should stay in the business of being evidence-based, says Harvard historian of science Anne Harrington, other healing communities don’t necessarily need to follow that model. There’s...

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The Week in Religion: Haggard Would Identify as Bisexual, Trademarking the...

If RD were 21 it would identify as Bisexual too. 

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Turn Off, Slow Down, Drop In: The Digital Generation Reinvents the Sabbath

As National Day of Unplugging looms (it begins a week from today) I hope we all can agree that taking time away from the frenzy of everyday life is a good thing. And pausing to reflect on the role of...

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Our Economic Theocracy

Prayer and the debt ceiling crisis.

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Manly Prayers at Penn State

Besides the weighty matters of truth, justice and protection, Coach Brown prayed for something much less obviously connected to the alleged sexual abuse: a restoration of masculinity to the game of...

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God Wants You to Work Harder, and to Stop Complaining

So-called “workplace spirituality” teaches people that the anxieties associated with global capital are inevitable, even part of the natural order of things. Under the highly deregulated conditions...

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Romney Lets his Inner Mormon Out Just in Time for Tampa

With a Mormon scheduled to pray at the Republican National Convention, here’s a Mo-splainer on LDS prayer customs.

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Conventional Wisdom: RNC/DNC Giving God a Bad Name?

All the invocations of God’s name and snippets of the Bible and Nuns On the Bus and what have you can't really help the Democrats so long as the larger religiously-tinged framing about what’s good and...

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“I’ll Pray For You”—Powerful or Pointless?

The title of Anne Lamott’s new book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers is such a boldly brilliant summation that I laughed with delight the first time I heard it. So much truth in three...

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Spiritual-Not-Religious or Just Lazy?

The folks most likely to be alienated by Daniel's book are, unsurprisingly, the seekers—those who call themselves SBNR, of course, but also those who want religious community, or at least want to want...

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The Papal Prayer Machine

With Twitter, there is just the right mix of calculable dissemination and mystery. You know who has retweeted or favorited your prayer, but what of the followers of the followers of the followers who...

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Women to Pray for the First Time in April LDS World Meeting

Another non-doctrinal barrier to Mormon gender equality falls.

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Why President Obama Should Not Visit the Western Wall

While the Western Wall remains under the administration of a state-sponsored religious entity that prohibits the free worship of its citizens, President Obama should not visit the site. To do so would...

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Historic Prayer by Woman at LDS General Conference Signals Growing Concern...

“More progress in the last six months than in the last sixty years.”  

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James Foley Prayed, But He Was Not a Martyr

One of many of the unbecoming habits of career non-believers is the mockery of prayer....

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West Virginia Mayor Enlists Churches To Pray Away Drugs and Crime

Huntington, West Virginia Mayor Steve Williams thinks he has a solution to the scourge of...

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The NFL’s Prayer Problem

Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah was penalized last night for praying in the end...

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‘I Don’t Buy It’: The Gospel According to Frank Underwood

With bonus: 12 Quotes from the Underwood Bible

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Why The Church Can’t Stop Gun Violence

Last night, as news of the shootings in San Bernardino was being digested, the Twitterverse...

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Act, Pray, Tweet: What the H*ll To Do About Gun Violence?

We’re now averaging more than one mass shooting per day, The Washington Post reported last...

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How Not to Oppose the National Day of Prayer

Today is the National Day of Prayer in the United States, an annual day of...

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Predatory Prayer: When Does “Please” Not Mean “Please”?

Is it possible to coerce someone to pray? Is it still coercion if you say please?...

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I Don’t Think “Thoughts and Prayers” Means What You Think it Means: A...

The sudden birth and development of the #NEVERAGAIN movement, led by students who survived the...

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