Read an October 1989 letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the subject of Christian meditation written by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. In it, Ratzinger addresses yoga.

Read an article about the tensions between secular sports clubs and fitness centers that must pay taxes and their church counterparts (and sometimes competitors) that are tax-exempt.

Tufts University is a private university with campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville & Grafton, Mass., and Talloires, France. It boasts a very large Jewish student population and was named one of the ten “most Jewish” universities by Reform Judaism magazine in 2008. Patrick Collins is the executive director of public relations.

Read a January 5, 2010 essay from The Tablet, an online magazine of Jewish culture, titled “Is Yoga Kosher?” It is about the struggle of a Modern Orthodox Jew to reconcile her yogic practice with her Judaism.

The Rabbinical Assembly, the national association of Conservative rabbis, on Jan. 1, 2010, launched an initiative encouraging its members to “adopt healthy eating, exercise and lifestyle habits,” as this JTA article reports. The initiative is called The Shalem Campaign. “Shalem” is the Hebrew word meaning “whole,” and the philosophy of the Shalem Campaign is holistic and also reflects […]

Many more Americans say they are heavier than their ideal weight (62 percent) or say they would like to lose weight (55 percent) than are seriously trying to shed pounds at this time (27 percent), according to a 2009 Gallup Poll.

Douglas M. Underwood is an associate professor of communications at the University of Washington in Seattle. He wrote an article, “The Problem With Paul: Seeds of the Culture Wars and the Dilemma for Journalists” in the Journal of Media and Religion (2006).

Seyoon Kim is a professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., and has written widely on Paul and “the New Perspective.”

David B. Capes is a professor in the department of Christianity and philosophy at Houston Baptist University. He is a co-author of Rediscovering Paul: An Introduction to His World, Letters and Theology (2007).