What are some helpful hints on covering highly charged religious services, especially ones that seem to defy rational explanation? By Sandi Dolbee The San Diego Union-Tribune* You walk into the room and the first things you hear are the sounds. People mumbling and wailing, speaking in languages you simply don’t recognize. Others are falling down, […]

Drew Leder, a medical doctor who teaches philosophy at Loyola College in Maryland, authored Spiritual Passages: Embracing Life’s Sacred Journey (Tarcher/Putnam, 1997) and has written extensively on aging and spirituality. He has examined elder spirituality in a variety of religious traditions and has consulted with the ElderSpirit Community in Abingdon, Va.

Minister-turned-atheist John Loftus’ blog is called Debunking Christianity.

With attendance down in mainline Protestant churches and older ministers delaying retirement, many recent seminary graduates are finding that pastoral jobs are scarce, according to a Religion News Service story published Sept. 30, 2006, by The Washington Post.

Read a March 17, 2006, New York Times story about how fewer seminary students are interested in leading churches. It’s posted by Netscape.

Read a CNN story on the Pew findings and the results in various religious groups.

Read a 2008 Christian Chronicle article about the decline in attendance of New England pulpits and the struggle of working with small communities for clergy members.

Tunua Thrash is executive director of West Angeles Community Development Corporation in Los Angeles. Begun by the West Angeles Church of God in Christ, it is active in creating affordable housing.

Read a Jan. 31, 2013 Catholic News Service story discussing woman priesthood and responses that have been evoked by the debate.