The Prayer Bear Ministry of Sherman, Texas, solicits small donations from people to make simple fabric teddy bears for shipment to servicemen and women at home and abroad. In just one year, the ministry sent more than 20,000 bears to Iraq and Afghanistan. Each bear is prayed over as it is made and has a silver tear, […]

May 13, 2013, Sightings article discussing the Religious Left.

A Feb. 8, 2012, article from the Christian Post cites declining numbers of worshippers in Alabama’s Hispanic congregations.

The Right Reverend George E. Packard is the Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies for the Episcopal Church. He is in charge of all Episcopal chaplains attached to the armed services. He describes the rosaries, prayer beads and medals soldiers carry into battle as “companion object[s] which God uses to heighten moments of insight, prayer, and sometimes deep sorrow.”

Read a June 13, 2012, story at Ethics Daily about how the Arizona anti-immigration law affects churches and faith leaders.

Written by John Danforth (Viking Adult, 2006). Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and an ordained Episcopalian minister, speaks out against the conflation of political agendas with religious views and the religious right’s focus on wedge issues.

Written by Gregory A. Boyd (Zondervan, 2006). Boyd, a theologian and pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., discusses his worry over the growing alignment of Christianity and the right-wing ideology of the Republican Party.

Cheryl Kirk-Duggan is a professor of theology and women’s studies at the Shaw University Divinity School in Raleigh, N.C. She can discuss the current celebration of Kwanzaa in black communities and congregations in the South.

Written by Randall Balmer (Basic Books, 2006). Balmer, an evangelical Christian, writes about what he believes has been the hijacking of the Christian faith on behalf of the Republican Party.