"I would say to the evangelicals who have joined this movement be careful, you will be used," says Rev. Richard Cizik of the New Evangelical Partnership. "I want a society and a government and its policies to reflect values I find in Scripture, but that's not what you hear from Tea Party leadership."

The temporary dwellings built during the Jewish festival of Sukkot “remind us that in some ways all of life is really temporary, and life is very fragile,” says Dani Passow.

"There's a lot of pressure we put on ourselves as clergy because of what we're doing, and we don't want to let God down," says Rev. Lynda Ferguson, a Methodist pastor in rural North Carolina.

"You cannot understand caregiving unless you do it," says Arthur Kleinman. "Acts of caregiving come as close to what I think religion is as I could name."

This scholar and Harvard professor became the primary caregiver for his wife after she was afflicted with a neurodegenerative disorder.

A senior researcher at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life says atheists, agnostics, Jews, and Mormons stand out for their knowledge of world religions other than Christianity, while Mormons and evangelical Protestants do best on questions about the Bible and Christianity.

Novelist Allegra Goodman say entering into the minds of religious people is "a very rich place to be as a writer." Her new book is called "The Cookbook Collector, "and we spoke with her at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC about writer Chaim Potok, religious poet John Donne, and Jewish charaters in her earlier novel "Kaaterskill Falls."

Physical healing and spiritual care go hand in hand at a no-frills health care clinic in Tutwiler, Mississippi.

Singing, drawing, and painting are unique forms of expression for this evangelical speaker and writer and also a means of encouraging others.

She is a quadriplegic who has spent more than 40 years in a wheel chair, and she says living with suffering teaches you who you are.

If you are a patient who is poor, says this doctor-nun, "sometimes in this society your are taught not to care about yourself...You are denigrated and told you are not an important person."

Nancy George, president of the Friends of the Shakers, talks about the future of the Shaker community.

"The whole idea is to live the kingdom life here and now," says Brother Arnold Hadd of the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village. "It's for God and the community."

One of the biggest challenges of Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the United Kingdom is how to make the case for the Christian faith in a nation known for its growing secularism.

How Palestinians and Israeli settlers share water resources is just one of the contentious issues in the fierce debate over Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Shaker communities "required of you to give your all to God to and to strive to work at your salvation each and every day," says Brother Arnold Hadd, one of the last living Shakers.

Imam Mahdi Bray believes that despite America's trials and tribulations, one of the country's redeeming qualities is that somehow it eventually finds a way to "get it right."

Photography, according to Abbot Barnabas Senecal of St. Benedict's Abbey in Atchison, Kansas, is an exercise in monastic mindfulness, and he says his pictures reflect "being aware of the presence of God with you and in the world."

University of Notre Dame history professor Scott Appleby assesses the present moment and analyzes the anxiety, fear, and conflict currently in evidence on the American religious scene.

"We want to prove to America that we are not terrorist suspects," says Imam Mahdi Bray. US Islamic groups have launched several projects to fight extremism within their own communities, particularly among young people.