"I don't sing like a showman," says the famous baritone who began singing in 1947 for evangelist Billy Graham's crusade ministry. "That's the opposite of the way I feel."

"The issue is are there things which are justifiably secret and ought to be kept secret, and there are," says former Ambassador Edward Rowell.

"I think there is something beautiful and magnificent in silence," says meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. "Meditation opens up our attention so we can see things differently." Salzberg is cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and author of the book "Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation."

"There's a lot of compatibility between the notion of Islamic finance and microfinance," says Roshaneh Zafar, who established a nonprofit organization that has made small business loans to hundreds of thousands of women.

"Many people are hoping there will be a more pluralistic government that will embrace the Christian Copts," says Qamar-ul Huda, a senior program officer at the US Institute of Peace.

In his State of the Union address to the 112th Congress, President Obama spoke of America's "common creed" and "moral example."

"It's a matter of sharing the burdens of a free society and a good society. That's, morally speaking, what taxes are about," according to political philosopher and Harvard government professor Michael Sandel.

Why are vulnerable borrowers being harmed rather than helped by microcredit companies? Misgivings are spreading about what was once seen as a powerful weapon in the battle against poverty.

How are people of faith reacting to President Barack Obama's 2011 State of the Union address? Religion& Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton asks a panel of religion analysts to share their thoughts.

All the great religious creeds, said writer Reynolds Price, "have known forever that if we're ever to arrive at the state of anything called wisdom, pain seems to be the way we get there." He passed away at the age of 77.

"I think it's fair to say that Islam has had some difficulty in coming to terms with modernity," says sociologist of religion William Martin, who believes that the Gülen movement "offers a much more positive picture of what Islam can be."

Faith communities have an important role to play, according to Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence, in raising moral issues about gun laws and policies.

During the Montgomery bus boycott, "it was black Christians teaching white Christians what it mean to be Christian," says a white Lutheran pastor who joined with Martin Luther King Jr. and others to change the world.

During decades of civil war in Sudan, says John Ashworth of Catholic Relief Services, the church was the only institution on the ground with the people, and because of that it gained huge moral authority. Now South Sudan is voting in a referendum for independence from the Muslim-majority national government in Khartoum.

Watch much more of our conversation with Rev. Robert Graetz, who calls the Montgomery bus boycott a spiritual movement based on love and nonviolence that changed the hearts of people across the country.

Watch video of Sunday worship services in Haiti and see more of correspondent Kim Lawton's interviews with Rick Ireland, administrator of the Free Methodist Haiti Inland Mission, and Bishop Jean-Zache Duracin of the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti.

Relief efforts continue in Haiti a year after the devastating earthquake, but progress has been slow.

Influential and inspirational Jewish singer and songwriter Debbie Friedman, 59, died in California on Sunday, January 9. Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly interviewed her in 2000, and she spoke about her most famous prayer put to song, "Misha berach," used in healing services in many synagogues.

"Haiti is not dying," says Free Methodist pastor Jean-Marc Zamor one year after the devastating earthquake, and faith-based humanitarian aid workers press on with relief and reconstruction despite criticism that efforts have fallen short.

Mariners and sailors, says Rev. David Rider, often experience God's presence and absence in the depth of their souls, and for almost two centuries an ecumenical ministry based in the Port of New York and New Jersey has advocated for their spiritual and professional well-being.