Christian music, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, is now more popular than jazz or classical, and still growing in popularity. Yet Christian musicians are under vigilant scrutiny from their fans over what they write, where they perform, and how they live their lives.

The Jewish holiday of Tisha b'Av is one of the saddest days of the Jewish year. On this day, Jews fast and grieve, sometimes sitting on the synagogue floor, remembering the destruction of ancient Israel's first and second temples in Jerusalem and the 2,000 years of exile and suffering that followed.

An estimated 4 percent of Americans, according to the Princeton Religious Research Center, call themselves atheist, or nonbelievers in God or a universal spirit. We know what they do not believe in, but what does inform their beliefs, and how do their communities regard them?

"Home from the Hajj," is the last chapter in our story of one man's journal of faith. In April, almost two million Muslims converged on Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage. One of this year's pilgrims is Abdul Alim Mubarak from Maplewood, New Jersey. We first met him as he prepared for this, his first hajj. Now, our correspondent Anisa Mehdi visits the Mubaraks back home.

As we cover the abuse of relationships between pastoral counselors and those who came to them seeking guidance and comfort, we hear personal tales of the sexual relationship that can develop between some clergymen and women in their congregations. This is a complex world in which the male pastor is often found guilty of abusing his power and the woman is usually, but not always, the victim.

The Dalai Lama was just 15 years old when the Communist Chinese invaded Tibet, burned its monasteries, and slaughtered upwards of a million of its people. Now, he is the spiritual leader of six million Tibetan Buddhists is and is trying to rally support for freedom for his homeland. He preaches compassion, but some of his followers wonder if his methods can work.

A 1998 Perspective on one man's view of the continuing struggle between religion and science. Sir John Polkinghorne is both a world-class physicist and an Anglican priest who says science can explain only part of what's real.

At the Passover Seder table, Jews read from a guide called the Haggadah, which tells the story of the Jews' exodus from Egypt. Rabbi Judith Halevy of the Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue in California is our storyteller, updating the familiar tale with the story of Miriam, Moses' sister. LILITH magazine editor Susan Weidman Schneider invited us to her Seder to help tell the women's story.

Previously, we told the story of Abdul Alim Mubarak, a Muslim, a CNN videotape editor, who lives in New Jersey, as he said good-bye to his family and took off for Saudi Arabia on his first religious pilgrimage, the hajj. Now, we have the story of Mubarak's hajj, reported by our correspondent Anisa Mehdi, who just returned from Saudi Arabia herself.

Holy Week events begin with honoring the entry of Jesus Christ into the city of Jerusalem and end at his resurrection. R&E's story of Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday and is told by three narrators: Monsignor John Meier of Catholic University in Washington; Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest in Georgia; and Reverend Charles Adams of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit.

Church historian and ordained minister Martin Marty seems to be just about everywhere. He studies the impact of religion on health, travels around the country to explore religion where it's practiced, writes columns and reviews, and more. But perhaps Marty's greatest contribution has been as teacher, what he refers to as his true calling.

On April 5, Muslims around the world will begin observing events associated with the annual hajj, one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith. Millions are converging on Mecca, located near the west coast of Saudi Arabia. Anisa Mehdi accompanies one American pilgrim as he says good-bye to his family and heads off to Mecca for the first time.

Women are a mainstay of the black churches, except in the pulpits. Will the "stained-glass ceiling" limit the careers of the record number of women entering divinity schools?

Lithuania faces strong international criticism that it hasn't done enough to bring Nazi collaborators to justice. Correspondent Jennifer Griffin reports from Vilnius that the presence of these alleged war criminals continues to haunt Lithuania's remaining Jewish community.

Western Christians begin the 40 day Lenten season with a priest making the sign of the cross in ashes on their foreheads. Rev. William Tully of St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York talks about the significance of the ashes and of Lent.

The Islamic Saudi Academy in Loudoun County, Virginia, outside Washington, DC, is creating controversy with its plan for a new campus.

When this program began in September 1997, we visited a place that we called the "Highway to Heaven." Afterward, many people wrote and called asking, "Where is this highway? What country is it in?" We were happy to report again that in Maryland, near Washington, DC, along a stretch of New Hampshire Avenue exists a drive-by tour of America's religious landscape.

Marianne Williamson blends Christian ideas and language with eastern philosophy and a hip attitude. She emphasizes direct, personal experiences of the sacred outside any organized religious tradition. Williamson's teachings about spirituality have touched millions of seekers and also caused many traditional believers to ask, "What is her appeal?"

In her popular lectures and in her book, THE HEALING OF AMERICA, Marianne Williamson discusses a spiritual reawakening taking place in America. According to Williamson, this is the result of the baby boomers emergence from a spiritual hibernation. As she sees it, many who were young in the 1960s are now ready to apply spirituality to politics.

British painter Stanley Spencer saw God in everything and painted biblical scenes set in his small hometown of Cookham. Now, for the first time in its history, Washington, DC's Hirshhorn Museum is presenting an exhibit on Spencer and his religious art.