One of the consequences of the Holocaust was its effect on the faith of observant Jews. How could a just God have permitted such a tragedy? Today, the personal story, in his words, of Menachem Daum, a New York television producer whose parents were both Holocaust survivors.

Baptism is an important rite of initiation in the Christian tradition, but the baptism ceremony varies depending upon the denomination. Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and many in the Protestant denominations baptize infants. Baptists and Pentecostal Churches baptize only adults or children old enough to profess their faith.

At the Passover feast, or Seder, Jews retell the story of their ancestors' exodus from slavery in Egypt. R&E was invited to sit in on that retelling by fifth graders at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Maryland. They acted out the story for students from the Rockledge public school in Bowie, Maryland.

Pope John Paul II “did not want a monument that was just dedicated to himself, but rather an institution that really focused in on our teaching role within the Church,” says Rev. G. Michael Bugarin, director of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C.

Missionary work is something of a rite of passage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Over the course of 18 months to two years, young men and women will work 16 hours a day, six days a week. On average, each will convert ten persons during that period. But with 60,000 missionaries in the field, that is enough to produce 300,000 new converts a year.

The AIDS pandemic has killed 17 million persons in Africa, and it has created 12 million orphans. In some countries more than a quarter of the adult population is infected. But in Senegal, a largely Muslim country, the rate of infection is barely one percent. Public health programs get a lot of the credit, as well as religion and personal behavior.

When the pagan Celts of Ireland were converted to Christianity by St. Patrick in the 5th century, they brought with them their love of nature and friendship and their awareness of the sacred in all the most ordinary parts of life.

It began as simple folk songs and evolved into the energetic performances that define gospel music today. It's as important to the worship service as the preacher's sermon. We ask Thomas Dixon Tyler of the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, DC, about gospel's significance to him.

Tenafly, New Jersey, is a suburb of 16,000 people, nearly half of them Jewish, just across the Hudson River from New York City. However, when a group of Orthodox Jewish newcomers put up a symbolic boundary called an eruv, Tenafly became one of the latest battlegrounds in an ongoing civil war in the American Jewish community.

Many moral questions are posed when adult justice is imposed on juveniles. Should a boy who has murdered someone be put into a prison with grown men? Advocates of mandatory sentencing caution that these kids must be taken off the street and kept off. Critics warn that a young person spending his formative years in an adult prison has much less of a chance of ever becoming a productive citizen.

Many houses of worship have worked hard to be more welcoming to people with disabilities. But the deaf prefer to worship within their own community, and to be ministered to by other deaf people. Correspondent Judy Valente visits a deaf congregation and its remarkable priest in Chicago.

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops have approved the first national guideline for church art and architecture. Titled “Built of Living Stones,” the document advises parishes, priests, and architects on appropriate church styles, which reflect solid theological foundations.

Madeleine L'Engle

R&E talks to Lauren Winner, the child of a mixed marriage, a woman raised as a non-observant Jew who then became an Orthodox Jew, and then converted to Christianity. Correspondent Stephen Dubner is a convert himself, and author of the book TURBULENT SOULS.

Tolerant attitudes toward faith-seeking have made religious conversions more common. Still, choosing a new religion is usually a major decision — for converts and their families. In the first of a two-part series, R&E looks at the experience of John Curry, principal of a school for at-risk students in New York.

As parents, teachers, and politicians debate the role of abstinence in sex education, religious teenagers are making promises to themselves, their parents, and God to delay sexual intercourse until marriage.

Kim Lawton has been covering the impact of religion and religious voters in this election. She spoke with Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, about what the exit polling showed.

One of the greatest powers a president has is appointing new justices to the Supreme Court. In the next few years, the Court is expected to rule on a variety of closely-disputed and controversial issues, many of them of special interest to religious communities: school prayer, for instance, and other church-state questions.

The candidates’ use of religion has been controversial throughout the campaign. In the last of our special election reports, R & E asked several leading political experts to evaluate the role of religion and religious rhetoric during the 2000 election season.

At its meeting in Corpus Christi, the huge Texas Baptist Convention — nearly one fifth of all Southern Baptists — sent a strong signal of discontent to the national SBC. Led by moderates, the Texans voted overwhelmingly to cut $5 million of the $25 million they send the national group each year.