“The lure of the political” changed Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a pastor and theologian. He prayed with the conspirators to assassinate Hitler, and he conferred blessings on the various coup attempts. Watch our interview with Charles Marsh, author of “Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”

In Newark, New Jersey, a city struggling with poverty, crime, and low academic performance, a school for boys led by Benedictine monks has helped 95 percent of its senior class go on to college by emphasizing personal responsibility, Christian community, and the Rule of St. Benedict.

It’s nearly a month since Nepal was rocked by the first of two earthquakes, and humanitarian and faith-based groups like World Vision continue to be faced with major challenges, including severely damaged infrastructure, cold temperatures, and the possibility of disease, flooding, and even more earthquakes.

After hearing reports of Christian and other minority religious communities in Iraq and Syria being targeted by ISIS, reality TV producer Mark Burnett, who recently produced the NBC series "A.D. The Bible Continues," and his wife, actress Roma Downey, launched "The Cradle of Christianity Fund” to assist refugees fleeing violence, and they donated the first million dollars.

Three North Carolina universities—Duke, Wake Forest, and UNC-Chapel Hill—have experienced sharp divisions and increased tensions over Islamic teachings and the role of Islam in the US. For Muslims in those communities, there are signs of growing anti-Muslim hostility which in some cases has moved beyond angry rhetoric to actual violence, such as in the recent murder of three Muslim students.

Many students who devote themselves to studying religious music and theology at the more-than-40-year-old Yale Institute of Sacred Music feel it deepens their spiritual lives and connects them to a tradition they hope to pass along and make relevant for contemporary audiences.

Episcopal Bishop of Maryland Eugene Sutton discusses the moral voice of churches in response to Baltimore's problems of race, poverty, and violence.

“When we make a mistake, we want a little grace, we want a little room to be forgiven, and that's what everybody wants. If you tell a lie, you're not just a liar. If you take something that doesn't belong to you, you're not just a thief. And even if you kill someone, you're not just a killer. That idea has to have resonance in a just society that's going to be both compassionate and just.”

The US has more people in prison than any other country in the world, but public policy professor Steven Raphael suggests that "instead of spending so much money on incarcerating very old inmates we could use that money to hire more police, have anti-violence interventions for youth, and be more proactive about having a society that is less violent and generates more productive citizens."

What challenges does growing social acceptance of same-sex marriage and other LGBT issues pose for evangelicals? R&E visits Nashville, Tennessee to report on to what extent evangelicals are reexamining their views about sexuality, marriage, and LGBT acceptance.

Can artificial intelligence think and feel like a human being? Does it have a soul? Can it make moral decisions? Based on what? We speak with scientists and theologians at MIT, Yale, Georgetown, and Catholic University about the benefits and risks of AI and the fear of losing human control of technology.

Old and struggling houses of worship have adopted the popular flash mob idea to encourage larger numbers of people to attend Mass at a specific church on a given Sunday. Using social media to organize participants, the goal of a Mass mob is to fill empty pews and collection plates, inspire parishioners to return to church, and support houses of worship that have helped define their cities.

After centuries of often violent anti-Semitism—since long before, during and after World War II—the government of Poland recently opened a new museum honoring the role of Jews in Polish history. That occasion prompted Dasha Rittenberg of New York, a Holocaust survivor, to go back to Poland to see if and how much it has changed.

In the wake of last week's deadly attack against Christians at a college in Kenya, we talk with Father Thomas Reese, senior analyst at the National Catholic Reporter and a member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, about growing concerns over anti-Christian violence around the world and the need for governments to prioritize protecting religious communities.

To save money, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York wants to close several dozen of its churches, including the Church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in New York City known for its 35-year-old ministry to the deaf. But the deaf parishioners are determined to oppose the plan, even appealing to the Pope and arguing that no other church can provide for their needs like St. Elizabeth.