Religion & Spirituality

The historian and author died Friday from complications of Lou Gehrig's disease. Judt discussed his diagnosis on Fresh Air in March 2010, explaining what he'd learned living with ALS -- and how he hoped his family would remember him.

In December 2008, the Rev. Richard Cizik was forced to resign from his position in response to comments he made on Fresh Air in support of same-sex civil unions. He returns to the show to discuss how his life has changed -- and why he believes evangelicals need to change, too.

Writer Judith Shulevitz started observing Shabbat because of her own ambivalence about the traditional weekly day of rest. Her own experiences with the ritual -- as well as its larger historical context -- are examined in her new book, The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg says what makes the pledge important isn't the meaning of the words -- it's the way we've managed to keep the words from meaning much of anything at all.

What does it mean to be Good Without God? Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, asks this question in his new book, which explores the faith of the nonreligious. It may sound like a contradiction, but Epstein believes that human ethics are independent of belief in a supernatural power.

Bob Hunter, a member of the secretive religious group The Family, responds to a November Fresh Air interview about the group's role in both U.S. and Ugandan politics. Hunter is credited as the liaison between the Family and leaders of the current Ugandan administration, which has proposed a brutal anti-gay law.

How does organized crime influence terrorism? Investigative journalist David Kaplan discusses the relationship between terrorism and criminal syndicates, and how that relationship may have played out in the recent attacks on Mumbai.

A secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians includes some names that have recently been prominent in the headlines: Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Bart Stuck and Rep. Joe Pitts. Writer Jeff Sharlet describes the men's involvement with the Family, and discusses recent developments within the group.

Ali Eteraz returned to his home country of Pakistan after living in the US to find himself at the center of an abduction plot. He describes his experiences in his new memoir, Children of the Dust.

Unitarian minister Forrest Church believed that the knowledge that we must die makes us question what life means. Church, who died Sept. 24, 2009 after a long battle with cancer of the esophagus, was the author of Love and Death: My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow.

In her new book The Case for God, the author — a former nun — argues that religion is a practical discipline that can teach us to discover new capacities of the mind and heart.

Set in German-occupied France, Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge fantasia Inglourious Basterds is an ungainly pastiche — that also manages to feel organic. David Edelstein has a review.

Iranian-American author and human rights activist Roya Hakakian talks about growing up Jewish in post-revolutionary Iran.

In the book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, author Jeff Sharlet examines the power wielded by the secret Christian group known as The Family or The Fellowship.

Chip Berlet has studied extremism, conspiracy theories and hate groups for more than 25 years. He says that the recent murders of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and Holocaust Museum guard Stephen T. Johns exemplify the potential for violence that often lurks within extremist groups.

In Descent into Chaos, Ahmed Rashid examines the United States' failures in Central Asia, where, the author says, Washington has helped create an unstable Pakistan, a reinvigorated Taliban and a entrepreneurial al' Qaeda that is profiting off the opium trade.

In his new memoir Lost Boy, Brent Jeffs talks about growing up in the polygamist FLDS chuch, his expulsion from the community, and his sexual-abuse lawsuit against his controversial uncle Warren Jeffs.

Erik Reece grew up the grandson of a fundamentalist preacher, but he left his church in search of a less punitive religion. He describes his struggle with religion in his new book, An American Gospel.

Hans Fallada's 1947 novel, Every Man Dies Alone, presents a memorable portrait of ordinary resistance to Nazism in wartime Germany.