Cathy Lynn Grossman

U.S. religious congregations are marching to their own drums now more than ever. The National Congregations Study‘s latest look at the country’s churches, synagogues and mosques — the third wave of studies that began in 1998 — finds more congregations:

As thousands gathered Friday (Sept. 5) at Temple Beth Am in Miami to mourn journalist Steven Sotloff, they paid tribute to the one quality his family and friends tried hard to conceal from his Islamic State captors: his Jewishness.

Joan Rivers, 81, the acid-tongued survivor of popular comedy and entertainment, died Thursday (Sept. 4). Who could possibly find it funny?

The Gideon Bibles are going back in the Navy’s nightstand drawers. In June, the U.S. Navy ordered housekeepers at thousands of Navy-owned guest lodges near U.S. and international bases to remove the Bibles and any other “religious materials” from their rooms.

You don’t need a doctoral degree to think higher education leads people away from organized religion. That’s been common wisdom for decades.

They don’t know the history. They don’t know how hard it was in the old days. And many ditch their spiritual upbringing for the next new thing.

Most Americans say the waves of children crossing into the United States from Central America are refugees fleeing danger at home.