The Shi'a Muslim holiday of Ashura is marked by an ancient ritual of blood-letting. The Daily Star of Lebanon reports on a new tradition of giving blood instead.

Gordon Lynch at the Guardian writes about how religion can bring peace to the Middle East, rather than cause problems.

A Hebrew-language charter school may open in Brooklyn this coming fall. Opponents of the school worry that this will violate the separation of church and state.

In his December 2008 Foerster Lecture at UC-Berkeley, Talal Asad discusses "attempts by anthropologists and others to define religion, the shifting place of 'belief' in that endeavor, and some of its implications for politics." Watch the related interview here.

The past October, more than 6,000 women gather in Chicago to promote "biblical womanhood, complementarianism, or---most bluntly---the patriarchy movement," Religion Dispatches reports.

The New York Times Magazine ran a piece on Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, dubbed by opponents as "the cussing pastor" and a proponent of Calvinist thought, fire and brimstone.

Steve Waldman has collected the texts of every inaugural benediction since 1937, when the practice began. Check them out here.

Brad Hirschfield addresses the controversy over the inclusion of the phrase "so help me God" in the presidential oath of office.

Kathryn Lofton reviews Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates at Religion Dispatches.