Philip Jenkins explains "why Sufi Muslims, for centuries the most ferocious soldiers of Islam, could be our most valuable allies in the fight against extremism."

The Guardian asks experts what the new president will mean for America's faithful. Michelle Goldberg warns of the radical religious right's potential for violence.

At Religion Dispatches, Robert P. Jones responds to "strong criticism from the religious left" of the Third Way's recently released "Come Let Us Reason Together Governing Agenda." Jones was principal religion advisor and a signatory to this initiative.

Terry Mattingly at GetReligion suggests that, in the era of Obama, it's time to "get (civil) religion."

In the New York Times, anthropologist Scott Atran discusses a study suggesting that symbolic gestures will do more to end the Palestine/Israel debacle than material concessions.

The Spirituality in Higher Education project at UCLA is now soliciting proposals from investigators who would like to conduct original research using a new and unique national longitudinal data base on undergraduates.

John Esposito asks, "How should Obama reach out to the Muslim world post Gaza?" in a piece at the Huffington Post.

Beliefnet's Alana B. Elias Kornfeld conducted an interview with Rabbi Asher Lopatin about his congregant, new White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

In the March 2009 issue of Sociological Spectrum---a Special Issue on Religion and Race in 21st Century America---editors Darren E. Sherkat and Christopher G. Ellison introduce the issue's theme.

Pope Benedict XVI has recently overturned the excommunication of four schismatic bishops, one of whom is a Holocaust denier. John Allen, senior correspondent with the National Catholic Reporter, comments in an interview with NPR.