Journalist David Gibson discusses Obama's recovery of "the lost gospel of America's civil religion."

Mark Juergensmeyer writes about the recent attack on the Holocaust museum and the murder of George Tiller, and asks if the timing of these incidents are coincidence or if "these incidents, and a host of other threats in recent months, are the violent fringe of a new wave of religiously-motivated violence that might rival America’s Christian terrorism of the 1990s."

At Religion Dispatches, Anna Clark asks how the Nation of Islam has evolved and changed, and how it is affected by our first black president.

At Slate, Michael Sean Winters writes about the controversy among Catholics aroused by Christopher West, his Theology of the Body Institute, and his book, Good News About Sex & Marriage.

David Shribman writes about new evidence that recasts President Roosevelt's stance on the Jews during World War II.

At his US News & World Report God & Country blog, Dan Gilgoff addresses some criticism from the folks at Faith in Public Life, insisting that voters really do know what the term "moral values" denotes. Faith in Public life previously had criticized Gilgoff, E. J. Dionne, other "prominent pundits," and the recent Pew poll that sparked the debate for breathing new life into the term, which FPL believes "assumes that certain (unnamed but clearly implied) issues are not just shaped by values, but are values and all others are amoral." Gilgoff sees Pew's 2004 exit polls as proof that the term has more to it than euphemistic vagueness.

David Van Biema focuses on Mormons and their widely held belief that they are misunderstood by the larger American community.

Michael Gerson wonders about the roots of anti-Semitism, asking, "Why the Jews?"

At the Guardian's online Belief section this week, commentators are answering the question, "Can religion save the world?"