At Salon, Frances Kissling argues that Catholic bishops are committing a sin of omission by not fighting for the public option in U.S. healthcare reform.

Soldier and social scientist Adam L. Silverman attempts to redress the perception that sectarian violence in Iraq is fueled by doctrinal irreconcilables rather than pragmatic geopolitical aspirations.

Nesrine Malik argues in the Guardian that Western feminists' concern for the plight of women in the Islamic world tends to derive from a narrow and simplistic conception of the latter.  Moreover, their activism, though genuine, is often counterproductive

This week in the Guardian's Comment is Free belief section, commentators are asked whether western feminism can save Muslim women.

In the latest issue of Logos, Ze'ev Levy looks at contemporary issues of religious tolerance and persecution through the lens of Enlightenment philosophers Baruch Spinoza and Moses Mendelssohn.

Ziauddin Sardar situates Sebastian Faulks's blunt dismissal of the literary and ethics merits of the Qur'an at the end of a long history of similarly ungenerous readings.

In the New York Times, Simon Critchley argues, "There is a theological core to money based on an act of faith, of belief."

Facebook's "Religious Views" prompt, writes William Wan in the Washington Post, garners answers from the sublime to the ridiculous, but in many cases, it provokes more serious reflection than most users expect from a social networking site.

In a LA Times opinion piece, Tim Rutten wonders whether the bonds Senator Ted Kennedy was able to forge between Catholics and Democrats can survive without him.