At Newsweek, columnist Lisa Miller comments on new research by Sam Harris, which finds that the brain processes belief and fact in an identical fashion.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, of Tikkun Magazine, sat down last week with Judge Richard Goldstone, chair of the UN commission investigating the War in Gaza in 2008 and 2009, to discuss Goldstone's much maligned UN report on the Gaza War. Goldstone calls on Jews to stand up for "Jewish values" and defends the accusations of war crimes contained in his report.

In the Washington Post, Immanent Frame contributor D. Michael Lindsay discusses the findings of the White House Fellows Project, a "comprehensive study of the program and its impact on the lives of current and former fellows."

At Boing Boing, Mitch Horowitz discusses a new poll by Parade magazine, which evinces the "fluid and expanding meaning of spirituality in America."

In time for the Feast of St. Francis, Paul Moses gives an account of Francis of Assisi's historic encounter with Sultan Malik al-Kamil of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade.

Foreign Affairs contributor Chris Seiple offers an annotated book list of some of the best recent scholarship on the relationship between religion and American foreign policy.

Jonathan D. Sarna discusses why American Jews can be seen as having fallen out of love with Israel.

At Changing Turkey in a Changing World, Sune Lægaard, assistant professor of philosophy at the Centre for the Study of Equality and Multiculturalism, discusses Dr. Ahmet Kuru's distinction of two contending constructs of secularism: the "passive" secularism of the US, on one hand, and the"assertive" secularism practiced by the Turkish and French governments, on the other.

Natalie Haynes reviews the recently published Atheist's Guide to Christmas.

At Tikkun Magazine, Eileen Flanagan argues that "seeing more authority than empathy in the divine, or vice versa, affects the way we act politically."