Interfaith Alliance

As Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, exhorts his conservative membership to soften its rhetoric--and a recent national survey indicates that Americans are increasingly willing to listen to their spiritual leaders on social issues--a new coalition of voices from the other side of the political spectrum is preparing to emerge at full volume.

Twelve years ago, the Irvine United Church of Christ opened its doors--and its arms--to a small Jewish congregation in search of a home. On Sunday, the church embraced followers of another faith--Islam. During the morning service, the Rev. Fred C. Plumer introduced his congregants to the church's newest tenants in a quest for greater understanding of what it means to be "children of one God."

"What began 20 years ago as a personal religious experience," intones "Frontline's" sonorous narrator at the conclusion of "The Jesus Factor," a documentary written, directed and co-produced by Raney Aronson, "has for George W. Bush become a factor inextricably linked with his career as a politician, and now with the life of the country."

In the face of plans by Christian conservatives to capitalize on President Bush's reelection, moderate and liberal Christian religious leaders pressed Tuesday for a new national debate to define morality. Same-sex marriage and abortion emerged as primary issues in the election, but liberals and moderates said Tuesday that they didn't want the nation to lose sight of broader ethical questions such as poverty, economic and social justice, and the war in Iraq.

Bill Ritter Jr. was not the first governor of Colorado to declare the first Thursday in May as a day of prayer. But he was the first to attend a celebration of the National Day of Prayer at the state Capitol, joining a crowd of several hundred Christians in 2007. His appearance at the event caught the attention of a Wisconsin-based atheist group, which has mounted a campaign its leaders hope will dissuade him and other governors from participating again.

After months of contentious debate, a Bakersfield school district has voted to display the phrase "In God We Trust" on the walls of more than 2,300 classrooms, school libraries, administrative offices and the board's meeting room. Adopted by Congress as the U.S. motto in 1956, the words will be highlighted in a poster along with portions of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the original national motto: e pluribus unum, Latin for "from many, one."

When the Rev. Jerry Vines got up in front of a sea of Southern Baptist pastors last month and described the Prophet Muhammad as a "demon-possessed pedophile," many people thought it was an ill-informed slip of the tongue. Ergun and Emir Caner, the authors of a new book on Islam, knew it was not.

Despite concerns from right to left, the White House is using the levers of executive power to move forward with President Bush's plan to expand the role of faith-based charities in the nation's social safety net.

Two U.S. court opinions last week show why disagreements over the relationship between God and public life in America are so perennial--and so bedeviling. First, a federal appeals court ruled that religion could not be part of a daily ritual of public school life: the Pledge of Allegiance. The next day, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious schools could receive public school dollars.