Religion

Digital podcasts and streaming video might bring Christian audiences inspirational messages in the future, but they aren't bringing in the cash that broadcast ministries need to weather a painful economy. To make ends meet, religious broadcasters are tightening their belts and going back to basics. That means sticking with time-tested formulas, postponing innovations and counting on loyal (largely senior) audiences to keep donating even when it hurts.

One day in spring of 2007, the phone rang in the little Buddhist center in Long Beach that has been the focus of the Venerable Tenzin Kacho's life since she was ordained a nun by the Dalai Lama. On the other end of the line was her brother, Robert Kiyosaki, a combat helicopter pilot in Vietnam who crashed three times and went on to become a globe-trotting entrepreneur and author of a bestselling book on personal finance, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad."

A card, chocolate and roses, an affectionate evening with your sweetheart -- what's not to like about Valentine's Day? Plenty, if you're one of the extremist groups in India that see in Cupid's pointed arrow a lance aimed at the heart of Indian culture.

A decision by Pakistani authorities to allow imposition of Islamic law in a region a short distance from Islamabad is increasing India's fears that religious militancy is growing in its neighbor and traditional rival. India's main Hindu nationalist group, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, said Wednesday that national security was at risk because of well-entrenched militants operating in Pakistan's Swat Valley, within a five-hour drive of Amritsar, an Indian city of 1.5 million people.

In the 1960s, a stiff-jointed, knee-high doll with brown hair and rosy cheeks named Little Marcy was promoted as a model toddler who sang simple Christian songs on dozens of record albums that sold for $1.98 each. The albums, which today can be found only in thrift store bins, featured on their covers photographs of Little Marcy and her world. "Marcy Goes to Nashville" shows her staring at a horse.

In the beginning, there was light. And soon after, it seems, there were movies. And with movies came movie posters -- the "heralds" that drew people into movie theaters, particularly during the Golden Age of Hollywood: the 1920s through 1950s. This was a time "when fantasy architecture made its visitors feel as though they were entering into a sacred space," says the Rev. Michael Morris, a Dominican priest, film scholar and avid movie poster collector.

In his quest to have students experience firsthand how people around the world worship, Varun Soni, the dean of religious life at USC, did not start up some expensive study-abroad program. He just ventured a few blocks from campus. Within a square mile, he and his staff discovered 67 places of worship. And that was without crossing the Harbor Freeway just to the east.

Americans are fickle consumers of religion, with about half changing religious affiliations at least once in their lives as they drift away from childhood traditions or stop believing in the teachings of their faiths, according to a national survey released Monday. Such religious switching has swollen the ranks of the unaffiliated, according to researchers from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

As they retired from South Los Angeles pulpits, civil rights-era ministers known as the "old lions" took with them a kind of social justice-oriented "Bible in one hand, newspaper in the other" Christianity that has been quietly fading in African American churches. Theirs was neither the popular "prosperity gospel," which preaches that God will reward the faithful with material riches, nor the soul-saving ministry of televangelists and mega-churches dedicated to preparing people for Judgment Day.

The 2,700 or so followers of the Bahai faith in Southern California enjoy a life their brethren in Iran have cause to desire. Here, they have access to education, work, and, most importantly for them, the right to worship. Iran's fundamentalist Shiite government has barred the country's 300,000 Bahai from holding government jobs, attending universities and practicing their religion, according to human-rights groups and the United Nations.