If you are teaching a high school world religions course like me, you might find some of these sites useful for tying current events to the different religions. Two newspapers have great religion blogs, CNN Belief Blog Washington Posts, On Faith. There are several excellent radio shows that discuss religion. Krista Tippett’s, On Being is the best in my opinion. On Being also has an interesting blog.  Another good site is NPR’s Interfaith Voices. The BBC’s Heart and Soul PBS, Religion... Read more

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reports that the number of members of Congress who don’t belong to any faith is on the rise. According to Politico, ten members fall into that category, which is ten times more than before. Read more

Today is the birthday of the tenth and last Sikh guru, Gobind Singh. He made a number of contributions to the religion in the areas of ethics, hair, and headress. You can read more about Sikhism at the On Being blog here. Read more

My colleague  Frances Coffey, sent me the link to this interesting NPR story. Unlike the elderly in the United States, very few elderly South Koreans live in nursing homes. That’s because of the Confucian virtue of filial piety, or respect for the older generation. That virtue is still important to South Koreans and means that many generations live in the same house so older Koreans do not need to go into nursing homes. Read the full NPR story here.  You can also listen... Read more

Stephen Prothero, the writer and Boston University religion professor, discusses the Tibetan self-immolations in this interesting CNN Belief blog. He criticized the Dali Llama last summer for not speaking out against the suicides. Last week, a Chinese newspaper quoted him to justify the atrocities. Prothero reminds his readers that while it’s “disconcerting to see one’s words used by Chinese officials to justify the atrocities it has been visiting on Tibet for generations,” he stands by his criticism of the Dali Lama... Read more

This New York Times Magazine story discusses the religious revival in China after years of Communist suppression. Taoism, in particular is rebounding in the small villages and the country side and the author outlines Taoism’s history and appeal today. This might be a nice reading assignment for a religions class, or even a world history class. Read more

“What was the color of Christ?” asks the author of this new book. You can listen to the NPR review here and you can read the review at the NPR site here.  The author shows how the color of Christ changes depending on who claims him. Read more

The big story in American religion is the growing number of those who are unaffiliated. The departing editor of CNN Belief blog believes that it will be one of the biggest stories of the century. Here is the Pew Forum’s report on the size and distribution of the world’s religions. Read more

As this story suggests, China still has not committed to reviving Confucianism, despite efforts. Read more

Listen to this story about China’s effort to stop Tibetan monks from self-immolating. Read more