Good News: What Good Is Religion, Anyway?

We all know the media mantra, "What bleeds, leads." Bad news sells, and there's nothing like a juicy religious scandal to drive traffic. Yet, for every sordid religious story, there are any number of quiet stories of charity, compassion, self-sacrifice, and service. In our obsession with bad news, what are we missing of the GOOD of religion? How is your tradition contributing to the flourishing of the world?

Here, we invite our writers—those of faith and those without—to remind us of the best of our traditions. How has faith, in big and small ways, theoretical and very concrete, served humanity and the world for good?