On a Christian pilgrimage with her church group, Kristin Toorop looks up to Calvary, and her eyes open wide. She listens as tour guide Gloria Harrington tells the story of where Christ was crucified, with Mary Magdalene kneeling at his feet. “I’m sure you recognize the scene of Jesus on the cross, between two thieves,“ Harrington says, before leading the group to take a closer look. “Let’s go up to Calvary.“

Pope Benedict XVI has created a new church structure for Anglicans who want to join the Catholic Church, responding to the disillusionment of some Anglicans over the ordination of women and the election of openly gay bishops.

A pastor in southwest Oklahoma was killed and her body was found inside her church, but authorities had few leads in the investigation, officials said.

A financially struggling church has run into neighborhood opposition to natural-gas drilling on church property. Stow Community United Church of Christ sits on a 4-acre lot in this upscale Akron suburb. It needs the approval of neighbors living within 300 feet to allow drilling. Two of 20 owners have balked at signing because of safety and property-value concerns.

The Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a Virginia-based branch of the Anglican Church of Nigeria that broke away from the Episcopal Church in the U.S., is coming together in Virginia this weekend for its annual council meeting. The network of about 85 congregations and 179 clergy in 25 states began the gathering yesterday at its headquarters at Church of the Epiphany in Herndon and will remain there through tomorrow.

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the Anglican Church may have to accept a “two track” communion in which believers can hold different opinions about gay clergy and same-sex unions.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church Isabel Coelho, who came to western Henrico County from Brazil two years ago, understands some English, but not enough to be fulfilled spiritually at Sunday Mass. The 49-year-old catechist for a group of Brazilian parishioners at St. Mary’s Catholic Church said she needs a Portuguese-speaking priest. “We’re immigrants, and we really need someone who can give us spiritual guidance, someone to talk with about family problems,“ the housekeeper said in Portuguese on a recent Sunday evening after leading a rosary in lieu of Mass.

Judaism’s holiest prayer site has entered the Twitter age.

The Church of England is offering couples a two-for-one service — marriage for them and baptisms for their children.

Food shortages, earthquakes, moral corruption and wars are clear signs of a looming Armageddon, according to Jehovah’s Witnesses. People should be alert, they say, and if you’re ready, a heavenly kingdom awaits after this world ends.

Two recent conversations haunt me. An old college friend, a leading-edge baby boomer (age 63) whom I knew to be a person of faith in college, told me he and his wife “had given up on the institutional church.“ The other con versation was with an educated professional friend, also a baby boomer, who describes herself as spiritual but not religious.

A recent episode of “Hannity’s America” on FOX News asked, “Atheist Agenda?“ Sean Hannity and his guest, Bernie Goldberg, discussed whether The New York Times was leading a media assault against believers, particularly against conservative Christians. Those familiar with the genre pretty much know how the conversation unfolded. The Times often seems hostile to religion. A recent review of God Is Back—a book about a worldwide upsurge in faith—conveyed an attitude of disdain. And, as the Hannity show said, a survey suggesting a rise in atheism received prominent play.

Religion seems much on America’s mind. What else is new? A Newsweek cover story, “The End of Christian America,“ provoked debate and consternation. Critics who likened the article to an attack on Christianity either misread the piece or read it without clarity and, for that matter, without charity. The author, Jon Meacham, identifies himself as a Christian, albeit a “poor” one, which places him among the multitudes, including the writer of these words. Then there is the controversy regarding Notre Dame, Barack Obama, and an honorary degree. Accusations have been traded regarding another movie based on another comic novel by Dan “Da Vinci Code” Brown. Editors of Britain’s Economist have published a book about religion’s resiliency. God Is Back proclaims the title, a prospect a reviewer in The New York Times evidently considers appalling.

Timothy Joseph Harrington Sr. would do what it took to help. The founding board member of Caritas led local volunteers in repair work in South Carolina after Hurricane Hugo. He traveled to Tanzania several times on Baptist International Mission Board mission trips. And he was not above tackling a plumbing problem that flooded the basement of Bon Air Baptist Church, where he was a deacon.

In 1999, Collegiate High School senior Rachel Rosenbaum hit upon the idea of collecting pennies—6 million of them—to try to grasp the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust during World War II. Her grandfather Al Rosenbaum was, with Jay Ipson and Mark Fetter, one of the founders of the Virginia Holocaust Museum, now located in Shockoe Bottom in Richmond. His sculpture of a menorah with six eternal candles stands in the museum and is the center of the museum’s logo. Each candle represents 1 million Jewish dead.