A new report released Monday, June 23, by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life demonstrates the myriad ways that faith in America is more variegated and nuanced than it may appear at first glance.

Researchers for Pew's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey analyzed the religious practices of more than 35,000 U.S. adults and found that they generally embrace their own faith while respecting—and sometimes ...

I believe in God. I believe in Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and all those that were enlightened. I wouldn't say necessarily that I'm a strict Christian. I'm not sure I believe in heaven.

—Rock singer Sheryl Crow in an interview with the New York Postin September of 2005

Two weeks after the [2008 presidential] election, I traveled to India to meet Christian pioneers seeking to overturn India's institutional form of discrimination, the caste system. One scholar said to me, "You Americans are celebrating the election of a black man after only 250 years of slavery. We are still waiting for liberation after 4,000 years of living under caste." The Dalit Freedom Network ...

I was traveling on a plane from San Francisco to Los Angeles a few years ago. I was sitting next to the window, reading a Christian book. The man next to me, obviously from the Eastern hemisphere, asked, "Are you a religious man?" "Well, yes," I said. "I am too," he responded. We began talking about religion. In the middle of the conversation I asked, "Can you give me a one-liner that captures the ...

Woody Allen's September is about an emotionally fragile woman, Lane (Mia Farrow), who returns to her country home in Vermont to recuperate from a nervous breakdown. An ill-fated summer romance with a man named Peter—and a visit from her over-bearing mother, Diane—throws her into further emotional turmoil. In this scene Peter (Sam Waterston) and a friend of Diane's, Lloyd (Jack Warden), ...

I recently saw Religulous, a film that's billed as the "No. 1 sacrilegious comedy in America." It's supposedly a documentary, in which comedian Bill Maher (of Real Time with Bill Maher and Politically Incorrect) travels the world asking religious practitioners questions about their faith. Though Maher makes fun of every world religion, as well as some minor ones, about two-thirds of the film focuses ...

Sometimes the uniqueness of the revealed Word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ is seen most clearly when contrasted with other spiritual beliefs.

Lauding the Dalai Lama as one of the world's 100 most influential leaders, author Deepak Chopra wrote in Time magazine:

The most inspiring thing [the Dalai Lama] ever told me was to ignore all organized faiths and keep to the road of higher consciousness. ...

In the film The Bucket List, Edward (Jack Nicholson) and Carter (Morgan Freeman) are both terminally ill. Doctors have given them about one year to live, so they make a list of things they always wanted to do before they "kicked the bucket"—and go about doing them, one by one. The list includes skydiving, racing vintage Mustangs, and seeing the wonders of the world. In this scene, Edward and ...

On February 25, 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a study entitled The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. Based on interviews with 35,556 adults, America is "constantly shifting amid religious choices" and "unaware or unconcerned with doctrinal distinctions." Here are some telling highlights from the study:

• Forty-four percent of those surveyed said they've abandoned "the religious or secular upbringing of their childhood."
  
  

In a video based on his book 3:16 Stories of Hope, Max Lucado illustrates the odd nature of the statement that "all religions lead to God":

All roads lead to heaven. Well, the sentence makes good talk-show fodder, but does it make sense? Can all approaches to God be correct? How can all religions lead to God when they are so different? We don't tolerate such logic in other matters. We don't pretend ...