Mississippi has enacted a new law that says people of faith can refuse to provide services to gay people if they think such services violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. As correspondent Lucky Severson reports, supporters of the law insist it will protect religious freedom. Critics say it will permit unconstitutional discrimination.

According to the United Nations, in 2015, some eight million people around the world were displaced from their homes by conflict and social upheaval--the largest number ever recorded in a single year. Prominent theologian and ethicist David Hollenbach has been studying the global refugee crisis. He talks with Kim Lawton about the moral obligations he believes the US has.

There’s a culture clash over repairing the priceless antiquities of Nepal that were badly damaged by last year’s earthquake.  The world’s experts want to restore the buildings as they were. But, as Fred de Sam Lazaro reports, many Nepalis are indifferent about the historic significance of sites that to them are primarily places of worship.

Evangelicals have long been a key constituency for the Republican Party, but this election season they are deeply divided over whether to support presumptive nominee Donald Trump. Tensions escalated this week after Trump got into a social media “war of words” with a prominent Southern Baptist leader. Host Bob Abernethy and managing editor Kim Lawton discuss the GOP’s dilemma.

For 900 years there was a small Jewish community on India’s Malabar Coast, living at peace with its Hindu, Muslim and Christian neighbors. It was been a model of interfaith tolerance. But, as Fred de Sam Lazaro reports, the community has dwindled since the state of Israel was established, and now one of the last Jewish survivors, who maintains the local synagogue, says he plans to leave.

The armed standoff in Oregon last winter at a national wildlife refuge was part of the widespread and decades-long Sagebrush Rebellion trying to take back federal public lands and put them in the hands of local governments. Who controls the vast, scenic lands in the American West? Correspondent Lucky Severson reports on the interests involved.

We have a Belief and Practice segment today about the Chinese Buddhist tradition of honoring deceased family members at the place where their ashes are interred.

For Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC invites volunteers and visitors to read the names of people who were killed during the Holocaust. The ceremony is held each day in the Hall of Remembrance during the museum’s week-long Days of Remembrance commemoration.

Professional filmmakers, many in Nashville, Tennessee, are beginning to make big profits on faith-based, low-budget feature films.  The production values are high and the Christian stories are appealing to large audiences, especially when marketed through churches.  Correspondent Dan Lothian says Hollywood is paying attention.

Christian arbitration is required in a growing number of business and employment agreements. Correspondent David Tereshchuk interviews individuals who wanted to take legal action but were bound by their agreements to engage in Christian arbitration.  He also talks to Bryce Thomas, an attorney and Christian arbitrator and with Pepperdine University Law School professor Michael Helfand.

The Jesuit priest, poet, and antiwar activist died on April 30 at the age of 94. From the R&E archive, we reprise a story we did about Berrigan in 2001 on his 80th birthday.

How would finding extraterrestrial intelligence affect your religious beliefs? What might it tell us about ourselves? What would the theological implications be? Correspondent Lucky Severson talks with astrobiology experts and theologians, who say for some people “dealing with intelligence out there would take us away from being the center of the universe.

Jews around the world will commemorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on May 5th. At a time when the number of Holocaust survivors is dwindling, we listen to one survivor, Lola Byron, who shares her story with teenaged Jewish girls at a Sabbath dinner aimed at encouraging future generations to know their history and be proud of the Jewish faith.

There’s been a lot of negative campaign language about Islam this election season—calls for banning Muslims from entering the US and for patrolling Muslim neighborhoods. But there are also serious attempts to oppose anti-Muslims rhetoric. Correspondent Kim Lawton reports on efforts in Nashville, Tennessee to counter hateful speech by building personal relationships between Christians and Muslims.

In June, California will become the fifth state to allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with the help of a doctor’s prescription. We spoke recently with NPR host Diane Rehm, author of On My Own, about her husband John’s death in 2014 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease and 10 days after he began to refuse any food or drink. He had asked his doctor to help him die.

The eight-day Jewish festival of Passover begins tonight (April 22) at sundown. To prepare for the holiday, traditional Jews have searched their homes for any yeast or leaven and then have given it away, donated it to charity, burned it, or authorized a rabbi to sell it for them. Rabbi Yosef Landa of Chabad.org explains the ancient prohibition against chametz.

Americans are increasingly dependent on their digital devices, and while these provide undeniable benefits, some say their negative consequences must also be addressed. Correspondent Kim Lawton talks with Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Sherry Turkle, Tanya Schevitz of the Jewish cultural organization Reboot and Zen master Jane Dobisz, who leads device-free meditation retreats.

On April 18, the US Supreme Court will take up a case examining President Obama’s executive orders to protect more than four million undocumented immigrants from being deported. The plan was never implemented. Several states filed suit, arguing it was an unconstitutional use of presidential authority. Lower courts have ruled against the plan.

At St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, people from many religious and spiritual traditions gather on Sunday nights to encounter the divine through stillness, silence, music, meditation, prayer, and ancient liturgies and sacraments. Correspondent Kate Olson talked with worshippers and also with historian, author and speaker Diana Butler Bass about changes in people’s beliefs.

“People want to be their own theologians. People don’t just want to receive truth from an institution. They want to participate with a tradition and make a truth that is meaningful for their own lives.”