Dear Readers, We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog as much as we’ve enjoyed reporting and writing it, but it’s time for the next stage in Belief’s evolution. Like the rest of our colleagues at CNN, we’re “going there” … to a spiffy new home: http://www.cnn.com/specials/belief. The new site will have the same insightful analysis

By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Editor (CNN) - Books, filled with prayers for peace, splattered with blood. Sacred vestments shredded by bullets and knives. Lifeless bodies in the sanctuary. The rabbis had gathered to ask God to bestow blessings upon their troubled land. Their prayers were interrupted by two men wielding butcher knives and

By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Editor (CNN) - The founder of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith, wed as many as 40 wives, including some who were already married and one as young as 14 years old, the church acknowledged in a surprising new essay. Smith's marital history had been the subject of frequent historical

By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Editor (CNN) - This country is changing rapidly, and at the very time modern medicine puts life-or-death decisions in our hands, organized religion has faded from the lives of many Americans. As the surgeon and writer Atul Gawande noted in The New York Times recently, our medical system, powerful

By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Editor (CNN) - Chicago's new archbishop does not plan to live in the $14 million mansion that housed many of his predecessors but was seen by some Catholics as out of touch with Pope Francis' emphasis on simplicity. Instead, Archbishop Blase Cupich, a moderate in the mold of Francis,