To kick off 2015, we present our take on who the real “G-7” countries are: the world’s seven great powers, ranked by their ability to shape both their immediate environments and the broader world.

As the Christmas season draws to a close and the return of regular blogging looms, I’m looking back over this short period of intense religion writing and thinking about how writing on religion is and is not like writing on other controversial topics.

To get any insight at all into what Jesus’ childhood and upbringing were like, you have to do something that sometimes makes Protestants uncomfortable: study Mary.

China appears to be walking back its most aggressive policies toward Vietnam, as it has been doing with Japan.

The flawed human race, trapped in a cycle of cascading pain and wrong is what, and who, God is bound and determined to love; the question is how can he do it?

In terms of power and position, here’s who came out on top last year.

Feeling threatened by Islam, secularism, and regional powers, Buddhists in south and southeast Asia are becoming militant—and joining forces.

Across the country projects to build new streetcar routes are floundering, just like much of the rest of Obama’s pet urbanist projects.

The Christmas story suggests that we can somehow try to both be loyal members of our nations, our families, our tribes—and also to reach out to the broader human community of which we are also a part.

That little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying so cutely in the manger is the biggest trouble maker in world history, and the shocking claims that Christianity makes about who he is and what he means irritate and antagonize people all over the world.