Faith/Religion

Hundreds of volunteers packaged thousands of food packages to send to hunger-stricken countries during CRUSH Hunger on Sunday. 

Remember those old sayings about not talking religion and politics? Well, this week's faith and values update has both. We’re looking at the faith angle of Republican Congressman Todd Akin’s campaign.

Akin has been criticized since he made a comment about what he called “legitimate rape,” which he later apologized for. He recently made the news again for saying his opponent in the Senate race, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, was more “ladylike” in a previous campaign.

Religion was one of those things Cliff Cain's mother raised him not to talk about in public – that, along with politics and sex.

With religion alone, he's breaking that rule – in his words, "Religion is as polarizing as politics and as passionate as sex."

Cain is a religious studies professor at Westminster College in Fulton, and he was the chair of the committee for the school's annual symposium. This year, the topic was religion, and more than 40 experts came to give lectures and facilitate discussions. 

For 19 years, Dan Barker preached from a Christian pulpit. Now, he’s co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and is an atheist activist. He said he outgrew his religious beliefs. These days, that’s not unusual.

“Agree with it or not, atheism is really growing," he said. "Millions and millions of good Americans don’t believe in a God.”