Christmas Music Tells the Story; Zaytuna College

R&E goes to Berkeley, California to visit Zaytuna College, the first fully accredited Muslim liberal arts college in the US. Students study great ideas from both Western and Islamic civilizations, trying to revive the historic liberal arts tradition within Islam.

"Has there ever been any occasion around which more songs have been written" than Christmas, asks singer-songwriter Amy Grant. Managing editor Kim Lawton looks at how music—Christmas carols, hymns, and popular songs—embody the meaning of the Christmas story and play a central role in the celebration of the season.

Churches across the country have been taking part in a special project for the charity Stop Hunger Now by sending non-perishable meals to children in poverty-stricken areas of the world. We visited Grace Community Church in Arlington, Virginia, where senior pastor John Slye said of those who were packing the meals, “Instead of hearing a sermon, they come here and be the sermon.”

When the chapel at Virginia Theological Seminary burned to the ground in 2010, the school commissioned a new building with a brand new pipe organ. Watch our Advent interview with the chapel's music director, Rev. William Bradley Roberts, and listen to Christmas sounds from a world-class instrument played by Tom Smith, organist and music director at Christ Church Georgetown in Washington, DC.