Producer Nancy Updike with Ki Kim, who's not afraid of walking on coals. But maybe he should have been.

Cringing means literally "to shrink from something dangerous or painful." So what could be more potentially dangerous or painful—more cringe-worthy—than love? Nancy Updike reports on the characteristics and bylaws of cringe love.

In Israel, Sayed Kashua, writes a weekly newspaper column that are these very frank, entertaining conversations about his day-to-day life. A few years ago, he moved his family from East Jerusalem (where most of the Arabs in the city live) to West Jerusalem (where it’s almost all Jews, not Arabs) and that kind of blew people’s minds, his included.

In the summer of 2006, an FBI official visited a mosque in Orange County, California. His intention was to reassure the community that they weren't being spied on.

Abby Stein’s youngest sister got married last month, the last of 13 kids in their family.

Elna Baker talks to a Republican woman who voted for Hillary Clinton this year, and has suffered consequences in the Mormon community she lives in.

Scott Carrier documents a group in Manti, Utah, that left the Mormon church and formed its own polygamous church. The members started fighting, broke up, and no longer speak.

Alex Edelman grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household in Boston. But one year, unexpectedly, his family decided to celebrate Christmas – for what he says are very Jewish reasons.

A documentary by Cecilia Vaisman and Christina Egloff, with Jay Allison, about a white woman named Carolyn Wren Shannon, who grew up hating blacks in a Catholic neighborhood, and how her attitudes change.

Ira's conversation with Erin Einhorn continues. She talks about the possible reasons that, 50 years after Auschwitz, 10,000 Polish hipsters will now show up to see a Klezmer music concert.

How fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews are combining forces to breed a perfect red cow that could bring about the end of the world. Ira talks with cattleman and minister Clyde Lott, and with New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright.

Poet Michael Warr talks with Ira and reads some of his poems inspired by his childhood. Warr grew up as a Jehovah's Witness and found that he had some problems with the religion's rules.

When you're powerless, you think a lot about the powerful figures above you. Especially when their actions just make no sense.

Yeah, Mary Magdalene knew Jesus. She knew him before anybody else had ever even heard of him.

Patrick Wall was a special kind of monk. He was a fixer.

Greg Warner was living in Pakistan, on the border of Afghanistan, when he met a man—a tough guy, former smuggler—who wanted to break his friend out of prison. He'd bought an expensive amulet, to keep his friend safe during the breakout.

This American Life host Ira Glass and producer Susan Burton spent a week in August recording a suburban Chicago youth group at every stage of their very first mission trip. The teenagers were from Covenant Presbyterian Church in Chicago.

Patrick Wall was a special kind of monk. He was a fixer.

Patrick Wall was a special kind of monk. He was a fixer.

Once he starts preaching his own revelation, Carlton Pearson's church falls apart. After all, when there's no hell (as the logic goes), you don't really need to believe in Jesus to be saved from it.

An accountant, Bruce Wisan, is hired by the state of Utah to clean up a very complicated mess in a complicated place: Short Creek, home to hundreds of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—or FLDS, which practices polygamy. The community had been run by the notorious Warren Jeffs, now in prison for rape.

Scott Carrier in Salt Lake City with a story about whether it's possible to be a good person if you're not a Christian.

Dan Savage points a finger at the Catholic Church for being the kind of criminal organization that drives him to atheism—despite the fact that he still wants to believe he'll see his mom in heaven someday. Dan writes the sex advice column Savage Love and is the author of several books including The Commitment.

Michelle Navarro attended a Catholic youth group retreat when she was thirteen.