Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to join the Roman Catholic Church might be of little interest to Americans, except for Anglophiles and students of ecclesiastical politics, but his "conversion" offers a timely opportunity to compare and contrast the relationship between religion and politics in the United Kingdom and the United States.

"They were sweethearts," the Rev. Albert Martin said. "He led her, and she followed him willingly and cheerfully. That is all biblical, you see." Martin was remembering Arif and Kathleen Khan, a missionary couple whom Martin's church, the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, N.J., had sent to Pakistan eight years ago. There, this August, the couple were shot to death in their home by three suspected killers: a young woman who later claimed that Arif had laced her tea with a sedative and sexually assaulted her; the woman's husband, a lapsed member of the tiny church Arif had founded just outside the country's capital, Islamabad; and a gunman from Waziristan, a frontier region that serves as a sanctuary for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

NAUDERO, Pakistan - Three days after the violent killing of its leader, Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's largest political party on Sunday picked her 19-year-old son to succeed her as chairman and vowed to forge ahead with elections next week, immediately creating a new quandary for the government about whether to delay the vote.

Two-time reigning GMA "Female Vocalist of the Year" Natalie Grant claims she's no hero. Others would disagree. And arguably so. While Grant's music career sky-rocketed with 2005's release of Awaken (Curb), featuring her smash hit "Held," the Dove Award winner's passion for helping others expanded in ways that even surprised Natalie herself. And it all started with an episode of Law & Order.