(RNS) This summer will be the last call for Cornerstone, one of the oldest Christian music and arts festivals in the U.S. Yet as Cornerstone and its heavy metal lineup exit the stage, the young upstart Wild Goose Festival is doubling its size in only its second year. By Greg Horton.

CLAYTON, Mo. (RNS) David Ellefson was an honest-to-God founding member of the legendary thrash metal band Megadeth. And his studies at a Lutheran seminary here illustrate why distance-learning programs are increasingly popular as seminarians don't have to uproot their lives to attend. For Ellefson, his new quest for the ministry is also about a peculiar foray through the apparent contradictions of rock and religion.