Despite growing numbers of non-religious Americans, self-declared atheists are few and far between in the halls of power – putting the US at odds with other global democracies.
The things we find hard to balance during COVID-19 – individual freedoms versus the group, accountability versus blame, science versus personal beliefs – are centuries old and deeply human.
From the crusades of the medieval period to racial violence today, mankind has sought ways to ‘sanctify’ harmful actions, explains a scholar of religion.
The former justice received a Jewish funeral at the Supreme Court. But in other ways, Ginsburg’s burial is breaking with traditional Jewish death rituals.
Millions of Muslims travel to Karbala in Iraq for one of the largest annual pilgrimages. The pilgrimage has adapted and changed over its centuries-old history.
Luc Bovens, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
At the height of Reaganism, close to half of Americans believed a phrase popularized by Karl Marx actually derived from the US Constitution. It doesn’t, but scholars have traced it to the Bible.
Are masks a religious matter, or is religion being used to suit people’s political agendas? A scholar of Christian conservatism and culture argues both can be true.
Peter C. Mancall, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Descendants from the Pilgrims were keen to highlight their ancestors’ role in the country’s founding. But their sanitized version of events is only now starting to be told in full.
Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity