Families who lost their loved ones during the pandemic could not even properly grieve. Greek epics show why lamentation and memorial are so important and what we can learn in these times.
Some presidents have lied for honorable reasons, while for others the lies have been simply self-serving.
A painting made by French street artist Christian Guemy in tribute to the members of those killed in the attack on Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015.
AP Photo/Michel Euler
The French satirical magazine republished the controversial caricatures of Prophet Muhammad. An expert says satire has often been a subject of condemnation.
Sage burning as a spiritual cleansing ritual is common at Black Lives Matter protests.
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Hebah H. Farrag, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences et Ann Gleig, University of Central Florida
BLM has been accused of being ‘Godless’ and operating in a ‘demonic realm.’ But scholars of religion see a deep spirituality at work in the movement.
Shiite Muslims attend a mourning ritual during the Islamic month of Muharram, in the central shrine city of Karbala.
Photo by Mohammed SAWAF / AFP) (Photo by MOHAMMED SAWAF/AFP via Getty Images
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.
A churchgoer’s thoughts on climate change may not have much to do with Christian teaching.
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Few white evangelicals in the U.S. say they believe in human-made climate change. This strand of science denial seems to have as much to do with conservative politics as the Bible’s teachings.
Marx, Madison or God? Who said it first…or at all?
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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.
Doing a job to help other people can give greater meaning to work.
Photo by Eddie Kopp for Unsplach
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.
Plimoth Plantation, in Plymouth, Mass., is a living museum that’s a replica of the original settlement, which existed for 70 years.
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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.
The fringe QAnon conspiracy theory has been creeping into the mainstream.
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A would-be speaker at the Republican National Convention was yanked for encouraging people to read up on a hoax that has long been discredited but refuses to die.
Jerry Falwell Jr. who resigned after 13 years serving as president of Liberty University.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File
A sociologist describes her research on online Christian sex advice sites to point out a sexual culture in which men are permitted to pursue their unusual sexual desires..
A vaccine for COVID-19 may only effectively stop the spread if enough people take it.
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A public health lawyer and ethicist explores the thorny issue of whether requiring people to be vaccinated against COVID-19 might be necessary. And if so, can people object citing their faith?
Only a handful of tourists at the usually busy St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images
The response to the sex scandal that led to Jerry Falwell Jr. resigning as president of Liberty University falls into a gendered pattern often seen among evangelicals.
God creating night and day.
Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Trump recently suggested that a vote for Biden would hurt God. Religion scholars explain what, in Christian theology, it would take to injure the creator.
Children evacuated from U.K. cities in WWII were taught in churches.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The history of education in the West is closely associated with Christian religious spaces – from the first cathedral schools to the use of churches to teach children in WWII.
Suffragists march from New York to Washington D.C. in 1913.
AP Photo
As Americans celebrate the legacy of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, it is also a moment to acknowledge how suffragists first used hunger strike as a form of protest.