People admire a massive statue of the Hindu goddess Kali.
Jerry Redfern/LightRocket via Getty Images
Mother figures from faith traditions around the world reflect many different ways of thinking about the divine.
Jewish mothers have created ways to celebrate childbirth with rituals old and new.
Pal Pillai/AFP via Getty Images
Recent generations of Jewish women have looked to reinvent rituals marking the most meaningful moments in their lives, especially childbirth and motherhood.
An ancient Greek relief depicting a baby with its mother and grandmother.
David Lees/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
Greek epic poetry often uses mothers and wives to humanize its heroes, reminding listeners of the meaning of sacrifice.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, photographed in New York circa 1874.
Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Theosophy and its founders had an outsize impact on Americans’ ideas about spirituality and Asian religions.
A still from the film ‘The Pope’s Exorcist’ showing Russell Crowe as the real-life Vatican exorcist.
Sony Pictures
How did blockbuster horror films such as ‘The Exorcist’ help the church warm to the controversial ritual?
A protest for Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not complying with dress code laws, in Tehran on Sept. 19, 2022.
Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Religious freedom has grown more important in US foreign policy – but does that come at the expense of promoting other human rights?
Mary is often depicted weeping, a reminder of the ‘Seven Sorrows’ the Bible recounts her suffering.
pratan ounpitipong/Moment via Getty Images
Investigating supernatural claims is a delicate task for the church, and Catholic leaders rarely label them as authentic.
A salt pyramid in Uyuni, Bolivia. The rainy season produces a mirror effect in the salt flat.
Mario Orospe Hernandez
Lithium extraction in Bolivia poses more than environmental questions: It illustrates how notions about ‘raw materials’ can be at odds with Indigenous relations with the land.
Israeli political conflicts could change the giving patterns of U.S. Jews.
Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Political situations in both Israel and the US could be changing prior patterns with these donations, which fund hospitals, museums and a wide array of organizations.
Would religious charter schools be constitutional? More advocates are pushing to find out.
FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images
Using public funds to support students at private religious schools is one thing, but establishing faith-based institutions within public districts is another.
Zoe Sahloul, executive director of the New England Arab American Organization, center, celebrates Eid-al-Fitr in Maine.
Joel Page/Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images
Arab American Heritage Month is becoming more well-known, but the simple words ‘Arab American’ encompass a wide array of religious and ethnic groups.
Samuel Willenberg, the last survivor of the Treblinka uprising, poses for a picture at his art studio in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2010.
AP Photo/Oded Balilty
Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, pointedly commemorates Jewish resistance to the Nazis.
How did commemorating the Resurrection get tangled up with rabbits and eggs?
H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images
Like Halloween and Christmas, today’s Easter traditions are a blend of Christian and non-Christian influences.
A mural in Derry commemorating the TV show ‘Derry Girls,’ which follows the lives of teenagers growing up amid Northern Ireland’s troubles.
Dominic Bryan
Twenty-five years after the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland is still resisting the culture of violence.
A man chooses a palm cross to buy on Palm Sunday near a church in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2022.
Javier Campos/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Donkeys and palm leaves are both associated with Christianity’s Palm Sunday – but their symbolism couldn’t be more different.
Amitai Gross reads from the Haggadah while preparing to dip parsley into salt water as part of the Passover meal, called the Seder.
Marty Caivano/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images
The Passover Seder has tradition and remembrance at its core, but has also evolved throughout the centuries in Jewish communities around the world.
Martin Luther King, Jr. leads a group that includes a nun and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel during the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights march.
Bettmann via Getty Images
Religious pluralism and social justice were at the core of King’s campaigns – a vision shaped by influences as diverse as Gandhi, the Black church, Greek classics and Buddhism.
Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama leads a prayer in the Indian state of Bihar on Jan. 1, 2022.
Sandeep Kumar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Beijing is eager for more control over the selection of Tibetan Buddhist leaders like the Dalai Lama.
Cesar Chavez salutes the crowd on the steps of the California State Capitol.
AP Photo
A scholar of religion looks at how faith helped guide the labor rights icon in his organizing endeavors.
Thousands of church members sing during the 2016 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah.
George Frey/Getty Images
Joseph Smith encouraged early Latter-day Saints to pool their resources. Two centuries later, one of the results is an investment portfolio estimated at $100 billion.