Warrior-monks crusaded for Christianity throughout medieval Europe. Adding to the ongoing mystery surrounding the military order is their enigmatic seal.
The Salford Cinema was first built as a church then converted into a cinema before being turned back into a church.
Simon Dack/Alamy
Rihanna’s cover for the Spring 2024 edition has come under fire for being sacrilegious and distasteful – but it’s devilishly divine at exposing the misogyny and hypocrisy of organised religion
A group of witches offering wax effigies to the Devil in a 17th-century woodcut.
Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy
The United Methodist Church will hold its General Conference, delayed several years by the pandemic, in April 2024. The meeting comes amid a dramatic divide over LGBTQ+ rights.
Each Easter we see many images of Jesus on the cross – inevitably wearing a loincloth. But the historical evidence shows victims of crucifixion were fully naked to maximise shame as well as pain.
(L-R) The Rockox Triptych by Rubens (1613–1615), Christ as the Man of Sorrows by Maerten Jacobsz van Heemskerck and The Last Judgement by Michelangelo (1541).
Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp/Sistine Chapel
The ancient tenebrae tradition brings churchgoers face to face with the darkest moments of the Christian story.
Bestsellers ‘The Shack’ and the ‘Left Behind’ series are both Christian evangelical novels, but reveal different preoccupations.
(Windblown Media/Tyndale House Publishers)
The ‘Left Behind’ series emphasizes themes of authority, loyalty and sanctity, but they are preferences for order, not moral matters.
Christian Palestinian tattoo artist Walid Ayash draws a tattoo on the arm of a Coptic Egyptian pilgrim on April 28, 2016, at his studio in Bethlehem.
Thomas Coex /AFP via Getty Images
The language the UK government uses on faith-related subjects matters. It models – for everyone living in the UK – how to best engage with diverse manifestations of belief.
Two scholars who study death rituals explain that the corpse is considered spiritually polluting in many religious traditions, while the Moon holds a sacred place.
Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity