Sharing eyewitness accounts of atrocities is a powerful way of gathering international sympathy, and it has a long history.
A satire on factions within the Church of England featuring Henry Sacheverell, on the right.
The Trustees of the British Museum
This 18th-century Tory preacher and Oxford don preached an incendiary political sermon in 1709 and became England’s first celebrity.
A group of witches offering wax effigies to the Devil in a 17th-century woodcut.
Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy
Only five witches were executed in Wales, while thousands were sentenced to death in Scotland and England.
The crucifixion of Christ inside Chester Cathedral.
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The ancient tenebrae tradition brings churchgoers face to face with the darkest moments of the Christian story.
Charlton Heston as Moses in the biblical epic The Ten Commandments.
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The Bible remains the most important collection of books in Western civilisation. Regardless of our religious beliefs, it has shaped all of us. But who wrote it? The answer is complicated.
In the cult TV series ‘Supernatural,’ the car driven by the two protagonists is a star in its own right.
Natasha Mikles
Since 2019, fans of the TV series ‘Supernatural’ have flocked to Austin, where their encounters with 1967 Impalas customized to mimic the one used in the show arouse elation, astonishment and tears.
Three women executed as witches in Derneburg Germany in October 1555.
Everett Collection
Witchcraft is an enduring source of fascination but also prone to popular misconceptions.
A high priest holds a cross during the celebrations of the Ethiopian Orthodox holiday of Meskel in Addis Ababa in September 2023.
Amanuel Sileshi/AFP via Getty Images
News coverage of Ethiopia’s ethnic conflicts has overshadowed the growing tensions and polarisation between religious communities.
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.
Demonstrators stand outside the Supreme Court in 2014.
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Views on abortion differ not only among major religious traditions, but within each one.
Protestant Christians have been debating – and more often than not, supporting – modern contraceptives since they first appeared.
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Conservative Christians have cheered restrictions on some birth control. But many decades ago, Christian leaders’ support helped contraceptives become acceptable in the first place.
The Reformation’s leading figures had diverse views, and some might have recognized themselves in “spiritual but not religious” people today.
Rijksmuseum
So-called Spiritualists split off from Martin Luther’s Reformation 500 years ago, but some of their ideas carry on.
Christian nationalists are pushing for ‘In God We Trust’ to be omnipresent.
Joe Longobardi Photography via Getty Images
‘In God We Trust’ became the national motto of the US on July 30, 1956. Since then, it has been used to forward a conservative Christian agenda.
Joe Biden at McKinley Elementary School in Des Moines, Iowa.
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Joe Biden has taken control of the Democratic nomination with a string of big primary wins. The ongoing coronavirus epidemic is in part responsible, but the role of religion should not be overlooked.
Pope Francis giving a boy his first communion at the Church of the Sacred Hearth in Rakovsky, Bulgaria, May 2019.
EPA-EFE/Maurizio Brambatti
This centuries-old argument over doctrine needs to change and we have a pope who wants that to happen.
Trees that survived a forest fire stand amid smoldering smoke in the Vila Nova Samuel region of Brazil, Aug. 25, 2019.
AP Photo/Eraldo Peres
Brazilian evangelicals are politically conservative, but they still believe in climate change. Turning them into climate activists, however, will be a challenge for the environmentalist movement.
Christian fundamentalists have become a politically powerful group since the movement’s foundation in 1919.
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Protestant fundamentalism was officially born in the United States in 1919, fueling a culture war that continues today.
The idea that fat is lazy and thin is virtuous has its roots in Christianity and is perpetuated by industry and media today.
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Moralistic talk about food, exercise and bodies has its roots in Christianity and is perpetuated by corporations. Collectively, we can resist.
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, detailing the grim fate of Protestant clerics Latimer and Ridley, is one clue as to why Baldwin hesitated before publishing his irreverent book.
Wikimedia Commons
In the mid-16th century, William Baldwin wrote a satire on Catholicism but waited a decade before publishing it. Sensible man.
Brazil’s jailhouse preachers may not explicitly condone violence against people of other faiths, but they’ve remained largely silent as their well-armed followers wage a holy war.
Reuters/Ricardo Moraes
As hard-line Pentecostalism spreads across Brazil, some drug traffickers in gang-controlled areas of Rio de Janeiro are using religion as an excuse to attack nonbelievers.