The Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, ahead of the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics.
Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
The use of sport as an evangelical tool is not new for the Catholic Church. Pope Pius X welcomed athletes in 1905 for the first international gymnastics competition in the Vatican gardens.
A healer conducts an ayahuasca drinking ceremony in Avie village, in Ecuador, on Jan.14, 2023.
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty images
The psychotropic allure of the ayahuasca plant for hundreds of thousands of non-Indigenous consciousness seekers is raising many concerns.
Pope Francis meets with comedians at the Apostolic Palace on June 14, 2024, in Vatican City.
Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Image
Catholic theologians and monastics have always encouraged humor, emphasizing its power to heal and bring cultures together.
A stamp printed with a Thomas Jefferson quotation in 1960.
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More than 2,000 letters between the two founders are available online. Many attest to their deep commitment to religious freedom.
Edmonton Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard and center Connor McDavid during a game against the Dallas Stars on May 25, 2024.
AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez
The Edmonton Oilers are more than a hockey team. In some ways, they symbolize devotion to a way of life − and one of Canada’s major industries.
An “E-Group” construction at the ancient Maya site of Caracol, in present-day Belize.
Gerardo Aldana
Structures aligned with solar events served various purposes: science, farming, religion and even politics.
Sacred site of the Wixárika people in Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
Jmc.cantero/Wikimedia
A historian of astronomy writes about the role of astronomical events in Indigenous cultures − and also the exploitation of their sacred traditions in present times.
Messengers raise their ballots in support of a motion during the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting on June 11, 2024, in Indianapolis.
AP Photo/Doug McSchooler
A scholar who studies Southern Baptists explains why the denomination’s ultraconservative beliefs about women remain the same.
All packed for a day of reading, writing, arithmetic – and religion?
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The Supreme Court has twice weighed in on ‘release time’ policies, and many states allow districts to implement them.
Civil rights activist James M. Lawson Jr. speaks in Murfreesboro, Tenn., in 2015.
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File
Lawson learned in India how to resist racism and subsequently trained his students on the systematic use of nonviolence to fight injustice.
Students prepare for their bar and bat mitzvahs at a camp for Jewish children of color in California.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Most ideas about Jewish culture in the United States come from Ashkenazi traditions, but there’s a vast landscape of Jewish cultures around the world – and represented in the US.
The anniversary of the adoption of the U.S. flag is celebrated each year on June 14.
tiaramaio/RooM via Getty images
On Flag Day, a historian of religions in America explains how the Pledge of Allegiance, which honors the American flag, is part of American civil religion.
The Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C.
The image of a kneeling person in chains was first used in a seal commissioned by the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, established by English Quakers in 1787.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is greeted by supporters as he arrives at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in New Delhi on June 4, 2024.
AP Photo/Manish Swarup
The ruling BJP failed to see that those who had not benefited from the country’s rapid economic growth were deeply unhappy.
Controversy over displays of the Ten Commandments on government property is nothing new, but only one case about schools has reached the Supreme Court.
AP Photo/Dave Martin
The Supreme Court’s approach toward religion in schools has been shifting, creating uncertainty about legislation such as Louisiana’s.
The 2024 Paris Olympics will officially start on July 26.
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Laïcité, which historically upheld individual freedom, denies minority rights today, as seen in the ban on French athletes wearing hijabs at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
A chuppah is used in many Jewish weddings, but how it’s decorated can weave other cultures into the ceremony, too.
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A Catholic friar under the chuppah? A bride in henna and a groom in a kippah? Many Jewish interfaith couples find ways to honor both of their faiths.
Dariusz Matecki, a conservative lawmaker in the Polish Parliament, displays a poster showing a fetus during a vote on abortion on April 12, 2024.
AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski
Many Poles were outraged by abortion restrictions put in place during the previous government. That doesn’t mean they agree on the path forward.
A mourning ceremony for President Ebrahim Raisi at Vali-e-Asr Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, on May 20, 2024.
AP Photo/Vahid Salemi
The late President Ebrahim Raisi was supposedly being groomed to succeed an aging Ali Khamenei. The succession is a complex process, more dependent on politics than religion.
The Crosby-Schoyen Codex at Christie’s auction house in Paris. The manuscript goes up for auction in London on June 11, 2024.
Julien De Rosa/AFP via Getty Images
A collection of manuscripts from ancient Egypt reveals the variety of early Christian scriptures before the consolidation of the Bible.