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Articles on Christianity

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Many religious graduate students in science say they keep quiet about that aspect of their identity. Sean Anthony Eddy/E+ via Getty Images

The challenges of being a religious scientist

Stereotypes about religion vs. science are overblown – but those assumptions can create challenges for religious grad students, a sociologist finds.
Jesus images on social media promise divine rewards for today’s fast-paced age. TikTok

A TikTok Jesus promises divine blessings and many worldly comforts

A scholar of American religion explains how a new phenomenon of Jesus images on TikTok is tapping into the prosperity gospel, a Christian belief that God will reward faith with this-worldly comforts.
This 15th-century medical manuscript shows different colors of urine alongside the ailments they signify. Cambridge University Library

Modern medicine has its scientific roots in the Middle Ages − how the logic of vulture brain remedies and bloodletting lives on today

Your doctor’s MD emerged from the Dark Ages, where practicing rational “human medicine” was seen as an expression of faith and maintaining one’s health a religious duty.
Delegates attend the opening of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Oct. 4, 2023, at the Vatican. Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images

Hot-button topics may get public attention at the Vatican synod, but a more fundamental issue for the Catholic Church is at the heart of debate

Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality is attempting to move the church toward a more dialogue-based model of authority, a scholar of Catholicism explains.
‘The Shepherd of the Hills’ has been running for 63 years and is the most performed outdoor drama in the U.S. Terra Fondriest/The Washington Post via Getty Images

What live theater can learn from Branson, Missouri

Comedians like Stephen Colbert might mock the entertainment mecca, but live theater is in too much of a crisis to dismiss the town’s formula of spectacle meets story.
Each year, services on St. Francis’ feast day draw humans and animals alike to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Birds, worms, rabbits: Francis of Assisi was said to have loved them all – but today’s pet blessings on his feast day might have seemed strange to the 13th century saint

Medieval monastics were often discouraged from owning companion animals, which were viewed as a distraction, a religion scholar explains.
A relief depicting a row of captives, carved into the Sun Temple at Abu Simbel in Egypt. Richard Maschmeyer/ Design Pics via Getty Images

Dismantling the myth that ancient slavery ‘wasn’t that bad’

There was no one type of slavery in ‘biblical’ or ‘ancient’ societies, given how varied they were. But much of what historians know about slavery during those eras is horrific.
The Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y., where on July 19 and 20, 1848, the first women’s rights conventions in the U.S. were held. Epics/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

175 years ago, the Seneca Falls Convention kicked off the fight for women’s suffrage – an iconic moment deeply shaped by Quaker beliefs on gender and equality

Most of the convention’s core organizers were Quakers. The religious movement’s beliefs about men and women’s equality before God has shaped members’ activism for centuries.

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