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
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
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.
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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
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
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.
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