A condolence message and candles for the victims of a stampede during a Jewish ultra-Orthodox mass pilgrimage to Mount Meron, projected on a wall of Jerusalem’s Old City.
Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images
The Lag BaOmer pilgrimage, in which 45 people died recently, takes place each year to what is believed to be the gravesite of the second-century Talmudic sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.
Has COVID-19 strengthened people’s faith?
Karen Minasyan/AFP via Getty Images
As cremation grounds struggle to keep up with the long line of people dying from COVID-19, age-old customs are being pushed aside.
An image from a police body camera shows bystanders including Darnella Frazier, third from right, filming a Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee on George Floyd’s neck.
Minneapolis Police Department via AP, File
A game theory expert explains why a witness to a troubling situation who is in a group may feel a lesser sense of personal responsibility than a single individual.
The Puritans saw May Day celebrations as a test from God.
Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Peter C. Mancall, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
The Puritans had little tolerance for those who didn’t conform to their vision of the world.
Some ancient theologians argued that the Israelites deserved a share of Egypt’s wealth after being enslaved for centuries.
Culture Club/Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Excommunicating a church member, like ‘canceling’ someone on social media, serves to cleanse the body politic of behavior deemed damaging, suggests a scholar of political theology.
FBI announcements in Yiddish encourage Hasidic or “ultra-Orthodox” Jews to report incidents of anti-Semitism.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A scholar of Greek literature writes why we need to turn to the past to understand the present – and the lessons that Homer’s hero, Odysseus, holds for us.
The famine in Samaria was one of many depicted in the Bible.
PHAS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Famine was a constant threat during biblical times. The authors of the Old Testament used it to explain God’s wrath, but also as a narrative device.
The dining-out experience has changed as people wear masks and are separated by plexiglass in outdoor dining.
Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The pandemic changed people’s dining-out experience, with takeout becoming more common. But since dining out became fashionable in the 18th century, how and where people go to eat has been evolving.
Members of the Sikh community in Indianapolis gather after a mass shooting in which eight people, including four Sikhs, died, in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Jon Cherry/Getty Images
Strasbourg officials are within their right to allow public funds to be used to build what may be the largest mosque in Europe. But that hasn’t stopped the backlash
Magic fascinated and troubled early Christians as much as it does some people today.
Marvel Studios
Complementarianism became central to evangelical belief in response to the feminist movement of the 1970s when many Christians came to champion women’s equality.
Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh have bolstered the conservative wing of the Supreme Court.
Jonathan Ernst/Getty Images
Conservative justices are redefining religious freedom to mean the protection of individuals or groups to practice their faith as they see fit, argues a constitutional law expert.