Belief

The first neoliberals distrusted Christianity. Their heirs have tried to revise it.

Exploring the intersection of family history with the rise of the religious right.

Po'pay, a Tewa religious leader, led the Pueblo Revolt, the most successful Indigenous rebellion in what’s now the United States.

A new film depicts part of the long history of Shaker worship.

On the racist errors that caused a significantly Black parish in Colorado to lose a hallmark of African-American liturgy.

Religious liberty owes much to Jefferson and Madison, but the "impregnable wall" doesn't do justice to the founders vision.

A discussion with Father Stephen M. Koeth about religion and suburbanization.

A history of Catholic immigration and activity in colonial North America.

The settlers who arrived in Plymouth were not escaping religious persecution. They left on the Mayflower to establish a theocracy in the Americas.

A classic book on UFO believers and their “cognitive dissonance” after aliens failed to land is called into question.

In colonial America, government “thanksgivings” blurred faith and politics. For Quakers, rejecting them was an act of religious conviction.

A window into the ways that religious people have participated in and shaped the alternative food movement.

In the early 1980s Tucson, activists and religious leaders joined forces to protect refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border, galvanizing the Sanctuary Movement.

The zealot who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials initially voiced restraint—what changed?

On the exit ramps Evangelicals ignored.

A history of Hawai‘i’s aikāne relationships between men and how they were reshaped and suppressed after the arrival and moral influence of Western missionaries.

A Quaker abolitionist hoped to convince the Virginian Founders to end slavery by appealing to their sense of manhood. They were not persuaded.

The retirement of United Mine Workers of America’s longtime president is a reminder that labor and religion have always been entangled in coal country.

Joseph Smith, religious innovator.

How pastors’ wives use power and submission.

The Christian-right luminary built his long career on cruelty and submission.

In Ozzy Osbourne's hands, Satan gave a middle finger to hypocrisy and fearmongering.

Historian Thomas A. Tweed proposes an environmental approach to the study of American religion.

The neglected Catholic overtones of an American classic.

The cowboy apocalypse and American gun fandom.

Establishing freedom of religion was a hard-fought success of the American Founding. Today we are still fighting.

The disgraced televangelist built his career on an undeniable talent. His downfall contributed to a major shift in how Americans viewed religious leaders.

Jimmy Swaggart utilized his charisma to overcome not one, but two sex scandals.

How the myth says more about Americans’ values and church–state debates than about historical fact.

If we imagine religion as a technology, argues Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith, we can better see the cause of its decline: obsolescence.