Belief

Why debunking mesmerism only made it stronger.

Although the British settlers imported Africans from the first as slaves, the earliest Virginians had yet to establish many basic rules regarding slavery.

The Oneida Community's Christian form of collectivism was transported to California in the 1880s, when the original Oneida Community fell apart.

A new book recovers the many ways Protestant Americans, especially women, communicated with the dead from the 17th century to the rise of séance Spiritualism.

Zoar's citizens left religious persecution in Germany and created a utopian community on the Erie Canal.

Keeping the faith in a community facing extinction.

From religious liberty to religious violence, it helps to get our facts straight.

How a term that sounds inclusive is used to promote exclusion.

I first met him 21 years ago, and now our relationship is the subject of a new movie. He’s never been more revered—or more misunderstood.

The story of Kate and Margaret Fox, the small-town girls who triggered the 19th century movement known as Spiritualism.

America has a history of dealing with witches - and it has culminated in a modern movement of politically active ones.

How World Vision and Compassion International sparked an Oregon family to raise eight mixed-race children.

Christian fundamentalists have become a politically powerful group since the movement’s foundation in 1919.

Did the Census Bureau's practice of collecting data on religious bodies violate the separation of church and state?

“Not religious” has become a specific American identity—one that distinguishes secular, liberal whites from the conservative, evangelical right.

In 1790, as the First Amendment was being ratified, George Washington made a promise to American Jews.

A term that once described a vital tradition within the Christian faith now means something else entirely.

When we think of Jonathan Edwards, most probably think first of him as a theologian or preacher. But a new book also shows him as a mentor.

Christian slavery and white supremacy.

What explains the apparently sudden spike in intergalactic traffic after WWII? If Cold War anxieties are to blame, why have sightings persisted?

Between 1870 and 1960, Christianity declined dramatically across much of Europe. Not in America. One historian explains why.

Secular modernity requires the weeding out of all the baloney. Yet it’s not clear that we are any less credulous than before.

A new take on the origins of our ideas about religious liberty.

Why some antebellum reformers thought convents were incompatible with "true womanhood."

Born into slavery, this preacher and Underground Railroad conductor served as the inspiration for a history-making book.

How mapping Roman Catholic dioceses illustrates key concepts of religious ecologies at a continental scale.

Muslims came to America more than a century before Protestants, and in great numbers. How was their history forgotten?

One emphasized the freedom to think; the other, in effect, the freedom to pray.

From prehistoric caves, through Aztecs, Mormons, Beat poets, Jean-Paul Sartre and a British MP.

A new book argues that, politically, messianic movements were often light-years ahead of their time. But at what cost?