Belief

The debate among American Christians over globalism and nationalism is nothing new — rather, it has been going on for decades.

Many Southern Baptists in the 1970s supported abortion rights and gender equality. What happened?

In the minds of some Southern Protestants, slavery had been divinely sanctioned.

To convert was not just a matter of belief, but also a claim to power.

The history of evangelicalism in America is shot through with fear—but it also contains an alternative.

Rock music owes much of its claim to coolness to the Christian faith.

But they didn’t always oppose ripping kids from their parents.

If white evangelicals are united by anything, it isn't theology.

Jeff Sessions used it to justify his policy of family separation, but he’s not the first to invoke the biblical passage.

The Mormon church is still grappling with a racial past.

Never mind Fox. Trump’s most reliable media mouthpiece is now Christian TV.

Fiery, energetic and preached by charismatic frontmen, Pentecostal Christianity had a big influence on rock and roll in its formative years.

How solid is the wall between church and state?

Vietnam created a rupture in the Protestant church.

How American expansion reshaped the religious worlds of both settlers and Native people.

Sunday school was a major part of nineteenth century reformers’ efforts to improve children’s lives and morals.

A digital archive of first-person accounts from the turn of the 19th century chronicling an unusual display of religious ecstasy.

Elder Michaux, a popular black evangelist, aided the bureau's campaign to destroy King's reputation.

Hint: the Puritans were involved.

Histories of the Jews reveal a lot about the times in which they were written.

A roundup of historians' commentary about Billy Graham in the wake of his death.

America's sense of religious nationalism was forged in the same fires that ignited the profoundly secular French Revolution.

Before Americans turned to Buddhism for life hacks, they treated it like a dangerous cult.

How evangelicals became an anxious minority seeking political protection from a not traditionally religious president.

How Hollywood portrays religious prayer.

The long historical roots and continuing relevance of the disgraced preacher's story.

He became known as an apolitical preacher. But Graham started out as an ardent conservative.

Racial tensions are rising, the earth is warming, and evangelicals are doing little to help. That may be Graham’s most significant legacy.

Recognizing that Americans are not the future of his religion, the late preacher embraced a global world.

Divisions in society and religion that still exist today resulted from the "Great Awakenings" of the 18th Century.