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Native Americans perform a burial ceremony under a rock overhang.

Religion in the Lands That Became America

Historian Thomas A. Tweed proposes an environmental approach to the study of American religion.
by Karis Ryu via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on July 22, 2025
A few people sitting down and reading the bible.

Public Schools, Religion, and Race

It was no coincidence that public school secularization and desegregation were happening, and failing, simultaneously.
by Leslie Beth Ribovich via The Revealer on September 5, 2024
Harriet Tubman.

How a Young Harriet Tubman Found Solace in Syncretic Religion

Childhood trauma led Minty Ross (Harriet Tubman) to seek divine intervention.
by Tiya Miles via Literary Hub on June 18, 2024
Demonstrators gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court holding signs with "Let us pray" and "young women for America."
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2022 Saw Conservative Gains on Education Issues. But They May Be Short-lived.

Conservatives’ veneration for the founders opens the door for a secular vision for America’s public schools.
by Adam Laats via Made By History on December 30, 2022
A city skyline at night

The City That Never Stops Worshipping

Though some have likened it to Sodom and Gomorrah, New York City has a long history of religious vibrancy.
by Heath W. Carter via Christianity Today on October 1, 2020
Group of men including clergy.

Unearthing The Surprising Religious History Of American Gay Rights Activism

Years before Stonewall, many clergy members were standing on the front lines for gay rights.
by Jaweed Kaleem via HuffPost on June 28, 2014

What American Nuns Built

Both the nation and the Church have depended on the energy and expertise of nuns. They’re vanishing. Now what?
by Ruth Graham via Boston Globe on February 24, 2013

What Besieged Universities Can Learn From the Christian Resurgence

Educators can fight back against Trump’s attacks by re-embracing “old-fashioned” disciplines and ideas.
by Molly Worthen via The New Republic on August 11, 2025
Four young women, the daughters of Sidonia Kahn, in fancy dresses and hats.

Southern Jews Have Always Debated Zionism

Conflicts over Israel’s founding encompassed religion, race, and politics.
by Shari Rabin via Zócalo Public Square on August 4, 2025
The word "god" is visible, chiseled into the wall behind a statue of Thomas Jefferson.
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Why the Founders Fought for Separation of Church and State

Establishing freedom of religion was a hard-fought success of the American Founding. Today we are still fighting.
by John A. Ragosta via Made By History on July 10, 2025
Abandoned church in Coaldale, Pennsylvania, with an American flag hanging upside down over its door.

The Decline and Fall of Christianity in America

If we imagine religion as a technology, argues Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith, we can better see the cause of its decline: obsolescence.
by Daniel N. Gullotta via The Bulwark on July 1, 2025
Enslaved people crossing a river at night.

The Power of the Dead: BaKongo Inspiration and the Chesapeake Rebellion

Sensitivity to the influence of BaKongo cosmology on Kongo Christianity can help us better understand the choices made by leaders of the rebellion.
by Ryne Beddard via Commonplace on May 6, 2025
Collage of school children, church windows, and a map of Oklahoma territory.

Oklahoma Is Asking the Supreme Court to Ignore History

The Founders had disagreements about the role of religion in America’s public schools, but there was always one line they would not cross.
by Adam Laats via The Atlantic on April 25, 2025
A drawing of human eyes behind a variety of consumer goods, including milk, shoes, and toothpaste.

The Surprising History of the Ideology of Choice

How endless options became our only option.
by Andrew Lanham via The New Republic on April 11, 2025
New Yorker magazine from November 17, 1962, open to Baldwin's essay.

On James Baldwin’s “Letter from a Region in My Mind”

The essay served as a definitive diagnosis of American race relations. Events soon gave it the force of prophecy.
by Kevin Young via The New Yorker on February 10, 2025
"I Baptize Thee," 1940 oil on burlap painting of a baptism.

How Memphis Gave Gospel the Holy Ghost

On the evening of October 7, 1952, gospel promoters booked the Spirit of Memphis for a concert in Memphis’s Mason Temple.
by Robert F. Darden via Oxford American on December 10, 2024
Image by Hans Glaser depicting a blood rain that supposedly occurred near Dinkelsbühl in Germany’s Franconia region in 1554.

Strange Gods: Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned

Rains of blood and frogs, mysterious disappearances, objects in the sky: these were the anomalies that fascinated Charles Fort in his Book of the Damned.
by Joshua Blu Buhs via The Public Domain Review on November 26, 2024
Senator J.D. Vance and Patrick Deneen at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Toward a Christian Postliberal Left

A truly Christian postliberalism would imagine and enact an alternative modernity with a different standard of progress.
by Eugene McCarraher via Commonweal on October 22, 2024

Ralph Waldo Emerson Meets His Spirit Animal

Some Americans who have lost faith in traditional institutions are finding spirituality in this Denver church—and in themselves.
by Molly Worthen via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on September 19, 2024
Black churchgoers attending a sermon.

Democrats Can’t Rely on the Black Church Anymore

The path to winning the Black vote no longer runs through the church door.
by Daniel K. Williams via The Atlantic on September 18, 2024
Martin Luther King Jr. speaking to an anti-Vietnam War rally in 1967.

The Anti-War Political Tradition: An Introduction

Anti-war politics has a rich historical tradition, one that seems to be in desperate need of revival.
by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via Foreign Exchanges on September 17, 2024
Photo of United States bill, saying "In God We Trust."

The Deep Religious Roots of American Economics

Any attempt to understand the complexities of American economic thought without considering the significant role of religious beliefs is incomplete.
by Benjamin M. Friedman via The MIT Press Reader on September 5, 2024
A homeless man eating a meal in a park.

Good Deeds Unpunished

American law should protect the right of individuals to engage in charitable acts.
by Mark David Hall, Adam J. Macleod via Law & Liberty on July 22, 2024
Harriet Tubman.

The Radical Faith of Harriet Tubman

A new book conveys in dramatic detail what America’s Moses did to help abolish slavery. Another addresses the love of God and country that helped her do so.
by Casey N. Cep via The New Yorker on June 24, 2024
A painting of Elizabeth Clare Prophet.

The Prophet Who Failed

After the apocalypse that wasn’t.
by Emily Harnett via Harper’s on May 24, 2024
Pro-Israel counterprotesters hold Israeli flags on the edges of a pro-Palestine encampment at Northeastern University in Boston, April 26, 2024.

The New Anti-Antisemitism

The response to college protests against the war on Gaza exemplifies the darkness of the Trumpocene.
by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on May 8, 2024
A billboard next to a road that reads, "Hell is real."

How 19th-Century Spiritualists ‘Canceled’ the Idea of Hell to Address Social and Political Concerns

Spiritualists believed that after shedding the body in death, the spirit would continue on a celestial journey and help those on Earth create a more just world.
by Lindsay DiCuirci via The Conversation on May 8, 2024
Séance with spirit manifestation, 1872, by John Beattie.

Immortalizing Words

Henry James, spiritualism, and the afterlife.
by Ashley C. Barnes via The Hedgehog Review on April 30, 2024
A burning candle in front of the American flag.

The Origins of Conservatism’s ‘Gnostic’ Meme

You can thank Eric Voegelin for the right’s clichéd catchall critique for the left.
by Joshua Tait via The Bulwark on April 12, 2024
Statute of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, with construction hook ready to remove it.
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History Shows the Danger of Comparing Trump to Jesus

It’s important to remember why analogies to Jesus should stay out of the political realm. The results are always ugly.
by Laura Brodie via Made By History on March 29, 2024
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