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Pilgrims going to church armed with guns.

God and Guns

Patrick Blanchfield tracks the long-standing entanglement of guns and religion in the United States. Part 1 of 2.
by Patrick Blanchfield via The Revealer on September 25, 2015
Frederic Remington painting of cowboys galloping through the desert, firing guns over their shoulders at their pursuers.

“Lord, Teach My Hands To War, My Fingers To Fight”

The cowboy apocalypse and American gun fandom.
by Rachel Wagner via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on July 15, 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
Soldiers honoring Robert Imbrie's casket in Washington, D.C. on September 29, 1924.

A Century Ago, a Mob Brutally Attacked an American Diplomat in Persia

The July 1924 killing of Robert Imbrie fueled the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty and set the stage for a CIA-backed 1953 coup and the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.
by Francine Uenuma via Smithsonian on September 5, 2024
A large KKK Rally with burning crosses in the background.

100 Years Ago, the KKK Planted Bombs at a US University – Part of Their Crusade Against Catholics

Most of the Klan’s victims were African American, but many other groups have been targeted during the hate group’s century and a half of history.
by William Trollinger via The Conversation on December 15, 2023
The stairs leading to the segregated section of a cinema in Belzoni, Mississippi, in 1939.

The Writers Who Went Undercover to Show America Its Ugly Side

In the 1940s, a series of books tried to use the conventions of detective fiction to expose the degree of prejudice in postwar America.
by Samuel G. Freedman via The Atlantic on July 10, 2023
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Extremism in America: A Surge in Violence

During the 2010s, violent attacks by white supremacists and other extremists increased, including at a church in Charleston, S.C. and a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
via Retro Report on May 10, 2022
Lithograph of an armed mob attacking another group in the street.

The Philadelphia Bible Riots

The debate regarding which Bible kids should read in school was about whether Catholic immigrants should have the full rights of American citizenship.
by John Bicknell via Law & Liberty on October 13, 2021
Ahsanullah "Bobby" Khan, wearing a t-shirt that says "Deportee."

Return To Little Pakistan: Bobby Khan v. The Police

An immigrant born to working-class activism stands up to an NYPD reborn in the CIA's image.
by Spencer Ackerman via Forever Wars on September 14, 2021
A newspaper drawing of the Nat Turner Rebellion.

Looking for Nat Turner

A new creative history comes closer than ever to giving us access to Turner’s visionary life.
by Alberto Toscano via Boston Review on June 29, 2021
Walmart Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith As Lieutenant General Of The Nauvoo Legion

The Fallacy of Religious Freedom

When the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith ran for president, he wasn’t seeking further glory but a policy change in religious liberty.
by Tamarra Kemsley via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 11, 2021

The ‘Revolution of ’89’ Did Not Initiate a New Era of History

Though significant, the end of the Cold War was not nearly as significant a turning point as President George H.W. Bush suggested it would be in 1990.
by Andrew J. Bacevich via The Nation on January 13, 2020
Colonial men holding a copy of the 1649 Maryland Toleration Act.

Five Ways We Misunderstand American Religious History

From religious liberty to religious violence, it helps to get our facts straight.
by Thomas S. Kidd via Christianity Today on November 21, 2019
Richard Holbrooke and two images of people carrying weapons of war.

The End of the American Century

What the life of Richard Holbrooke tells us about the decay of Pax Americana.
by George Packer via The Atlantic on April 10, 2019

When the U.S. Government Tried to Fight Communism With Buddhism

Recent violence in Myanmar reminds us that religion has long been central to Southeast Asian politics.
by Joe Freeman via Politico Magazine on September 10, 2017
The Mount Carmel Center in Waco, Texas engulfed in flames
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How Religious Literacy Might Have Changed the Waco Tragedy

Religious scholars argue that the Waco raid was not justified and that with more understanding of theology, the loss of life could have been avoided.
by Peter Feuerherd, Jean E. Rosenfield, Mary Zeiss Stange, Ivan Strenski via JSTOR Daily on April 19, 2017

Self-Righteous Devils: What Ozark Vigilantes of the 1880s Reveal About Modern America

The story of the Bald Knobbers is a terrifying parable about what happens when government fails and violence reigns.
by Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly on February 24, 2017
U.S. President Donald Trump looks at an executive order in the Oval Office.

Are Trump's Actions 'Unprecedented'? Here's What Seven Historians Say

Trump's second administration is 'unprecedented' to some, but historians find parallels in ancient Rome, Nazi Germany, and Latin American dictatorship.
by Miles Klee via Rolling Stone on February 22, 2025
‘Two girls at Bamberg led to the stake, 1550’; etching by Jan Luyken from the 1685 edition of Thieleman van Braght’s The Bloody Theater, or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians.

Dispirited Away

The rise and fall of an evangelical church, founded with progressive intentions and undone by dissension and bad faith.
by Caroline Fraser via New York Review of Books on December 26, 2024
New York City's Twin Towers.

New 9/11 Evidence Points to Deep Saudi Complicity

Two decades of U.S. policy appear to be rooted in a mistaken understanding of what happened that day.
by Daniel Benjamin, Steven Simon via The Atlantic on May 20, 2024
Cast of the opera "Omar" on stage, with Arabic script on the stage backdrop.

‘Tell Your Story, Omar’

A new, Pulitzer Prize–winning opera adapts the memoir of Omar ibn Said, an African Muslim who spent much of his life enslaved in North Carolina.
by Edward Ball via New York Review of Books on May 4, 2023
The Branch Davidians compound in Waco, Texas, consumed by flames.

What Really Happened at Waco

Thirty years later, an avoidable tragedy has spawned a politically ascendant mythology.
by Rachel Monroe via The New Yorker on April 12, 2023
Puritans watching a May Day celebration.

The Pilgrims' Attack on a May Day Celebration Was a Dress Rehearsal for Removing Native Americans

The Puritans had little tolerance for those who didn't conform to their vision of the world.
by Peter C. Mancall via The Conversation on April 29, 2021
Malcolm X

A Malcolm For Our Times

"The Dead are Arising" may be the best Malcolm X biography yet. But its author seems unsure of how to write about a religion outside the American mainstream.
by Joseph Stuart via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on April 13, 2021
Drawing of pilgrims walking in a line in the snow.

Why the Puritans Cracked Down on Celebrating Christmas

It was less about their asceticism and more about rejecting the world they had fled.
by Peter C. Mancall via The Conversation on December 17, 2020

The Surprising Origins of the Phrase 'You Guys'

When did people start using the phrase to refer to a group of two or more?
by Allan Metcalf via TIME on September 30, 2019
'Hanging of the San Patricios following the Battle of Chapultepec' by Samuel E. Chamberlain

During the Mexican-American War Irish-Americans Fought for Mexico in the 'Saint Patrick's Battalion'

Anti-Catholic sentiment in the States gave men like John Riley little reason to continue to pay allegiance to the stars and stripes.
by Francine Uenuma via Smithsonian on March 15, 2019
Four Ku Klux Klan members wearing robes and hoods.

The Ku Klux Klan and America’s First "Fake News" Crisis

When the white-supremacist group terrorized the South during Reconstruction, many people denied that it even existed.
by Matt Ford via The New Republic on October 30, 2018
family Thanksgiving meal

The Dark and Divisive History of America’s Thanksgiving Hymn

How a beloved song with origins in 16th-century Europe captures both a holiday's spirit of unity and a country's legacy of exclusion.
by Neil J. Young via The Atlantic on November 23, 2017
Photo of a newspaper referring to Jewish riots in the New York Times

The Festive Meal

There once was a time when Yom Kippur was a time to eat, drink, and be merry.
by Eddy Portnoy via Tablet on September 24, 2009

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