‘Christ of the New Jerusalem’ − created in 1915 for the Uranienborg Church, Oslo, by Emanuel Vigeland.
Michel M. Raguin
Images of Christ often represented prevailing cultural beliefs, allowing onlookers to connect in a deep and meaningful way.
Fewer people are affiliated with religion in the United States, but that hardly means that they’re all atheists.
Anthony Bradshaw/Photographer's Choice RF via Getty Images
Social factors, from wealth to politics, may shape whether people who do not believe in God identify as an atheist.
Climate change is causing extreme weather, prolonged droughts and more bushfires.
Andrew Merry/Moment via Getty Images
Events that the media describe as ‘apocalyptic’ reflect changing anxieties about the future.
Stained glass designed by Geoffrey Webb depicts Lewis Carroll’s characters in All Saints Church in Daresbury, Cheshire, England.
Peter I. Vardy/Wikimedia Commons
The Book of Job and ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ both make fun of preachy know-it-alls and resist conventions of their genres.
The Maya used mirrors as channels for supernatural communication. In this image, a supernatural creature speaks into a cracked, black mirror.
K2929 from the Justin Kerr Maya archive, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C.
Broken mirrors can be associated with bad luck, but for the ancient Maya, a cracked mirror was often desirable.
A relief showing a Gallus making sacrifices to the goddess Cybele and Attis.
Saiko via Wikimedia Commons
In ancient Rome, male followers of the goddess Cybele, known as Galli, some of whom surgically removed their testicles, were often considered feminine.
The Passover Seder – like this one in Azerbaijan – commemorates the story of the Israelites’ escape from slavery, and the start of their long sojourn in the desert.
Reza/Getty Images
The Passover Seder commemorates the escape from slavery in Egypt. But then came the 40-year wandering in the desert – a story that resonates with much of Jewish history.
Members of the Church of England’s Synod, at Church House in central London, on Feb. 9, 2023.
James Manning/PA Images via Getty Images
With over 80 million believers in 160 countries, the Anglican Communion has been grappling with LGBTQ+ issues since the 1970s.
Haggadah shel Pesah, translated by Sonia Gronemann and illustrated by Otto Geismar. Made in Berlin, 1927.
Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica
A scholar highlights some of the most interesting versions of the Passover text and how they’ve met communities’ changing needs around the world.
Al-Ghazali’s book ‘Alchemy of Happiness,’ held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Al-Ghazali - Bibliothèque nationale de France via Wikimedia Commons
In religious traditions, patience is more than waiting, or even more than enduring a hardship. But what does patience look like? And when should we not exercise patience?
A Muslim protester shouts at security personnel on the streets of Shaheen Bagh, a neighborhood in Delhi, in 2020.
Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images
Thanks to a strong oral Urdu literary tradition in South Asia, poems from the past linger in the popular imagination.
Richard II became king of England when he was 10 and was deposed at 32.
British Library/Wikimedia Commons
Medieval Europeans thought about politics in terms of leadership and often criticized rulers for ‘tyranny’ − both in government and in the church.
A man walks past posters of the film ‘PM Narendra Modi,’ a biopic on the Indian prime minister, during its launch in Mumbai, India, in 2019.
AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool
Ahead of elections in India, a series of films that promote the ruling party’s right-wing ideology are seeking to influence voters. An art historian explains how the trend started.
A Khalsa Day parade in Toronto, a celebration of Baisakhi held in April 2015.
Colin McConnell/Toronto Star via Getty Images
The spirit of Baisakhi for Sikhs is reminiscent of the ideals of their gurus, who encouraged them to work toward building a just society.
Debates over LGBTQ+ issues have divided Methodist congregations for years leading up to the current schism.
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File
The United Methodist Church will hold its General Conference, delayed several years by the pandemic, in April 2024. The meeting comes amid a dramatic divide over LGBTQ+ rights.
A stained-glass window that was part of a church shows a dark-skinned Jesus, which was unusual at the time.
Michel M. Raguin
A stained-glass window, which shows Jesus as a Black man for the first time, tells a story not only of race but of gender, class and ethnicity.
A total solar eclipse is seen above the Bald Knob Cross of Peace on Aug. 21, 2017, in Alto Pass, Illinois.
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
A scholar of early Christian literature writes that religious theories around celestial events are part of a larger human pattern to find meaning. And they go back thousands of years.
El Castillo pyramid illuminated at night under a starry sky in Chichen Itza, Mexico, one of the largest Maya cities.
Matteo Colombo/DigitalVision via Getty Images
The skies and the gods were inseparable in Maya culture. Astronomers kept careful track of events like eclipses in order to perform the renewal ceremonies to continue the world’s cycles of rebirth.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks after being released from prison for leading a boycott.
Donald Uhrbrock/The Chronicle Collection via Getty Images
Optimism can rely on a sense of luck, while hope is action-oriented − and often aimed at helping other people.
Tzotzil women line up for Holy Communion during a Catholic Mass in Chiapas state, Mexico, in 2016.
AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo
Indigenous Catholics have long argued they should be able to embrace both sides of that identity.