Essays

In 2004 and 2008, South African president Jacob Zuma notoriously declared that his party, the African National Congress, will “rule until Jesus comes back.” The recent national election results favor his...

One year into Francis’s papacy, many observers—both inside and outside the Catholic community—are still holding their breath. He has certainly made a good first impression.

A brief glance back at the history of Ukraine reveals a religiously diverse assortment of leaders.

Walking down Bowne Street in Flushing, Queens, you may see a most interesting sign. “Bowne House; Built in 1661," it reads, "A National Shrine to Religious Freedom.” Flushing is known...

The last decade has witnessed a veritable scholarly obsession with the subject of political theology: a multifaceted concept with varying meanings ranging from theocracy studies to the origins of contemporary...

Religious freedom has become an international concept: As the scope of the recently concluded Politics of Religious Freedom project attests to, the grammar of religious freedom has spread far and...

Prayer may be an act of gratitude after the fact. It may be a weapon, a request to heal the body or boost the brain, an epistemic cry, a meditation,...

It is a distinct honor when someone as lettered as Leon Wieseltier takes one on in public, as he does in “Dumbing Religion Down in the New York Times,” published...

The complex and ever-changing relationship between the Chinese state and the nation’s religions stretches back thousands of years. While the state never struggled with religious leaders for power, it governed...

The protests in Turkey started on May 27 with a modest resistance movement against the destruction of Istanbul’s Gezi Park and the planned construction, in its place, of a replica...

Taksim Meydanı. Partition Square. Although it has taken on potent new resonances in recent days, the name of Istanbul’s throbbing central plaza commemorates a now-forgotten history, the function of the site...

Four guided missiles packed with explosive material hurtled into the morning sky. Though the day was brilliant blue and cloudless, no one saw them coming. They were aimed at a...