Essays

In 2017, I argued that the concepts of civil and political religions help explain contemporary sociopolitical developments in Russia and the United States.

One of the largest religious schisms in American history has occurred in the last few years. Around one quarter of the 30,000 congregations in the United Methodist Church (UMC), the second-largest Protestant...

Ten years ago, I examined the entanglement of religion and politics in South Africa ahead of the 2014 national election. Today, the political landscape has shifted, yet many struggles persist....

Ruth Braunstein revisits her 2019 essay on efforts to reframe the budget as a moral concern. Her work sheds light on an active, if fragmented, network of faith leaders who...

Comparative approaches, especially those couched as “East/West” philosophy, are beset with simplification, projections, and biases, often resulting in narrowness and caricature. It is common to chase dead ends. To avoid...

Undoubtedly, transnational pulls and uneven relations of power shape political realities throughout the Americas. However, not all political and cultural phenomena in the region reflect realities in the United States.

Who gets to say what about religion? When does free speech verge into something more insidious—insult, offense, even blasphemy? These questions remain highly contested across much of the contemporary world....

Survey data indicates a growing generational split among evangelicals, with the younger generation supporting a range of left-leaning policies that their parents and grandparents vehemently opposed. These young evangelicals are...

In 2004, four US college students were arrested for stealing a book. A rare first edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America was stored in special collections at Transylvania...

Realizing my pandemic amnesia is yet another confirmation of the interpretive power of positionality and the never-ending work of learning about the limits of one’s own knowledge as a scholar.

"Much has changed since this essay was published in 2008—much scary and depressing, but some—thank goodness—hopeful." In this update, Roger S. Gottlieb reflects on what has changed since this essay...

I argue that shifting assumptions about “authentic Islam” have catalyzed the scandalization of mystical music in Pakistan. The emergence of Arabization, with its emphasis on rediscovering true Islam in Arab...