Departments

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religious history

  • SOURCE: Harvard Magazine
    12/16/2020

    The American Exception: How Faith Shapes Economic and Social Policy

    by Benjamin M. Friedman

    Historian Benjamin Friedman's new book examines the importance of changing religious ideas in American Protestantism as influences on the development of social and economic policy. Part of the concluding chapter is excerpted here. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    9/28/2020

    The Story Behind Amy Coney Barrett’s Little-Known Christian Group People Of Praise

    Massimo Faggioli, a church historian and theologian at Villanova University, a Catholic school, studies these lay-led movements — also called “renewal” groups — that began popping up since Vatican II. While some are a source of spiritual energy, they may also reflect militance and untransparent leadership. 

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    6/29/2020

    In Search of King David’s Lost Empire

    The evidence of David’s life is sparse. Was he an emperor? A local king? Or, as Biblical archaeologist Israel Finkelstein claims, a Bedouin sheikh?

  • SOURCE: The Dialog
    2/2/20

    Black History Month has a little known Catholic history as well

    by Shannen Dee Williams

    In 1949, famed Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes celebrated Negro History Week (the precursor to Black History Month) with members of the Oblate Sisters of Providence and their students at the all black and Catholic St. Alphonsus School.

  • SOURCE: The Hollywood Progressive
    12/28/19

    Why Netflix’s The Two Popes Is Important

    by Walter G. Moss

    At the core of the film are the differences between Benedict and Francis, especially before Benedict retired and Francis took his place.

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    12/3/2019

    Faith made Harriet Tubman fearless as she rescued slaves

    by Robert Gudmestad

    Harriet Tubman worked as a slave, spy and eventually as an abolitionist. What I find most fascinating, as a historian of American slavery, is how belief in God helped Tubman remain fearless, even when she came face to face with many challenges.

  • 12/1/2019

    How did November become the Mizrahi Heritage Month? And what’s Mizrahi anyhow?

    by Lior Sternfeld and Arie M. Dubnov

    The Mizrahi heritage month is not a local, grassroots initiative that emerged in response to experiences of discrimination or marginalization. Instead, it is a transatlantic importation of recent attempts by the Israeli government to commemorate the forced expulsion of Jews from the Arab and Muslim world in the wake of the establishment of Israel.